L’Americain
“In France they called me ‘L’Americain,’ and when we moved to Los Angeles, the kids called me ’Frenchie’.” Young Gerard glumly determined: “I’m a kid without a country!”
This scenario would be the early foundation of award-winning product designer Gerard Furbershaw’s ability to see the world with fresh eyes, as preconceived notions had to be quickly abandoned to make room for more stimuli. Born in New York City, he moved to Grenoble at age nine when his father took a job there. In France, he found himself thrown into the deep end of the cultural pool. “I spoke no French, but after two years I was fluent.”
After high school, Furbershaw enrolled in architecture school at USC, in a program focused on theory. However, he noticed a pattern: the students who were already working in the field were much more advanced in the quality of their classroom projects and presentations. The student architect realized he needed more practical skills.
During his first term in the architecture program, he encountered a professor who would leave a marked impact on him. Bob Inlow was an industrial designer who discussed ideas like systems and modularity; he inspired in his pupil a fascination with mass production.
Furbershaw graduated from USC in 1974 to discover an anemic job market for architecture grads. To make ends meet, he took a job in a mountaineering shop, utilizing his passion for mountaineering. He immediately began designing outdoor clothing and making prototypes.
After a couple of years, he made his way to the Bay Area. The reason for relocation is one his amis français would understand: cherchez la femme. He was chasing his girlfriend who was enrolled at Stanford.
Once in the Bay Area, he enrolled in San José State’s Industrial Design Program and received a second bachelor’s degree. At SJSU, Furbershaw mastered the practical skills absent from his USC education, and by the time he graduated he could sketch, create product renderings, and get products manufactured. He also took advantage of his observations at USC and, while still a student at SJSU, accepted a job at an industrial design consultancy.
This path led him to co-found his own design firm LUNAR [read our feature story], which after thirty years of cutting-edge work won the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum National Design Award for Product Design.
Decades after graduation, Gerard Furbershaw is back on San José State’s campus, now teaching an Industrial Design course. “I derive a great deal of inspiration being around the students. They have a lot of energy and haven’t been beaten down by life’s travails.” Being around students energizes him in his work and his life.
Another is a passion he took up when he abandoned mountaineering. “After my daughter was born, I thought it would be important for her to have a dad who was alive.” A fairly traditional notion for such a creative thinker, but he did find a workable alternative. The designer took up cross-country skiing, a sport whose repetitive motion and whish-whish sound of skis on snow produce a meditative effect on him.
It is in this Zen-like notion of circularity that Gerard Furbershaw clears his mind and recharges his spiritual energy, which, in turn, feeds his design work. This same pattern of circularity is present in his return to feed the minds of students at the place where he learned the tools of his trade.
By Cathleen Miller
