My Story

A strange tale of creative exploration steeped in critical thinking.

My name is Jake Favour. This isn’t a corporate bio. It’s my story, we all have one and it’s what. makes us unique. I was born in Costa Mesa, California, to a family of engineers and artists. My passion is divided between the sciences and the arts. The technical side of my self, my work comes from my grandfather and my earliest mentor, John. His parents immigrated from Croatia and Austria in the early nineteen aughts. Discovering each other and their love in Vashon Island, Washington. They later migrated South into Orange County. World War II hit, and and he served in the Army in the South Pacific. his three brothers did tours in Europe. My grandfather later obtained two degrees in engineering from USC and UCLA and found my Grandmother while in university. It was in his offices that I first learned my way around a drafting table. Skills that to this day have never left me. His two sons both self-taught, were bright engineers in their own right, one a lead designer at Designworks under Chuck Pelly, and the other a master mechanic and bush pilot in the remote wilderness of Alaska. These three men, along with my great uncles, all avid boatsmen, introduced me to much of the technical ability that I still carry with me.

My design sensibility came from my father’s side. My grandfather James, a boxer in the Army, turned a corner after the war and became an interior designer for a famed furniture company. The decision was a natural choice, his father and brother were both furniture upholsters. A profession my father would later be lured into. With nearly 50 years experience, he is now a master of the craft. My mother is a multi-disciplined artist working in textiles, painting and jewelry design and is still teaching today. It is this subtle confluence of all these generational influences that has made architecture and design two central themes in my life and work.

Natures Indelible Influence

Earliest childhood memories were from Montana, climbing trees with feral friends, and walking to school through deep snowy winters. Years later we returned to California but in the North, landing in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The cold rivers, giant trees and hot summers are seared into my body, and still beckon. It was those years that cemented my connection with and reverence for nature. Like design, its always been a theme in my life, and my work has been called Telluric. It’s true, there is an earthen, grounded quality to my work, as I believe we all share a responsibility to steward this planet into the future and one way we do that is through what we create, and how we do it.

I’ve spent my life around makers, builders and artists, those that make with their hearts and hands. It’s why building and constructing things, and the ideas behind them is so central to my work. As the leader of this studio, I have the opportunity to use my experiences and perspective to help clients unlock their potential with authentic creativity. I’m focused on guiding people through the creative process to discover the story at the center of their project, and I believe it’s a refreshing departure from traditional agencies we see some much of today. 

The Experiences That Shaped Me

Seeking bigger adventures beyond my mountain roots, I enlisted with the famed 82nd Airborne Division. My experience as a paratrooper has undoubtedly influenced my approach to creative problem-solving. The discipline, courage, and adaptability required of me in that role have prepared me well for the challenges of fearlessly leading others into the unknown. From the pyramids of Giza, to freezing biathlons in the Arctic, this combination of rugged experiences and my refined artistic consideration provides me a unique and valuable perspective that brings an innovative approach to the creative process.

Realizing I wasn’t meant to be a professional warfighter, I returned home to sunny California to pursue my calling as Creative. Pulled back into the world of interiors and architecture, I found tutelage under a master ASID Fellow from San Francisco. The last of his kind, it was a life of beautiful and thoughtfully considered spaces, just as I imagined, but it felt like the end of an era for true Interior Design. The end of era and the death of industry. Reading the signs in the shifting sands of the times, I took up branding, to give shape to ideas not just spaces. Expanding my work to encompass more conceptual thematic work.