Sagas of Shred
Greetings, Shredderz! I’m on a bit of a Tom Curren kick today, as I earlier today I shared an Instagram post featuring his segment in Lost Surfboard’s seminal 5’5″ x 19 1/4″ film. Here’s more Curren, this time in a, well, unusual 80s ad for longtime clothing sponsor Ocean Pacific.
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Greetings, Shredderz! I’m not even gonna try and explain this one. All I know is that Maui & Sons owes some measure of its enormous success in the 80s to Rick Rietveld’s detailed and often surreal artwork. Here’s one I spotted recently on Pinterest. I don’t know that I understand everything that’s going…
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Greetings, Shredderz! Here’s another ad I pilfered from the excellent Harbour Surfboards archive. The ad originally ran in the September 1966 issue of Surfer Magazine, and it features team rider Steve Bigler.
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Greetings, Shredderz! You gotta respect a clothing ad that features hard working dudes in the trenches building boards, instead of pampered pros that get paid to have fun. Here’s a wonderful 60s Hang Ten ad featuring Bing Surfboards’ factory crew. From left to right: Bing Copeland, Bennie Rabanal, Brian McGinnis and Jeffrey Prindle….
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Greetings, Shredderz! One of my all time favorite surf marketing campaigns — if you can even call it that — was Quiksilver’s “The Crossing”. I was surprised to see there’s a Wikipedia page for the Indies Trader, the famed surf exploration vessel helmed by Martin Daly, who discovered some of the most famous…
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Greetings, Shredderz! Here’s a 1979 Rip Curl ad featuring Cheyne Horan in a colorful ensemble. According to the ad, Rip Curl’s Freelite suit was available in over 20 colors, ranging from conservative to outrageous, and Horan is definitely at the far end of that spectrum. I don’t surf well enough to lead the…
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Greetings, Shredderz! Bruce Brown’s “The Endless Summer” belongs on any reasonable human being’s Mount Rushmore of surf movies. Likewise, John Van Hamersveld’s iconic poster for the movie is an all time piece of graphic design. I was pleasantly surprised to come across this alternate movie poster for “The Endless Summer” on Pinterest, which,…
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Greetings, Shredderz! Here’s a beautiful ad for a strange board: the Transition Era Dewey Weber Pig. Part of me wonders if this isn’t just one half of a two page spread, because it’s almost suspiciously spare. Either way the graphic design is downright striking. There’s a surprising amount of variety in the graphics,…
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Greetings, Shredderz! There’s no doubt that wetsuit technology has progressed over the years, and we’re all better off for it. And with the rise of the direct to consumer business model, wetsuit prices have gone done considerably, too. I’ve been thrilled with Need Essentials suits — they’re super warm and very reasonably priced….
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Greetings, Shredderz! Usually the Sagas of Shred series features different vintage surf ads, but there are occasional exceptions. Here’s an early Tracks Magazine cover, back when the famed Aussie surf periodical was printed on newsprint. No idea who the surfer or photographer are, but it’s a striking image nonetheless.
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