The son of an art teacher and a baseball coach. He played in the minor leagues. Then he left it all behind to draw.
Artist and designer, Portland/Bay Area. Illustrations, typography, paintings. @jamescoffmandesign
James Coffman was born in Portland, Oregon. His childhood: summers spent roaming small towns on the team bus with his father, coach for the Oakland A's, and winters drawing, painting, building. A promising baseball career took him all the way to the Arizona Diamondbacks' minor leagues, before the abrupt stop that always comes too soon. He turned back to art, enrolled in design at Portland State University, began freelancing on the side, realized he was learning more from real work than from school, and left it all in 2019 for the Bay Area. His visual universe: primary shapes, totemic animals, bold colors. Sun, moon, horses, landscapes—images that reach back to something older than language. Typefaces with the names of deserts and forests.
