Skip to content
Swell Type Swell Type Swell Type
  • Swell Type
  • Commercial Fonts
  • Custom Fonts
  • In the Works
  • About Us
  • About Us
  • Commercial Fonts
Swell Type Swell Type Swell Type
  • Custom Fonts
  • In the Works

Nine Vintage Surf Posters

with Paradise Point

To countdown the final days of the Paradise Point introductory sale in May, I re-created nine classic surf posters using it and some swell surf pix by Swell’s own Forest Dempsey!

1

“Surf Fever”, photo & design by director John Severson in 1960.


2

“Surf Mania” from the 1960 Walt Phillips flick. I love the overlaid two-ink printing so many of these used.

3

Bruce Brown’s “Surfing Hollow Days”, 1962. The original design was printed in different color combos in different locations around the country, all of ’em wildly cool!

4

John Severson’s 1962 “The Angry Sea”. Legendary psychedelic rock poster artist Rick Griffin worked for John when he was fresh out of high school, and this has some of the Victorian design bits that would become a big part of Rick’s rock posters, so I wonder if he a hand in it…?

5

“Locked In!” From the 1964 Bud Browne movie.

6

“Water Logged” from 1963. The drawing of me is by comic book artist Moritat, sent while I was up late designing his comic Solstice in the mid-naughties.

7

“You gonna be plenty sorry if you miss this one…” Based on this fantastic “Spinning Boards” poster by Rick Griffin for Bud Browne’s 1961 movie.

There’s no way to fully capture Rick’s manic drawing energy with type, but I sure had fun trying!

8

“Surf Classics”, based on this full-color beauty for John Severson’s 1964 flick.

9

And of course the finale had to be the iconic, classic “The Endless Summer” design. Bruce Brown’s 1964 movie was also the first surf movie to be a hit in theaters… coincidence? I think not!

— John

Related

Goodland font development
A new year in the Goodland
Catching up with Silver Streak
Getting to Paradise Point

Post navigation

 Getting to Paradise PointCatching up with Silver Streak 

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Name *

In the Works

Follow along from A to Z as I explore the typefaces that rise up out of a place and come to define it. Then watch as I create a new font inspired by each place.

Recent Posts

  • A new year in the Goodland
  • Catching up with Silver Streak
  • Nine vintage surf posters with Paradise Point
  • Getting to Paradise Point
  • Fifteen SciFi logos in two minutes with the Hyperspace Race Variable Font

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • January 2021
    • September 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020

    Search

    Tags

    1950s art deco avatar block commercial custom design disneyland dole whip eurostile font geometric goodland hyperspace race inline letraset ligatures logo opentype paradise poster process sci-fi silver space space race streak surf surfing tiki tikitype train variable variable font video

    Get news & updates plus 10% off your first font purchase:

    © 2021 Swell Type, LLC
    Header photos by Forest Dempsey


    Swell Type donates 1% of its sales to the Surfrider Foundation,
    who work to protect and preserve our oceans, beaches & waves.