The Weekly Newspaper of Inglewood
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 70, No. 23 - June 10, 2021
Inglewood Police Department to the Rescue
Van Hamersveld from front page
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
John Van Hamersveld fronts his DWP Design. Photo provided by Alida Post.
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! •
Officers responded to a house fire and assisted Los Angeles County Fire Department with helping the family’s dogs get to a safe place. No injuries were reported. Photo courtesy Inglewood Police Department.