I came across a discussion where someone thought that the Wilderness Surfboards logo might have been done by Rick Griffin.
A few folks gave their opinions and somebody made a connection. Not Griffin, but Stanley Mouse. It seems that Greenough/Cundith ‘borrowed’ the lettering from a Mouse poster.
Here’s two pics. The Wilderness logo and the Mouse poster. Take a good look at the lettering in the top of the poster.
Nice catch on that one! I can remember getting shit from a couple of guys when the younger brother of one of them gave me a laminate to put on a board I was making for him. The only part we used was the part that read, “Surfboard” and I still got flak over using it. “Exclusive font” or some such nonsense…
PS - I found this ‘history’ of Wilderness Surfboards that says they started in 1966. I wonder if that was when they started using that logo? It’s obvious to me that those are the same font.
Your comment above reminded me of a conversation that I had with John Severson, ‘‘back in the day’’, about using the Pacific Vibrations font for a possible future model surfboard. He was very gracious in saying the he had no objection to me using that lettering style. I never persued the project, but your comment brought back the memory.
Hi Bill - That font was a very unique style. Nice of him to give permission. The name is now being used on fins and surfboards but I don’t know if they asked permission…
Severson owned the rights to the poster art, since it was a commission done for him by Griffin. But the lettering itself was entirely a Griffin creation. Kind of a grey area when speaking of copying it for a product logo.
The actual lettering looks like this, which is quite different from what’s seen on that Pacific Vibrations board.
This is the cover of the movie program book. I got it from Surfer Mag in 1970 for 25 cents. They sell for a bit more these days.