Volume 21–2.pdf

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writing was used less extensively, because digital
fontography made eclectic design styles possible.
This anything-goes, high-tech potential
eventually contributed to a revived appreciation
of informal, personal handwriting in design.
The designers represented in this brief survey
tend to be influenced by either turn-ofthe-century
design which combined images
with words, or modern and contemporary
artists who wed letterforms to abstract and
narrative compositions.
The seamless weavings that characterize
JEFFREY FISHER'S book jackets for Soho Square
are art-based with communication as the goal.
By using raw handscrawls he avoids the otherwise
artificial imposition of formal typography
onto images that are rough by nature. In a
somewhat more refined manner, Fisher's hand-
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ART CHANTRY: Employs a seemingly untutored
brushstroke to approximate the hand of the
nail; religious signpainter in this back cover of
a Sub Pop recording by the Rev. Horton Heat.
ART CHANTRY'S scribble lettering for this Sub
Pop recording by the band Hole tests the limits
of legibility as it invites closer perusal.
writing on the front and back jackets of the
Bloomsbury Poetry Classics provides a stunning
counterpoint to the roughly painted decorative
patterns reprising the tradition of the classic
English King Penguin book series. Like Gorey's
Doubleday covers, Fisher's signature style distinguishes
his books from all others in the market.
Marks of Distinction While Fisher max-
imizes, another handwriting expert, JAMES
VICTORE, minimizes the use of excessive imagery.
His book jackets and posters are as spontaneous
as street art yet full of nuance and subtlety.
The handwriting is influenced by 196os Polish
posters where the personalized scrawl provided
intense dramatic effect. Yet what distinguishes
Victore's work from the earlier posters is its
almost Swiss design economy. His surfaces are
JAMES VICTORS: The side o' beef markings superimposed
on this soldier update this classic tale
of wartime horror. Victore's faux formal handwriting
provides a hauntingly discordant note.
34
JAMES VICTORS: Like jazz itself, Victore's
improvisational lettering underscores the subject
of this book of interviews with musicians.
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unencumbered by graphic minutia thus forcing
the handwriting to not only bear the textual,
but the illustrative weight of the composition.
A vivid example is his Racism poster which
looks like an overdrawn scribble, blown up ten
times its size, which effectively screams out the
idea for which it stands.
Unlike Victore's recognizable approach, ART
CHANTRY'S work is purposefully lacking in overt
stylistic identity. Chantry's lettering suggests
the hand of an untutored magic marker user
and the enterprise of a graffiti artist. Chantry is
known for conscripting ambient visual vocabularies
into the service of graphic design, and
one of the keys to his expertise is knowing when
to leave well enough alone. Although much of
his lettering is rewritten or redrawn based on
existing, vernacular models, the most deceptive