In 2009, I gave one of my little talks about my work and ideas to a chapter of the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts, a professional design organization) in Cleveland, Ohio. Mike Burton (of Little Jacket Design) created this wonderful poster to advertise the event. It reads “Art Chantry Speaks: Posters Yell.” The brilliant “censure” of my last name changes the meaning of the image to “ART SPEAKS.” The use of the black bar, the Xerox “rot” textures, the “distressed” typography and crude handwriting all reflect a lot of my own design passions and stylistic nuances. Yet, Mike was able to push this image into a much higher concept that took on a more universal resonance.
For instance, within a year or so, a clothing company in Asia started to market the principal type (with my name cancelled out just like you see) on T-shirts for popular sale. As I understand it, the AIGA had their lawyers approach the company and send them a legal “cease and desist” order to stop the bootlegging of “their” copyrighted design. All of this was done without my knowledge. I was told about it some time later.
The photograph of the T-shirt on the back cover was taken by Vincent Chung on a trip (to Thailand, I seem to recall), where he spotted this version of the image still being sold on the street by bootleg vendors. Notice how cleverly they got past the legal “cease and desist” order! They simply altered the text to read “Art Chantry SREAKS, Poster Yell ‘Oh My God!’” (with my last name still crossed out with the censor bar). This is an amazing example of how the language of design takes on a life of its own when projected (like it always has been) INTO a shared cultural dialog.
So, now, I’m taking the whole thing back and using it as the title of this book. However, due to fears of spelling/title confusion, I’m self-correcting the title with LabelMaker. The world goes ’round and ’round and spills out here (for the moment).
NOTE: For all you Seattle people, that coffee ring on the cover is from The Dog House, c. 1992.