Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design

work because his art isthe mechanical. “When I depart from the direct
hands-on approach my work gets somewhat rote and sterile, but being that
the mechanical is only a step away from reproduction it is closer to fresh
than other methods,” he said referring to the nineteenth-century method of
working directly on the litho stone.
When Chantry began he did not have access to typesetting
facilities, so he generated type by photocopying it from books, cutting it
out letter by letter, and pasting it into place with glue sticks. Each early
project, therefore, had its own personality. Some were image heavy/type
light and others were all type, enabling him to learn about the expression of
different letterforms. “When I make type decisions that interplay with an
image it is usually based on gut reaction. I might scan all my old type
books—or comic books and things like that—until I find something that
just feels right. I try to avoid type that clashes with my image.”
Sooner or later, the immediate advertising function ceases and a
poster becomes an artifact. Understanding this, Chantry has designed
certain posters,Propagandaincluded, that change over time—inks that fade
to reveal other aspects of the work, papers that deteriorate quickly.
Sometimes they included thematic ideas that changed with time. “I would
love for my posters to have an archaeological function, so that twenty years
from now, when people are researching certain aspects of this culture they
will be able to refer to my posters for reference to a historical moment.”