EL SEGUNDO HERALD June 10, 2021 Page 5
Police Reports
Monday, May 31st
A court order violation report was taken at
0757 hours from the 300 block of Standard
Street.
One male adult was detained at 0853 hours
from the 300 block of North Pacific Coast
Highway and transported to Exodus Hospital
for a 72-hour psychiatric evaluation.
One female adult was detained at 0118 hours
from the 100 block of South Pacific Coast
Highway and transported to Harbor General
Hospital for a 72-hour psychiatric evaluation.
Tuesday, June 1st
An unauthorized lodging report was taken at
0945 hours from Sycamore Avenue and Pacific
Coast Highway. The person was sleeping in
a doorway.
A defrauding an innkeeper report was taken
at 1114 hours from the 200 block of North
Pacific Coast Highway.
A vehicle tampering report was taken at
1229 hours from the 1100 block of East
Acacia Avenue.
An online identity theft report was taken at
1407 hours from the 2000 block of East Mariposa
Avenue. Unknown suspect(s) fraudulently
opened an account in the victim’s name.
A stolen vehicle report was taken at 1401
hours from the 1300 block of East Franklin
Avenue.
Taken was a Zero FX motorcycle.
One female adult was detained at 1928 hours
from the 300 block of North Pacific Coast
Highway and transported to Martin Luther King
Hospital for a 72-hour psychiatric evaluation.
A domestic violence restraining order report See Police Reports, page 10
Van Hamersveld from front page
local residents but also a veritable “Who’s
Who” of surfing.
Fuentes said that Van Hamersveld’s artwork
“provides a beautiful entrance to El Segundo.
Seeing John Van Hamersveld’s vibrant art
installation,” Fuentes said, “always makes
me smile!”
Van Hamersveld marveled at his induction
into the ESHS Hall-Fame, mentioning that
when he saw his portrait gracing a school
campus wall, he could not help but think that
selected Hall-of-Famers usually were athletes,
like baseballers the Brett Brothers or Scott
McGregor, or maybe scientists (must admit
those inductees’ names were unfamiliar to
me), not graphic artists.
Van Hamersveld also happens to be the
talented man who designed the splashy poster
for the still iconic 60’s surf film, the Endless
Summer. And, oh, by the way, he is credited
with designing album covers, more than 300,
for a few bands that you may have heard of,
while he worked for Capitol Records in the
mid-ish sixties as head of design/art director.
How did Van Hamersveld score the gig at
Capitol Records? He said that at the time, his
Endless Summer poster, which is featured in
the Smithsonian, was “selling like hotcakes”
in college campus bookstores and the like,
and that he was invited to meet with a bigwig
at Capitol Records. Van Hamersveld took his
poster to the meeting, and the record executive
made the (incorrect) assumption that Van
Hamersveld also designed album covers.
Not quite, but Van Hamersveld said that
he “didn’t say a word” to correct the exec’s
false assumption and gladly accepted his
nearly immediate job offer. This led to Van
Hamersveld designing a boatload of more than
300 splashy, and oft-times, psychedelic album
covers, including artwork and or promotional
posters for the vinyl efforts of the Beatles,
Rolling Stones, KISS, Grateful Dead, Blondie,
the Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, and Jefferson
Airplane. And he also (presumably) received
a paycheck for his artistic work that graced
publications like Esquire, Billboard, and the
rock bible, Rolling Stone.
Van Hamersveld related that he was selected
to design the artwork for the cover of the
Beatles Magical Mystery Tour album. He said
that the accompanying MMT film bombed,
but that the album was not so shockingly,
phenomenally successful. “That was my
success there,” he reminisced.
Van Hamersveld said that the “most unique”
cover that he designed was for the Rolling
Stones “Exile on Main Street” album, adding
that his renderings that graced the old vinyl
records allowed him to be “paid really well.”
After finishing his tenure at Capitol Records,
Van Hamersveld took advantage of
burgeoning entrepreneurial opportunities that
were blossoming some 50 years ago. Large
record stores were starting to make their
imprints in suburban concrete jungles, and,
as luck would have it, flashy vinyl record
jacket covers were a great way for stores
to catch the eye (and open the wallets) of
music aficionados.
On a personal aside, it is great to see the
comeback in the interest of vintage vinyl
albums. I only wish that I hadn’t offloaded
almost all of my 60’s+ plus collection of
records when my record player died about a
dozen or so years ago. Instead, it seems that
I am only left with the records (RUSH, David
John Van Hamersveld fronts his DWP Design. Photo provided by Alida Post.
Sanborn, Ted Nugent) that no one wanted at
the time, even if they were offered up for free.
