Art Chantry Speaks: A Heretic's History of 20th Century Graphic Design

There used to be a time when designers were trained in the history of composition. Now you just buy a f#$kin' piece of software and now you've become a designer.

"Art Chantry . . . Is he a Luddite?" asks a Rhode Island School of Design poster promoting a Chantry lecture. "Or is he a graphic design hero?"

For decades this avatar of low-tech design has fought against the cheap and easy use of digital software. Chantry's homage to expired technology, and his inspired use of Xerox machines and X-Acto blade cuts of printed material, created a much-copied style during the grunge period and beyond.

Chantry's designs were published in Some People Can't Surf: The Graphic Design of Art Chantry (Chronicle Books), exhibited at the Seattle Art Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian, and the Louvre.

Chantry has drawn upon his extraordinary collection of twentieth-century graphic art to create compelling histories of the forgotten and unknown on essays he originally posted on his Facebook page. These essays might lionize the unrecognized illustrators of screws, wrenches, and pipes in equipment catalogs. Other posts might reveal how some famous artists were undeservedly recognized.

Art Chantry Speaks is the kind of opinionated art history you've always wanted to read but were never assigned.