d.i.y. head, hands, and a little attitude…
by Art Chantry ( art@artchantry.com):
Back in the days when I taught design classes (i did that off-and-on for some 18 years), there was one little project that I always gave right out of the gate as my very first assignment. It was very simple: you have to do a punk poster for a friend’s band (i’d make up a nonsense name on the spot.) you have one day to do it, and zero budget – $50 (that includes all the expenses – including printing 200 posters). your job is to whip up a great poster you’re proud of, that does the task beautifully and you can proudly put in your portfolio. and you have to make a big profit enough to buy a 6-pack of beer afterwards to celebrate. It’s amazing how FEW students could do that assignment and turn and still have a beer. the idea of starting with absolutely nothing and and doing something great was completely foreign to their thinking. making money? well, the idea of a budget and what it implies never ever crossed their minds before.
AC:that's because graphic design is always taught in art departments, even though it isn't about art at all. so, the 'fine art mavens' hire loser boob artists to teach it (so they can afford to do their 'real art'). basically they hire THEMSELVES to teach it. so sad.
As time went on and computers became the dominate method of design practice, my assignment stayed exactly the same – except for one little thing. I added: “computers have not been invented yet.” try to imagine a contemporary design student trying to do anything without a computer? many of my students were so confused and perplexed by my assignment that they would drop out of the class in frustration. they had NO idea how to do anything without a computer. It was sorta sad, really. they were absolutely crippled without their ‘magic box’. It was like they had no hands at all.
The biggest stumbling block time and time again (as i found out) was the issue of typography. sure, they could fake up a punk image – collage some crap clipped out of a magazine, or maybe a crude obscene drawing – that sort of cliched thinking. but the real barricade was lettering. most of them had never ever thought about creating lettering without a computer before. I’d try to explain to them that before computers we had all sorts of stuff to make lettering with: pencils, pens, press-type, type clipped from old printed objects. we had label-makers and stencils and handwriting. we even made lettering with stamps made from potatoes! and we could actually DRAW type with our bare hands!! that last one really stunned them. It had just never before occurred to many of them that all of this stuff can be made by hand. I saw some burst into tears in frustration. the work they turned in was universally dismal as well. they just couldn’t figger it out.
---(The album cover) was Nate Kato's (of Urge Overkill) idea. Put it this way, we were at the Rainbo taking pictures because I'm doing some sequences for my video of me singing into photo booth pictures mouthing various parts of the sentence, which we were going to like flip in. It sort of fully didn't come off so I'm going to probably do it in the next video. We're just going to stick in some now. But I've been doing this for months, going to the Rainbo and doing some more photo essays as I like to call them. And he got me to take my shirt off while I was doing this and I went back into the booth and I had my big coat on and stuff, and then I brought out the product and we were all just sitting around and he was like, "This is the album cover! This is the cover!" I don't know if you know him, but he has this brilliant sort of way of just being like, "This is absolutely...and this is so '90's! And we, Urge! If anyone knows what '90's are, Urge are!" I mean I don't think that is particularly true, but he cropped it, he said, "You have to crop it exactly like this!"--- Read More:http://www.photobooth.net/music/index.php?albumID=11
Back in the 1990’s, I was approached by a small indie label that was issuing and old live recording by the late great punk band “pussy galore”. I jumped at the chance to do it, because I so loved that band. It’s always nice when you get to work on a project that you really cared about, ya know? designers rarely get to be picky about these things. we gotta make a living.
During the course of the project I had to work closely with Jon Spencer, the mainstay behind that band. he proved to be an affable and interested (and interesting) collaborator. we worked on the thing until we came up with a rather nifty design that I still am rather proud of. but, that’s not my point here.
To do this cover properly, I needed a clean copy of the old pussy galore logotype to work with. so, Jon sent me a package of old stuff from back when the band was still gigging around to lift a logo from. one of the things he sent me was this great old poster – all type! apparently, this is where the original lettering for the logo came from.
This great little 11×17 b&w cheapo poster was designed by Nate Kato – the lead singer from the band “urge overkill ” (another really great American touring punk band from that same period). Nate Kato also did all his band’s design work and has proven himself to be a remarkably talented and clever designer. Jon told me that he picked this type up and used it as the Pussy Galore logo to sorta piss off his buddy Nate, because this was never intended to be anything but just some poster lettering. so, it was all sort of a snarky joke.
But, what great lettering! I’ve always admired this stuff and was totally mystified how it was made. I assume he just drew it like some sort of blotty, blobby calligraphy. It’s so perfectly extreme and crusty and so absolutely reflecting the personality of Pussy Galore that I see it as perfection branding. brilliant!
I commented on it and Jon Spencer told me that Nate did this with a BLOW TORCH! apparently he cut it out of a metal sheet with a cutting torch! I have no idea if it’s true or not (some of the letterforms I find hard to imagine being created in that fashion). but, that’s what he told me. after that I was even more impressed by this type.
So, here was a guy faced with zero budget, an assignment that HAD to get done (or nobody would show up at the concert), a lotta attitude and a creative mind attached to a pair of hands. he basically had my assignment in front of him and went to work. I used to try and try and TRY to explain to my students that all of this stuff we call graphic design can be built our of ANYTHING. look around you and use your imagination. It’s a gold mine of wonder and creation surrounding us everywhere. Nate Kato picked up his cutting torch, grabbed a sheet of metal laying around and used the crude lettering he created as a piece of perfect graphic design. so brilliant. why can’t we all just think like that?
Right now there is a huge fad of “hand drawn lettering”. It’s become so commonplace that it’s the latest ‘computer fad.’ the idea that you can do things with your hands that a computer can’t is nothing at all new, but the idea that you still have to origin it via the digital realm (aka, ‘hand drawn type fonts”) is a real groaner. It’s just so fraudulent. billboards and auto adverts and everywhere you turn there’s all these really crummy inappropriate hand-lettered type faces that are trying to, what? look cool? indie? folksy? alt? REAL? it’s crazy. and so so lame.
If a student walked in with a solution to my little assignment that echoed the meat-headed cliched look of the “hand drawn type” use we see tidal waving over us today, I’d groan. I’d carefully explain the problem and then flunk him (aka- the ‘client’ rejects the design). the computer design method is so good at copy-catting everything so fast that even the time honored practice of ‘hand work’ is becoming just another fad digital cop-out “look” (you can’t even really call it a style’.)
Read More:http://www.amazon.com/Saturation-Urge-Overkill/dp/B000000OTA/ref=ntt_mus_ep_dpi_1
however Nate Kato would have gotten an “A+”.
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