This poster for the 1964 surf movie is now 50 years old. It was designed by pop artist John Van Hamersveld.

After a months-long stretch of dazzling sunshine and hot weather on the West Coast of Canada, it might seem like an endless summer. But as the temperatures begin to cool, we’re selling all our Desigual summer styles at 15 per cent off. We have men’s Desigual shorts, T-shirts, pants, jeans and shirts. We also have Desigual women’s sandals, tops, dresses, jeans and jackets, including some by Paris fashion designer Christian Lacroix. And we have lots of kids summer wear, which is perfect if you’re heading somewhere warm in the coming months. Take 20%  off kids summer wear.

By the way, the Endless Summer poster above was designed by John Van Hamersveld, one of my former classmates at the Chouinard Insitute of the Arts (now called California Institute of the Arts) in Los Angeles. He designed the poster with saturated Day-Glo colours while he was still an art student. It became an icon of the 1960s, the Southern California surf culture and now is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The poster launched the pop art career of Van Hamersveld, a surfer who previously had been art director of Surfer magazine.

In 1967, Van Hamersveld got a call from Capitol Records, which was trying to figure out how to issue the Beatles‘ Magical Mystery Tour record in the U.S. The film had flopped in the U.K. and Capitol was looking for fresh artwork for the album cover, but wanted to keep the photo of the four Beatles wearing masks and costumes (John is the walrus, Ringo is a chicken, Paul is a hippo, George is a bunny). After a meeting at Capitol’s executive offices, Van Hamersveld went home and created the cover in 48 hours.

Former Chouinard art school students gathered earlier this year for a California Locos group show at a gallery in L.A.’s Chinatown. From left to right: Norton Wisdom, John Van Hamersveld, Gary Wong, Dave Tourjé and Chaz Bojórquez. Tourjé is wearing an OCB shirt designed and hand-dyed by Thomas O’Casey, another of my former students at Chouinard. The OCB Designs shirts are available at my store, Angel

Van Hamersveld went on to do the Exile on Main Street cover for the Rolling Stones in 1972, Skeletons in the Closet for the Grateful Dead two years later, Kiss and Blondie‘s Eat to the Beat. There is a good interview here with Van Hamersveld about his early days, including his time as a concert promotor from 1967-68, for which he produced iconic poster art for Jefferson Airplane & Jimi Hendrix. You can also click here for Van Hamersveld’s website. Here are a few of his famous art pieces:

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The music in the video above, showing John Van Hamersveld’s artwork shown on the 1,500-foot long ceiling screen on the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas (made up of 12.5 million LED lamps), was The Zombies‘ Time of the Season. Here’s another Zombies tune, She’s Not There, the English band’s debut record performed live in 1965 on the first episode of the Hullabaloo TV show, with subtitulado en espanol:The song hit No. 1 in America in 1964, after the Beatles opened the door to the British Invasion.