Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life
A love letter to design and art making
I had the fortune of attending the premiere of Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life at SXSW. For most contemporary designers Geoff has been a creative hero for decades. From his break out in the late 90’s though to the present, Geoff has had an impressive creative arc with a level of output and commercial success that most designers only dream of. I’m not here to give out any overt spoilers on the film but rather reflect on what it means to me to see a cinematic monograph of one of our contemporary creative heroes at the height of their powers.
View the trailer on Instagram. You can also view the trailer on Deadline.
At its core the film is a love letter to what Geoff means to our generation of form makers that bridge the world of art and design. The director Dan Covert and the team at Dress Code spent four years on the film and two plus years in the editing process. Screeners were also brought in to review edits to provide feedback. This attention to detail and commitment to refinement and revision have produced a masterful piece of cinema.
Dan is a super-fan of Geoff’s work like myself and most designers I know. And like any good biopic you want to raise up the subject, but not too high, while also revealing their humanity and vulnerability. The film does a great job of balancing a traditional linear narrative with a kind of curatorial myth making that amplifies the artistic process, the work itself, and the artist.
Photographer Andrew Paynter has been documenting Geoff for many years. His still photography of solitary moments in the studio appear throughout the film and their intimate power and resonance cannot be overstated. Like J Grant Brittain is to Tony Hawk, Geoff as the subject and Andrew as the lensman create a powerful symbiotic and honest beauty that are reminiscent of André Villers’ photographs of Picasso in his element.
Geoff’s upbringing is a common story for designers of his age. A deep love of drawing as a child evolved further growing up skateboarding and listening to punk rock in the Canadian suburbs. As a teengager being raised reading skate magazines and listening to seven inch records, you had to go out and find your people and your scene. Hence his move to California. Los Angeles gave Geoff the culture and community of skaters, artists and image makers that allowed his work to blossom. The proximity to Hollywood and movie production was also a crucial ingredient allowing him the ability to do his own thing alongside a strong current of commercial artmaking and directing.
The creative community that Geoff has fostered in Los Angeles over the last 30 years has been central to his life and success. Geoff’s early work for skateboard companies like Girl, as an art director at the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal Magazine in the late 90’s, and highly visible collaborations on films with Sophia Coppola and Spike Jonze, has served as an accelerating and amplifying platform for his work.
Through his commercial collaborations, there is a kind of artful and legitimizing magic that brands receive. For Warby Parker, Apple, Fisker and many others, Geoff’s creativity produces a kind of afterglow that rubs off to make them a bit better, more human, authentic and desirable. It is a rare skill to have a deeply entrepreneurial spirit while being open to working with companies that share your values. Having the apparent luxury to choose who to work with only comes through decades of hard lessons.
In Geoff’s work, there is no delineating line between art and commerce. He has retained the visual rigor of his earlier silk screen work in his painting. What we see on canvas is not dissimilar to what we might see on a billboard off Sunset Blvd. It is this graphic precision and approachability that operates so effectively from paper to canvas to screen. The source of his process comes from drawing. The simplest tools. A pencil and paper. It is undeniable that Geoff is a gifted illustrator as much as he is as an artist and designer. The genius of his work is in its simplicity, but to get to the level of what appears to be effortless whimsey requires endless iteration and a hyper critical attention to form, color, and craft.
How does he do it? The only answer is that he puts in the work and he is as disciplined in creative practice as he is in choosing commercial projects and collaborators. This produces a level of coherence and cohesion that is undeniably artful and relatable. Through the film it is clear that Geoff is a creative machine. Straightedge, healthy, driven, clean burning. His love of trail running and ultramarathons is a fitting parallel to his intense focus and dedication to his craft. It is a level of artistic commitment and stamina that few attain. If there is any inner creative torture he may experience it is inevitably funneled into the work. The output.
Geoff is an artist and designer very much in the mid century mold. Think Paul Rand or the Eames, hand work, design work, artwork, and illustration all blend together into a seamless whole. He emerges out of a unique moment in design history. Taught by postmodernists at Cal Arts he rejects the trendy design deconstruction of the early 90’s for a simpler graphic language. His early post-grad school work is also forged in the crucible of the counterculture of skateboarding and punk rock. It is this DIY culture that made Geoff entrepreneurial, self made, and deliberately anti-corporate. It’s the mantra to “Do your own thing.”
As we enter 2023 and beyond, we find ourselves becoming fully administered neoliberal subjects tethered to our social media accounts and Slack channels. In a way the film offers Geoff as an image of organic creative freedom and talent while contemporary form making is becoming more instant, disposable and soulless on some levels.
There is an irony that the film premiered at SXSW where the oncoming tsunami of AI tools that are augmenting our creative work is the hot topic. As we move into a future normal of chatbots and AI-fueled image making, the optimistic and analog realism that Geoff embodies through his work and life will only become more relevant.
It is a beautiful film about a beautiful man that makes beautiful work. Behind it all is an incredible discipline. A discipline to choose the people and companies to work with. A discipline to make the work better. A discipline to say yes to the things that matter and no to the things that don’t. During the making of the film Geoff turned 50 and Dan turned 40. The maturity and reward that comes with a dedication to your craft is shared by both on the screen. We see through Geoff that family is a centering force. Your relationships ground you, You can’t do it without other talented people you deeply admire, love, and trust. You can have a work life balance and still be driven. You can say no to certain work and no to meetings. These choices reinvigorate your sense of creative purpose.
As an artist Geoff takes an athlete’s perspective. Dig deep within. Outperform yourself. Go farther. Like the man himself, the film is a kind of benchmark. It’s the kind of movie we wish someone made about us. The film, through Geoff, is a kind of a mirror onto our own best creative collective self image. It may make us a bit jealous on the one hand but on the other it’s clear that we all have a McFetridge inside of us waiting to blossom, only if we are willing to make the sacrifices, do the work, and go the distance.
Thanks for reading. If you are interested, check out my book A Visible Distance: Craft, Creativity and the Business of Design.
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Helpful Links
New York Review of Books. The Edge of Legibility. Geoff McFetridge, interviewed by Leanne Shapton
