Australia's Surfing Life

Surfing Life, formerly Australia’s Surfing Life, the magazine was founded in 1985 by Peter Morrison and is the flagship publication of Morrison Media’s Fresh Air Division. The magazine is based in Burleigh Heads, QLD and forms part of the larger publishing company, which also publishes such other magazine titles as Frankie, The Smith Journal, White Horses and Slow. The first issue of Surfing Life appeared in August 1985.

The concept for Surfing Life stemmed from Peter Morrison’s desire, in the mid-80s, to find a balance between the glossy, high-quality publications that took months to come out, and the newspaper print, low-quality publications that came out more regularly. The result was a colourful, high-quality print product with high-production values, and healthy editorial to advertising ratio and a unique, witty, colourful tone, endemic to the title, one that continues to this very day.

The magazine's frequency began as quarterly, before becoming bi-monthly early in 1987. The title’s monthly frequency began in August 1992 and it has remained a monthly title ever since.

Fittingly, for a parochially Gold Coast-based magazine, the first issue of Surfing Life featured local surfer Todd Lee getting barrelled at Kirra. Over the years, however, numerous surfing legends, as well as current and future stars, from around the world, have graced Page 1, including: Shane Herring, Mark Occhilupo, Kelly Slater, Andy Irons, Taj Burrow, Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, Ozzie Wright, Jordy Smith, Julian Wilson, Craig Anderson, John John Florence and more. They celebrated 300th issue with a cover consisting of Joel Parkinson, surfing Duranbah at night, doing a large aerial with bright, green LED lights on the bottom of his board, spelling out the number 300.

Throughout the magazine’s 30 year + history, it has been the workplace and breeding ground for many of Australia’s great surf-writing and photography stars.

Talented writing personalities such as Mike Perry, Tim Baker, Derek Reilly, Andrew Farrell, Jon Jenkins, Nick Carroll, Jimmy O’Keefe, Tim Fisher, Chris Binns and Wade Davis have all called the Surfing Life Editorial department home.

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