Art Chantry isn’t a graphic designer, he’s a commercial artist. Also, although his name may be art, he is most certainly not an artist, he prefers the term “MindFucker.” He started design through normal interests, comic books & TV are among other things he categorized as “American Trash Culture.” Ironically, while we’re taking about trash, he collected a ton of that working as a garbage man. However, unlike the rest of his Co workers he kept the cool trash to bring home and turn into advertisements.
A man born in Seattle surrounded by cults and cereal killers. In his words, “This place is weird.” Before college, he was interested in psychedelic art among other things. His first job as a designer was fairly tame. A student at his school asked him to write his girlfriend’s name on a type of folder they carried around called a “pee chee.” Art, being well versed in psychedelic type was able to write it out and earn his first payment as a designer, $5. He then went on to design for a guitar company
which raised his rate to $25, but his first design went arguably better as the guy actually used the folder, unlike the guitar shop that did not use his logo. After college is where things seem to get interesting. Seattle was the place to be for crazy rock/punk bands doing crazy things. These were Chantrys people, people who “ work hard, they’re fat, and they’re ugly,” and musicians who were “ugly people, making ugly sounds.” Chantry had a corporate job at this point in Seattle at the red rocket.
You would think working at a publication where the editor (Robert Newman) describes you as “a brilliant visual storyteller. In the trenches as an editorial designer, he’s just masterful.” would be a comfortable job but Chantry wasn’t happy there. He made a lot of work for corporate companies there which he found to be miserable. So instead of being miserable, he decided to make a pact with himself that he would only take work he wanted to do and was interested in doing from people he deemed to not
be “Assholes.” Money was the last thing on the list, and suddenly, he enjoyed his work again.
In the 90s he designed a lot for musicians who followed the same ideals as he did. Explained by Jack Endino, a record producer in the documentary “Hype” which speaks about the exposure of Seattle “grunge” music “No one was too worried about success, we know we knew we were in seattle , it wasn’t LA, no one was going to come and sign us”. These people did what they did because they loved it and for no other reason & it was in this movement that Chantry fit right in. However, Chantry clearly isn’t
a fan of the mainstreaming of Seattle punk culture, or grunge, as he is shown cutting up copies of valuable band posters. Just in case anyone forgot how these grunge posters were meant to be treated. In another interview he reinforces this by saying he doesn’t feel his work belongs hung up in a museum like art because it belonged stapled and duct taped to telephone poles surrounded by other posters begging for your attention. His work was never meant to be an art, but an advertisement displayed
through art. As cool and artistic as they are, they are still a commercial art created to sell a product. If the people in Pompeii writing “eat at this restaurant” are not artists to you, then chantry isn’t likely to want you calling him one either. In his words, calling a designer an artist is like calling a dentist a doctor.
Chantry made his way back to Tacoma, where he was raised, the “unacknowledged cultural center of the galaxy” to continue his work once Seattle had been fully lost to mainstream culture. He had created a style that was weird and different using an array of physical techniques, taking after his friend David Carson and enjoying every printer mistake he could. His relationship with Carson seems to be an interesting one, he mentions Carson has told him about a list he has of design rules he intends to
break as frequently as possible. Chantry doesn’t seem interested in purposely breaking traditional design principles, however, he does intend to break every cultural boundary he can. They also both simply love trash. Errors other people toss are their treasures. It’s hard to say how they feel about each other, other than being compared to Carson is something Chanty doesn’t know “whether to be flattered or insulted” by.
On the surface, Chantrys work is quirky, shocking, possibly disturbing, and more but is all more than just rebellion. Every piece he puts out has a strong commentary on the world around him and deep thought into how people think. He is at his core a manipulator, a propagandist, a “Mind fucker”, and proud. Unlike many designers who shy away, or are even completely offended by the concept that they are helping big businesses manipulate the public, he knows what he does and that he does it well. You
would think a man taking pieces of his work strait from the garbage would have less of a process but perhaps that’s just what he wants you to think. Art is very aware of how organization, context, and more affect people’s perception and his work is far from accidental. This is not fine art, this is not jackson pollock style random, this is propaganda. He knows that symbolism is ingrained in us all the way back to prehistoric times and the power that they have for people whether they are consciously
aware of it or not. He truely asks the question “how can we trust designers”. He has a deep understanding of how advertising works, and he uses it to help him decide what to do with his designs. He says he uses personality heavily in his work, something the rest of us have now decided to call branding to his dismay. He is very aware of the power designers weld through having this visual language at their disposal to manipulare a viewer into changing their mind or buying a product. He has also pointed
out how insane it is that we as designers give this power away so readily for some money. We help people get elected to run our country, we tell people to vote, and how to vote. How we do it behind the shield of “well it’s just a job”.
When working with bands, he mentions he is there interpreter, with music, they are their own version of shakespeare, but communicating normally to create posters for their events is not their strong suit. So he must understand what the band is about and how they want their audience to perceive them in order to create his designs. Therefore when putting these posters out into the world, he knew he needed to stand out to his people, but not everyone else, they had their own visual and actual language
to communicate with one another. Art had to become comfortable with these ques, and their meanings to create posters that caught the eye of who he wanted to attract. He says the people “spoke ugly”, so to communicate with them, he couldn’t “speak pretty”.
The age of technology hit him in a weird way. Whenever tech takes a big step forward, he says he takes a big step back. He uses the computer but not because he wants to, according to him “no printer will accept work on anything but digital format”. He still works as similarly as possible to what he once did but now he has to work within the limitations of his scanner. He works alot with collage and other physical ways of designing but this all happens after he’s spent some time designing the piece
in his head. His favorite piece was the work he did for Estrus records because of the client’s willingness to be involved in the process and not just the product. He says the graphics were “trendsetting, ans sparked a lot of subcultural history”. However, when speaking on his title “the granddaddy of grunge” he mentions while he was happy to be a part of such a large cultural shift, he never wants to experience it again. While this fame may have been what allowed him the luxury of being able to stay
financially stable while only taking work he enjoys, he really prefers to remain an outcast. He’s been offered positions at microsoft and other large companies many times, 5 for microsoft alone, but he turns them down as he knows they are a bad fit for him.
Lastly, since this is a project for a graphic design class, I want to leave this with Art Chantry’s advice for students, “Carry a Gun”. I’m not sure what the exact meaning behind this is other than the obvious, but I believe he would tell us to stay true to ourselves and do work that makes us happy.
Keep it weird Art Chantry.