Episode 1: Jeff Canham

Welcome to watercolors, an interview series with designers, artists, and makers who also practice the fine art of sliding across the surface of the ocean. The hope of the series is to explore and discuss the waterscape where art and surfing overlap and how they flow into one another. It makes sense when you think about. Surfers and artists — oftentimes both —are bonded by an expressive fluidity whether on canvas or water. watercolors is dedicated to that spirit.

First up is Jeff Canham. A long-time San Francisco resident, Canham is a graphic designer, artist, and sign painter who started his career at the famous, but now defunct, Surfer magazine before striking out on his own. He is also one-third of a collective of artists and craftspeople that make up Woodshop, a studio and woodworking space in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset district. In this inaugural watercolors interview, Jeff and I talk about the relationship between naming and sign painting, the balance of creative outlets, and, of course, surfing. He also might have the greatest answer to the question: what is your dream project? Enjoy.

Seems like sign painting and naming are connected in a strange way. How much do you consider a name when painting a sign?

Yeah, it’s funny. I worked at a sign shop for five and a half years and would do whatever was put in front of me. I didn’t have any agency in what the names were or the design. But I’ve been a graphic designer for my entire career. In that capacity, I’ve had a lot of agency to help steer people into what I think are names that capture what they’re doing better, whether it’s an individual product or even a brand.

A little background, my parents are both English teachers and I feel like language and words have always played an important role in my life and sign painting is just another avenue for that.

That makes a lot of sense and interesting how that overlapped with sign painting. Feels like a natural fit.

Yeah. I mean, once you bring the art and sign painting together, there’s a lot of room for wordplay or exploring language in a less straightforward manner than just painting the name of a business on the side of a building. It allows me this space to explore an idea that I think is interesting.

Makes me wonder, are you mostly painting names or is there other content like taglines or graphics?

Oh, all of the above. Over the years, I’ve painted so many signs. It’s illustration sometimes, it is logos sometimes. Sometimes it’s purely text. It really depends on who the client is and what it is they’re after. There is no real typical answer for that, I guess.

I feel like a lot of our work is convincing people that a name matters. Do you find yourself having the same conversation about signage?

For sure. I would imagine there are a lot of the same conversations where you’re telling somebody, “this is your first impression” or “this is what people are going to take away before they may even know anything about what this place is”. The look and feel they get from the design work or from a name is going to have an impact on them consciously, maybe subconsciously. But that is going to leave an impression and you want that to be a positive one and you want it to be reflective of whatever it is your brand or business is trying to accomplish.

How did you get into sign painting?

I don’t know how far back you want to go, but I studied typography in college and then I got a job at Surfer magazine when I graduated. So I got to use my typography and design skills in an application that I loved. I did that for five or so years, and then moved to San Francisco. A friend of mine was opening up a surf shop at the same time I moved up and when he went to order the sign, he suggested that I go with him. He thought that I’d be interested in this sign shop where he was getting it made. I was doing a lot of artwork at the time that was text based, but I just invented my own process for drawing and painting letters. Sign painting was on my radar but not really an aspiration of mine. So he took me to this sign shop called New Bohemia Signs, which was a tiny little garage-size sign shop that only does hand painted signs. They’ve since grown.

I walked in and saw photos of old signs all over the walls, covered in dust and paint splatter — a big mess. I was like, “Oh, this is amazing. How do I get involved in this?” I asked about apprenticing and started the following week and ended up working there for five years. All the while, I was still doing design work, still doing art shows, but learning how to paint signs the traditional way. And then, once I learned those skills, that really transformed the other aspects of my practice which were art and design and all the things that I learned about drawing, painting, manipulating letters through sign painting. Then I was able to employ it in design work or art practice. Now the three of those things are very muddy. Like everything I do sort of has elements of each of those and there’s a lot of crossover between my various practices.

I wanted to ask you about that. Is there a functional split between art, design, and signs? How do you see those things broken up? And why do you put them into those three buckets?

