Surfing in Ink and Paper: Adventures in Magazine Publishing (part 1 of 2)

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For a lot of people, surfing is not only a sport, it is a lifestyle. The sport has attracted people from all walks life. Some had already built their everyday life around the sport. It has established a whole new culture by itself. With a culture of people with an intense love and commitment to surfing, they have posed themselves as a good market. It is a good niche of people that magazine publishing companies have definitely explored. Here’s a list of magazines that have dedicated themselves to the community.

Surfer

John Severson founded this very successful publication from his own garage in the 1960s. It originally served as an accompaniment to his third surf film, Surf Fever. The magazine proved to be a success, prompting Severson to launch The Surfer Quarterly which later on became the Surfer Bi-Monthly. Surfer was such a huge success that it helped to initiate the boom of the surf culture in the 1970s to the 1980s. It has opened the doors between surfers to talk about almost everything that is related to it.

One important outcome from the magazine was the environmental awareness and movement among the surfers. Articles about marine pollution, reef and harbor conservation have been featured on regular sections. This then has lead to the establishment of the Surfrider Foundation in the 1980s.

John Severson later sold the magazine to Better Living, Inc. Forty-one years later after Surfer was started in his garage, the magazine has undergone several changes in its staff and ownership. The company has also turned itself into a full-sized magazine publishing company.  It has since then hailed as the “surfer’s bible.”