What Fonts Say

METRO sits down with creative typeface master Chank Diesel to talk text

Sesame Street, Doctor Seuss and video games inspired Chank Diesel's love of fonts.

Image credit: John Wallace

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Chank Diesel not only has a cool name, but he also has a pretty cool job. As the founder of Chank Co, an independent type foundry based in Minneapolis, Diesel knows how to get creative and think beyond ho-hum Helvetica. His work has been featured everywhere from Taco Bell wrappers, Tanqueray billboards, Ocean Spray bottles, and movie posters. 

Diesel will join Craig Eliason, associate professor of art history at the University of St. Thomas and principal of the digital type foundry Teeline Fonts, at the Minneapolis Institute of Art on Thursday for CrossTalk: What Fonts Say.

In anticipation of the event, METRO caught up with Diesel about to talk about his creative process, his design inspirations, and the fonts we all need to beware of.  

METRO: How did find your way into the font-designing business? 

Chank Diesel: I didn't like the fonts that were available, so I started making new ones. I started making fonts for myself to use in a music magazine I worked on called CAKE. I've always enjoyed drawing the alphabet, but that's where I started making fonts.

What is your design process like? For example, how do go from zero to "Condensed Milk Geometric Handwriting” (one of my personal favorites)?

It’s different for every font. Sometimes they start with a pencil sketch, other times they begin as perfect computer vectors, or sometimes I'll make a real 3D alphabet out of objects, photograph it and use that as the basis for a font. I am always looking for fun new ways to make fonts. 

Since typeface and font design are often the first impression many people have of a company or product, what's your process like when you're designing something specifically for a company or product? 

I listen to the client as best I can and try to come up with the best solution for the project. The agency or designer who hires me to make a font for a brand knows a lot more about their product than I do, so I try to be a good listener.  The actual process is usually: listen to the client, sketch, present, listen some more, refine, refine, refine. Then I kern it and hit the "generate fonts" button. 
 
What/who are some of your design inspirations or influences? 

Sesame Street is my earliest influence, as well as Doctor Seuss. And lots of video games when I was a kid. My earliest fonts were all based on vintage logos that only had five or six letters but no real font made yet, so I made it. Oh, and the Bauhaus school of design. My influences come from all over the place.

Do you have a particular disdain for any commonly used font that you just wish people would stop using (personal note: mine is Comic Sans)?

Oh I have particular disdain for lots of particular fonts for lots of reasons. H*lvetica is the worst. When I see it I close my eyes and turn my head away.  But I like Comic Sans, because it helps alert us to who it is that would actually use Comic Sans. Those are the people you got to watch out for. Comic Sans itself is pretty harmless, but the people who use it are downright dangerous. 

From national food chains to movie posters, your fonts have been everywhere. What's one of the coolest, or most unexpected project that has come your way through your career in font designing?

When they used my Liquorstore font to write a Dutch poem all over a skyscraper in Antwerp and I didn't find out about it until five years afterward. Whoa! It's here.  

+ Learn more Diesel’s affair with fonts at CrossTalk:What Fonts Say, which will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2400 3rd Ave. S, Mpls. Tickets are $15 for the public and $10 for MIA and AIGA members. For more information visit artsmia.org.