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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 2, 2000)
(une 2. 2ÛÛ0 ? Ju s t o u t , 5 rT T îT T ïïT T m n e tu s O n the R ight T rack Internationally recognized designer Jeff Fisher engineers his business his own way by M arc A cito Fernando’s Hideaway in Forest Park PRICE $209,950 Contemporary style 3 bed, 2 1/2 ba, a rowhouse alternative, decks on 2 levels w/ mtn & river views, minutes drive to Dwtn locations. Richard Vo»», GRI CENTURY 21 PENINSULA REALTY 503-804-9424 Cdl/VM 503-286-5826 Office vg L=J have really really tip; gunners rive th e neighbors something to *¡5*« A io o 4 itmk fo r P vap K - W ith AsT>> J E F F PRODUCTIONS! eff Fisher works in his underwear. No, he’s not a go-go boy, he’s an award winning graphic designer whose interna tionally acclaimed design studio, Jeff Fish er LogoMotives, is housed on the second floor of his North Portland home. With the majority of his clients communicating with him electronically from out of state, Fisher can roll out of hed and go straight to work in his skivvies. “I certainly don’t plan on using video confer encing anytime soon,” he says. He may have to change his mind, though, given his growing popularity. In the last five years, Fisher’s logo designs have garnered more than 235 awards. In addition, examples of his work are represented in more than 40 books and publications on graphic design. Locally, his roster of queer clients reads like the index of the Just Out Pocketbook: Our House of Portland, Cascade Aids Project, Portland Area Business Association, Metropolitan Com munity Church of Portland, Love Makes a Fam ily, Pride Northwest, Metropolitan Human Rights Center, Rob Buckmaster Fund, Rose City Softball Association...as well as numerous gay- owned businesses, such as Balloons on Broadway and Bridgetown Realty. A founding member of PABA, Portland’s unofficial “gay and lesbian chamber of com merce,” the 44-year-old Fisher provides inspira tion to anyone who worries you can’t be out and successful in business at the same time. “When I first came out in 1984,1 lost a job with an ad agency due to the fact I was gay," he says. “At the time, the owner simply told me he was taking his business in another direction. Later I learned from former co-workers that it made the owner very uncomfortable to have an openly gay person on staff. I vowed that I would F I S H E R iliAii ÏRiâNGLE about. H O G A N & SANDERSON Je ff Fisher, fully dressed for his Ju st Out photo shoot . :-Ç: ViT:! really t a i v MOTIVES never again allow myself to get into a similar son and allows me to just ‘go for it’ with the employment situation.” design process,” says Fisher. “Not many clients Since then, Fisher has hucked conventional give a designer complete creative freedom.” wisdom by fix:using almost exclusively on logo In 1996, Horn even asked Fisher to co-direct design while growing his business with a fearless the play Party. and tireless knack for unconventional self-pro “I was turning 40 at the time,” recalls Fisher, motion. “and getting to spend every evening with seven “If I don’t toot my own horn, no one else nude men for several months was not a bad way will,” reads one of his relentless press releases, to get through my first midlife crisis.” replete with LogoMotives’ toot-toot train However, according to Fisher, the one ele engine logo. ment most responsible for the success of his busi “My friends call me a ‘media whore,’ ” Fisher ness is his partner, Ed Cunningham. Much in says, hut his international recognition speaks for the same way that his business has thrived by itself. breaking the rules, so has his relationship. (Those who’d like to learn more about Fish “When Ed and 1 met,” Fisher says, “it shat er’s innovative approach to marketing should tered the potential relationship rules I had set up consult O ff the Wall Marketing Ideas by Nancy for myself: No dating guys who were much Michaels and Debbi J. Karpowisz, which features younger— he was 23 years old and 10 years a section on Fisher.) younger than me. No serious dating of anyone I Yet, despite all of Fisher’s mainstream suc met in a bar— I don’t know where that one cess, Portland’s gay community remains the cor came from. No dating of anyone without a real nerstone of LogoMotives’ business. Nowhere is job— Ed was still in college and working part- this more evident than in Fisher’s long-standing time." relationship with Don Horn, founder and artis Yet the same evening the two of them met, tic director of Triangle Productions. Fisher turned to a friend and said, “I just met the Since he met Horn at the benefit opening of man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.” the gay theater company’s first play, Fisher has Fisher followed his instincts with the same designed hundreds of pieces for Triangle Produc positive results he’s had professionally— last tions, including the logos for more than 50 month he and Cunningham celebrated their 10- shows. And those projects led Fisher to one of year anniversary. the more gratifying breakthroughs of his career. Will Rogers once said, “Even if you’re on the “For many years no ‘gay-identified’ logo pro right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit ject of mine had ever won a design award,” he there.” says. “ But since 1995 my logo designs for Trian With the courage to lay down his own tracks, gle Productions have won over 60 design Jeff Fisher is driving LogoMotives higher and awards.” higher. Fisher cites his working relationship with Horn as one of his most special. ■ M arc A cito is tta creator of the comic strip “Don always provides me with the scripts of “The Boys Next Door ." 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