Van Hamersveld started working to promote
the artistry of album covers, leveraging the
increasing media opportunities that were
available during that timeframe. Down the
road, he would take a teaching job at the
same CalArts Institute where he had studied
in the early ’60s. Revisiting his old school,
Van Hamersveld said, allowed him to network
with a new era of creative minds and transition
seamlessly into the new art scene.
Van Hamersveld, who will be turning 80
in September, continued plying his trade and
was commissioned to design the official poster
and 360-foot mural that promoted the 1984
Summer Olympics, which took place in Los
Angeles. Among other creative endeavors, he
has also designed the logo and a few of the
buildings for the Fatburger chain, noting that
he was again “well paid” designing the Fatburger
trademark and multiple brick-and-mortar
buildings for the successful hamburger chain.
Back to the beginnings of a creative genius,
Van Hamersveld was born and raised
in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was an
aeronautical engineer, part of a team that was
asked to relocate to California. After spending
a year in Westchester, the family moved in
1951 to Lunada Bay. Because there was no
high school, at the time, located anywhere
near his home, and Redondo Beach Unified
High School was booked to the gills, Van
Hamersveld ended up making the commute to
attend ESHS, which allowed him to become
familiar with the gnarly waves that grace our
portion of the Pacific Ocean.
Post-graduation, and as a part of the early
60’s South Bay surfing scene (Van Hamersfeld
credits local surfing legends Dave Velzy and
Hap Jacobs as two of his heroes), he ended up
designing a surfing magazine that caught the
eye of a publishing rival. Van Hamersveld was
coerced to come and work for the rival, and
it was around this time that he met filmmaker
Bruce Brown, the man behind the “Endless
Summer” documentary. Van Hamersveld created
the documentary’s promotional poster,
and, as they say, the rest is history.
Van Hamersveld’s embracement of the
burgeoning California surf culture, and his
graphic design talents, led him to be inducted
into the Huntington Beach Surfing Wall of
Fame in 2014, which just happened to coincide
with the 50th anniversary of the release of
the Endless Summer movie.
Van Hamersveld’s creative talents and
impact not only on pop culture, but on the
artistic world were detailed in a renowned
11-minute short film, “Crazy World, Ain’t
It,” the title of which is a Van Hamersveld
catch phrase. The film visits with artists and
scholars, who refer to Van Hamersveld as “a
man of a different mind” and laud him as an
artist who takes risks, not worrying about a
possible rejection of his creative endeavors.
It is worth spending a few minutes of your
time to view.
At one point, the avid surfer Van Hamersveld
said that he has not surfed in three decades.
He said that it was in the early ’90s that he
started to hear about the rampant pollution
that was fouling the oceans, and he decided
that he would rather keep his surfboard, and
himself, out of the still somewhat blue water.
When asked what hobbies he currently
embraces, Van Hamersveld offered that he
was too busy working and creating to invest
too much time in other pursuits. So, as you
near your 80th birthday, he was asked any
thoughts of slowing down, of retiring?
“No reason to,” he said. “I am too busy,
working like a madman, trying to get it all
done,” though he did somewhat recant the
madman’s choice of words in a later interview.
“Each day is an invention,” he said. “You
wake up, and there is something to do. You
create something, and someone likes it, and
you make more of (it). It is the process that
I go through every day.”
Van Hamersveld’s Endless Summer has,
fortuitously, lasted for more than fifty years.
Shaka, brah! •
was taken at 1941 hours from the 800 block
of East Grand Avenue.
An online petty theft report was taken at
2026 hours from the 1600 block of Palm Avenue.
Unknown suspect(s) stole the victim’s
packages from his front porch.
Wednesday, June 2nd
One male adult was arrested at 0950 hours
from the 800 block of South Douglas Street
for burglary, driving a stolen vehicle, identity
theft, one ESPD felony warrant and one LASD
misdemeanor warrant.
One female adult was detained at 1105 hours
from the 2200 block of East Maple Avenue
and transported to Harbor General Hospital
for a 72-hour psychiatric evaluation.
Traffic accident (no injuries) occurred at
1038 hours from the 900 block of Main Street,
vehicle versus street sign.
One male adult was arrested at 1537 hours
from the 300 block of Main Street for one
ESPD felony warrant and one RBPD misdemeanor
warrant.
A grand theft report was taken at 1516 hours
from the 800 block of Hornet Way. Unknown
suspect(s) stole the victim’s catalytic converter
from his vehicle.
A petty theft report was taken at 1643 hours
from the 400 block of Maryland Street. Unknown
suspect(s) stole the victim’s catalytic
converter from his vehicle.
One male adult was arrested at 2332 hours
from the 1800 block of East Sycamore Avenue
for one LASD felony probation violation
warrant.
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