![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sanclementeweb.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/bob-harlow.jpg\" "\\"bob-harlow\\"")
\nIt is said, follow your dreams and the money won\u2019t be far behind. Long time San Clemente resident and artist Bob Harlow is one of the lucky ones who chose this path and it\u2019s resulted in quite a successful and satisfying life.<\/p>\n
\nIt is said, follow your dreams and the money won\u2019t be far behind. Long time San Clemente resident and artist Bob Harlow is one of the lucky ones who chose this path and it\u2019s resulted in quite a successful and satisfying life.<\/p>\n
Bob grew up on our beloved T-Street, with his 5 brothers and 1 sister and his parents still live in that very same childhood home to this day. He says his calling to draw surf cartoons came to him at a very young age.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started sending in my submissions to Surfer magazine when I was 10 years old, I remember running to the mailbox everyday hoping for that congratulatory letter from surfer, sadly none ever came.\u201d
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\nThen, in the 80\u2019s he got a job working at Hobie Sports and it was there he says his business started \u2018by accident\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started designing T-shirts for a few Windsurfing events that Hobie held down at Doheny. That evolved into me designing for all the Southern California and Hawaii Hobie stores.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sanclementeweb.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/OceanFest-Logo.jpg\" "\\"OceanFest-Logo\\""){kind=logo}
Soon the calls started coming in from Quicksilver, Billabong, Town and Country and a few other world-famous surf companies. By 1989 he found himself so busy with design work on the side that he decided to leave Hobie and start his own business, Harlow Design.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot long after I started the business it became clear that selling designs for a one-time fee was making other people all the money. So with some interest from a few local retail stores I stopped selling my artwork and started producing my own T-shirts and began selling them to surf shops and resorts all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
With all that under his belt, Bob says his proudest achievement to date is his evolution of work with the San Clemente Ocean Festival. Each year he donates his artwork, which always includes the festival mascot Duke the Dolphin wearing his trunks and sunglasses doing everything from surfing and driving a woody to swimming to rowing a dory boat and everything in between.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year my inspiration for Duke came from a sign that stuck in my head of a cool looking dude riding his bike on a beach trail and I thought to myself, we haven\u2019t seen Duke doing that yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since becoming a part of the Ocean Festival team merchandise sales have soared.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore I donated my first design in 1992, the event was only selling maybe six dozen shirts. The amount of merchandise sold has grown exponentially since and in recent years the numbers have been steadily growing to many thousands.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s great news for The Ocean Festival, which is itself a non-profit, and for the City of San Clemente. That\u2019s because part of the proceeds from the sales each year are used to produce the event and a portion is given back to the community in the form of grants and scholarships to many organizations in town including San Clemente Junior Lifeguards, San Clemente and State Lifeguards, Ocean Institute\u2019s Adopt-a-Class program, Meals on Wheels, Boys & Girls Club and also scholarships for local high school graduates.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also proud of the work he\u2019s done with the popular Mark and Brian morning show in LA on KLOS.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to design and produce about ten T-shirts for the top-rated show over a four-year period, that was a blast.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also very generously designed, produced and donated all T-shirts for the annual \u201cPlay-Day\u201d at the Fran Joswick Therapeutic Riding Center (now the Shea Center).<\/p>\n
He\u2019s one of our typical San Clemente neighbors, real chill and laid-back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love my work because in most cases there is no art direction, I really don\u2019t \u2018do\u2019 art direction. Most of my customers know to just point me in a direction and take the leash off. They know I\u2019ll return with something they\u2019ll really like!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is said, follow your dreams and the money won\u2019t be far behind. Long time San Clemente resident and artist Bob Harlow is one of the lucky ones who chose…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n