ATR

CHANTRY

1

Hailing from one of the scummiest,

most depressing places in the US,

Art Chantry was a perfect product

of his environment. Most known

for his posters and band album

covers such as The Sonics, Flaming

Lips and Nirvana. He walked the

line between precise, letter-pressed

type and chaotic collage. Like the

counterculture icons he designed

for, he was a counterculture icon

in his grungy, loud, crude and wild

design style. As a poster designer, he

was the 1970’s and 1980’s equivalent

of todays propaganda style street

artists. His style was demonstrating

grunge qualities way before the 90’s

and the grunge movement became

evident.

“In Tacoma, one does not merely shoot another in the head. In Tacoma, they find your decapitated skull in a paper bag tossed behind some bushes with “Do not open till X-mas” scrawled on the side with a magic marker”

HANRY Logos: 1986-7 retail logos and

labels(left): 1985 poster for New City Theatre

2

Chantry’s style is best recognized

by his ability to lift vintage images

and juxtapose large, often destroyed,

damaged text while applying his own

style to the images. His style suits the

hot rod and punk band culture he

represents in his posters, album covers

and logos while still showing his at-

tentiveness to precise placement, size

relations and choice of color.

Working hand’s on is another

great influence of Chantry’s style. He

describes enjoying moving around

pieces of paper and type, admitting

that if he had to sit in front of a screen

all day, he would lose his mind. He

even admits to resisting push-button

phones, still using a rotary dial tele-

phone in his office.

(clockwise from top): 1989 logo for K2 snow-boards, logos from 1986 Union Sportswear, LP design for band “Thee Headcoats”

(right): 1994 Posters for Rhino Records

3

“I’m a big fan of amateurism, and I think

amateurism is where all new ideas come from,

the do-it-yourself syndrome”

Art Chantry is extremely particular about his choice of clientele, rarely working for large corporate com-panies. In the past he has turned down companies such as Coca-cola, Nike and Microsoft. On the other hand, he has accepted jobs from clientel he defines as “sociopaths.” In a interview with Lonnie Stacatto, he admitted to working for pimps, pornographers, drug dealers and at one point considered working for a South American gun-runner. Chantry’s opinion about working for these characters is that they are no different from corporate businessmen. In fact, he claims that “ all businessmen are sociopaths” and that America rewards those without conscious. In this way, busi-ness executives are no better than pimps and drug dealers in Chantry’s opinion.

“I’m a big fan of amateurism, and I think

amateurism is where all new ideas come from,

the do-it-yourself syndrome”

1983 Poster for Empty Space, various band logos

In the 1970’s, when Chantry moved

to Seattle, he became the creative and

visually inspiring talent his clients

needed to push, promote and stoke

their causes. He designed large, loud

posters that were a perfect mixture of

the chaos of collage and the clarity of

type.

Only when someone has experi-

ence in fundamental, hands on

design do they gain the essential

skills to create great designs. This is

one of the key factors that as played

into the fact that Chantry still

designs strictly by hand and avoids

computers.

When asked about his hands on

design style, Chantry discusses it as

a necessity of good design. In a 1998

interview, Chantry mentioned that

nowadays, design has a “technical

knowledge base,” that people believe

being a graphic designer involves

only a firm understanding of design

computer programs.

One of Chantry’s most compelling point is that designers have spent their lives dedicated to separating Graphic Design as an art form. Chan-try believes that the fact businesses are now staying in-house for their designs and using designers as the engineers for making designs come to life is ridiculous and destroys graphic designers’ credibility.

serving as Art Director for Seattle’s free tabloid, The Rocket, he coordi-nated artists and designers alike on a low budget, creating inspiring work that continue to be admired.Although Chantry has been design-ing through the time of transition to designing on computers, he has refused to turn to technology and in fact frequently speaks out against it.

Also,

Band Logos(left): Tribute poster

8

“and because everybody has got a computer now, and everybody can buy a design disk, prices are dropping and we have to buy $20,000 worth of equipment just to main-tain the lowest level of competency, and at the same time we’re expected to take on all these additional skills at no extra charge. I mean, how long are we gonna put up with this shit? That’s ridiculous. That’s just absurd. But everybody in the design industry just embraces it as “it’s progress, it’s wonderful,” but it’s not when you think about it, we’re just getting screwed.”

(top): 1996 t-shirt design (Right): Poster for 1986 Give Peace a Dance for Legs Against Arms

9

Chantry, Art. Interview by Jaime Sheehan. Per-sonal interview. Seat-tle, Washington, May 1, 1998. “Hot Head: The Art Chan-

try Interview.” Estrus

Records. http://www.

estrus.com/interviews/

hothead.html (accessed

April 23, 2013).Lasky, Julie, and Art Chantry. Some people can’t surf: the graphic design of Art Chantry. San Francis-co: Chronicle Books, 2001.

“MoMA PS1: Exhibitions:

Art Chantry: Greatest Hits,

Vol. 1 .” MoMA PS1. http://

momaps1.org/exhibitions/

view/197 (accessed April

23, 2013).

WoRkSCiTeD

DesiGned pRintedaNd

bYHuGh

MccoRmIck-