That’s a good question. It may be something that I should reevaluate, but there are plenty of design projects I do that have nothing to do with sign painting and nothing to do with my art practice. So, for example, I design books but it has nothing to do with brushes and paint. I mean, I may hand paint some lettering that goes in a book, but that’s a whole different skill set. Or if I’m designing a package for somebody it’s the same sort of thing. They’re not necessarily interested in me as a sign painter, they’re interested in me as a designer.

Then I also don’t really want to be a full-time sign painter. I love painting signs, but it’s something I do less for a career and more for the variety in my practice that keeps me engaged. I’m not doing the same things over and over. If I bounce back and forth between those different disciplines, then I don’t burn out on any of them.

Sounds like graphic design work is the type of work that you want to be doing. Is that right?

It’s tricky. I love doing design work. I love making artwork. And then I love painting signs. I’m happy doing any of them. And they all sort of play off each other. Oftentimes I’ll do an art show and someone will see it and say, “Oh, I love what you did here. Can you do something like that for me or for my business?” And then I’ll take whatever I learned from doing that artwork, apply it to another project and learn something different in that process that then maybe gets used. Maybe it’s an opportunity for me to explore something that then goes back into the artwork or vice versa. So they’re always sort of playing off each other.

There’s an obvious surf element across all these creative endeavors. How has surfing played a role in your design and life in general?

Well, I grew up in Hawaii. I grew up surfing and it was a big part of my life there. I mean, at some point, everybody there surfs. Some people stick with it. I stuck with it. I am still an avid surfer. I surf Ocean Beach as much as I can. It’s a big part of my life.

I grew up subscribing to Surfer magazine and so when I got that job, that was a dream for me. I got to do graphic design work with typography. One of my design heroes was the former art director there, and I got to have his same phone extension and sit in his chair. That was huge for me.

And I met a ton of people that worked in the surf industry. So it just gave me a lot of friends and a lot of connections. When I quit working at Surfer and struck out on my own, I still had all those contacts and continued to work within the surf industry. Now, at my studio space, I share a wall with a surfboard shaper [Danny Hess] who just keeps the surf part of things going in my life. Like there are always new surfers coming through and he’s tied in with some surf companies. It’s just something that has been a constant in my life and career. I think a lot of the influences that I draw from surfing and growing up in Hawaii are apparent in some of the work that I do. Like I love all the old surf magazines. I love all the nostalgic Hawaii stuff that I grew up around. And that has all kind of permeated into my work into varying degrees.

What about your other influences?

Artists like Margaret Kilgallen and Thomas Campbell, designers like Milton Glaser and John Alcorn, and some of my teachers like Leon Johnson at the University of Oregon and Damon Styer at New Bohemia Signs all had a heavy hand in shaping the work I do and the way I approach it.

What about the city of San Francisco? Has the city’s history of sign painting influenced your work at all?

Oh yeah, totally. I think in my choice of typography, my color palette, some of the people that have come before me are huge influences. Sometimes I don’t even realize it because I’ve lived here a long time. But when I take a step back and think about it, this city is a huge influence on my work. Everywhere I go I’m constantly looking at the signs, taking pictures, cataloging them mentally, and using what I’m surrounded by in my own way, hopefully.

What are you riding right now?

It really is all over the map. I’ve been surfing long enough and gone through all sorts of phases of riding different boards. I’m riding mostly a 6’1” quad fish sort of thing that, I don’t know if you can hear the planer in the background, but the guy next to me made [Danny Hess]. And then I have Neal Purchase Jnr, 2+1 in the 6' range that I’ve been really liking. Those are my go-tos, but I have all kinds of surfboards.

Lastly, what’s your dream project?

Well, I’ve traveled quite a bit and feel like this idea came to me traveling in Mexico first. I don’t know if you’ve spent any time down there, but there are still tons of hand painted signs everywhere. I’ve traveled through some small towns where there is clearly one sign painter that lives in the town and does the entire town. Whether it’s a liquor store or grocery store, that guy has done it because he is the only option.

There’s an interesting cohesion to the whole community because of that. I’ve always thought it would be fun to go live somewhere, paint everything I could in my particular style. It always seemed like a fun kind of romantic idea to me.

Learn more about Jeff’s design, art, and sign work here.