Like Father, Like Son: 10 Designing Dads And Their Artistic Offspring

Image via Complex Original

Spencer Elden, works for Shepard Fairey

father: artist and designer Rick Elden

Back in the days of bad flannel and tribal tattoos, there was one cultural artifact that was slightly less forgettable -- the image of the baby in the pool that graced the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind cover.  Spencer Elden, son of designer Rick Elden, is all grown up and working for artist Shepard Fairey.  Still doing artistic projects and diving for dollars, now he has to keep his swim trunks on.

Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons

father: Homer Philip Groening, cartoonist, filmmaker, writer

What’s funnier or more fatherly than Homer choking Bart?  Although Matt Groening maintains that his home life was nothing like the madness of the Simpsons, there is some family resemblance.  The lovely mom Marge is named after his mother, Margaret, and the donut-hungry dad is the namesake of Matt’s father, Homer Philip Groening.  The real Homer was a filmmaker, advertiser, writer, and cartoonist.  Like father, like son...but hopefully bright yellow skin isn’t genetic.

Kayode Shonibare-Lewis, game developer and 3D artist

father: Yinka Shonibare

Famed artist Yinka Shonibare is known for his luscious paintings, photographs, and sculptural tableaux, which explore the difficult histories of African diaspora and colonialism.  Ransacking London street vendors for the tackiest fabrics, he fills his work with bold color and kinetic energy.  His son, Kayode Shonibare-Lewis, is an up-and-coming game developer and 3D artist.  Hard to not envy this talented duo for their endless artistic talent and wild style. 

Gary Gygax, creator of D & D

father: Ernst Gygax, CSO violinist

Gary Gygax was the designer of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, and in some way, a father to nerds everywhere.  His own dad was a violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and an avid reader of sci-fi pulp novels.  In the virtual world of D & D, players actually become the game designers -- battling monsters, gathering loot, even winning beauties like the Monster Manual model. Ready to unravel the secret? This fine elf is Elise Gygax, Gary’s daughter.

Bob Montana, illustrator of Archie Comics

father: Ray Montana, vaudevillian

It’s fitting that the cute comedy and curvy girls in Archie comics were influenced by illustrator Bob Montana’s parents -- his mom was an ex-Ziegfeld girl and his father was a top-notch banjo player.  As his folks followed the vaudeville circuit, Montana toured every state in the country, learning the finer points of slapstick humor.  Throughout his exciting boyhood, he learned how to draw, write, and ask that age-old question -- Betty or Veronica?

Roger Sweet, creator of He-Man

father: art director at Firestone Tire & Rubber

Roger Sweet grew up in the world of men.  As a boy in Akron, Ohio, he watched rugged guys leaving work after long days at the rubber factories, strong laborers who made Goodyear and Goodrich tires.  His own father was art director at Firestone, encouraging him to pursue industrial design early on.  Dreaming of flashy, chrome cars with balloon tires, Sweet entered Chicago’s Institute of Design in the late 1950s.  His interest in small, motor-powered toys soon landed him a job at Mattel, where he created the prototype for He-Man around 1976.  The burly action figure was a throwback to Akron’s tough guys —real men who, to young Sweet, were the real Masters of the Universe.

Alberto Vargas, pinup artist

father: Max T. Vargas, Peruvian photographer

Alberto Vargas is the father of babes.  Leggy, busty, and bubbly, his illustrated “Vargas Girls” filled the pages of Playboy and Esquire in the 1940s, giving way to the hottest pin-ups of the World War II-era.  His eye for beauty seems to be inherited from his dad, Max T. Vargas, one of the earliest and most influential Peruvian photographers.  The two talented gents filled their studios with aspiring artists, and maybe more importantly—eager models.

Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, former CEO of Lego

father: Godtfred Kirk Christiansen

grandfather: Ole Kirk Christiansen, founder of Lego

“Lego” loosely means “play well” in Danish, “I put together” in Latin, and “I connect” in Italian, but it really stands for an incredibly successful father-son company.  Ole Kirk Christiansen began making wooden toys in the 1930s, and he was experimenting with plastic models by 1947.  Joined by his son, Godtfred, Christiansen expanded his ideas into multi-colored plastic bricks and playful cars.  Within another generation, Godtfred’s son Kjeld would become the mastermind behind themed playsets, minifigures, and Lego.com.  The Christiansens’ love of simple toys and endless possibilities must have been genetic.  And it seems safe to assume that these three men all had Lego-shaped scars on the bottoms of their feet.

John L. Wright, inventor of Lincoln Logs

father: Frank Lloyd Wright

After John L. Wright was fired by his father, superstar architect Frank Lloyd Wright, he began to think small. With his design for Lincoln Logs, living room floors became landscapes, mini timbers became support beams, and kids became master builders.  Who needs a medal from the American Institute of Architects when you’re in the National Toy Hall of Fame?

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, designer of the Olympics logo

father: Charles Louis de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin painter

With the 2012 Olympics looming large, we have to give props to Pierre de Coubertin, father of the modern Games. Even though he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he always had a soft spot for sweaty sports.  His love for English rugby and Greek competition inspired him to revive the ancient Olympics, founding the International Olympic Committee in 1894 and creating the symbol of intertwining rings in 1912.  He may have inherited some of his design flair from his dad, Charles Louis Frédy de Coubertin, an aristocratic painter (that’s little Pierre looking out at us from the foreground of the Le Depart canvas).  But Jr. ditched the fussy religious and historical subjects for a simplified graphic style.  Less is more, Pops.