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Internationally recognized designer Jeff Fisher engineers his business his own way
by M arc A cito
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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
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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 ." He wrote this article m Jeff
the shows he plans to present for the next sea Fisher's underwear
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