Basie Geerdts
- Mar 22, 2017
- 2 min read
BASIE GEERDTS – Fine Artist & Graphic Designer
As long as I can remember, I’ve had two passions – art and sport. To me it would’ve been ideal to practise both professionally.
I didn’t know much about professionl sport though. To me the kinds of sport that one could play professionally were boxing, golf, horse racing, snooker and tennis. I didn’t want to be a boxer, didn’t know much about swinging golf clubs, knew less about horse racing, wasn’t very good at snooker and tennis was for the upper class citizens (ooh, had I known then what I know now!) My two favourite sports were rugby and cricket, both being played by amateurs. So the only thing left for me to do professionally was to become an artist! So I did!
In 1973 I was accepted as a student at the Johannesburg College of Art to study art and design. Had a choice between graphic design and fine art and ended up choosing the latter. I still enjoy graphic design and being an illustrator, but looking back, I’m now not so sure I made the right choice.
During my time as a graphic designer and illustrator (as employed and as a freelancer), I had the wonderful opportunity to work for top class advertising agencies (JWT, DeV&S, Ogilvy’s) and graphic design studios (ADAM, Pentagraph, Trademark, G’echo Design). At all these companies we had the enviable experience of always dealing with only the blue chip companies (Ford, Trust Bank, BMW, Mercedez Benz, Rickett and Colman, SmithKline Beecham, FNB, A dcock Ingram, Robertsons, Premier Food, Tiger Brands, SAB, Denny Mushrooms, etc).
As an illustrator I also had the opportunity to practise my fine art ability as visual support for packaging, corporate literature, promotional campaigns, advertising and marketing events I was able to work on with my colleagues.
Feel free to explore both art forms displayed in the menu.
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