The Endless Summer 50-Year Anniversary Poster

Bruce Brown’s 1966 film "The Endless Summer" launched the Southern California surf culture into a global phenomenon. In conjunction with the film, John Van Hamersveld (JVH) designed a poster that has become one of the most recognizable images from that era.

Bruce Brown Films collaborated with JVH with a limited edition release of the poster to offer their fans to celebrate the 50th Year-Anniversary of the film and the iconic art.

They came to Primary Color to recreate the colors that made the poster such a great success. The limited run of 5000 posters has the 50th Anniversary logo emboss designed by John Van Hamersveld for authentication and celebration.

Primary Color’s challenge was to bring back that surf culture emotion that was felt 50 years ago by using modern-day commercial print technology. We needed to produce a poster with fluorescent colors that historically are only achieved with silkscreen methods. However, this run of posters would be produced on our 8-color Heidelberg XL litho press.

Primary’s on-site ink manufacturer and color management team, developed a proprietary printing process specifically for John Van Hamersveld. Using a customized ink palette and transfer process, Primary was able to achieve the level of color that JVH requires.

The result was art posters with color intensity so eye-popping it almost makes you squint and a client that got far more than they expected.