The first book dedicated to the career of Chris Ashworth, a truly hands-on graphic designer, charting his "Swiss Grit" approach from the influential Ray Gun magazine in the 1990s to his experimental type projects of today. Chris Ashworth balances a career as a sought-after creative director with a second life as an experimental designer and typographer, a path he first took in the early 1990s, designing flyers for clubs in the north of England. His inimitable hands-on approach to graphic design, exemplified in his work on two classics of ‘90s music magazine culture— Blah Blah Blah in the UK (designed with Neil Fletcher) and Ray Gun in the US—has won him legions of fans. His creative approach, termed “Swiss Grit,” “is a blend of Swiss principles fused with a typographic street aesthetic that brings some soul,” he says. Ashworth sees his work—craft-based, handmade—as a counterpoint to our screen-dependent digital culture. It’s the manifestation of an alternative view that argues that creative development away from the computer offers unique and precious merits. Disorder celebrates this approach to graphic design over nearly five hundred pages. Beginning with his influential work for Ray Gun and covering a wide range of printed and published work from 1997 to the present day, the book is concerned with the human craft of creativity and analog design, the details, imperfections, and happy accidents. An AI-free zone. Foreword by Marvin Scott Jarrett, with an afterword by Adrian Shaughnessy Designed by Chris Ashworth Published by Thames & Hudson, 2025 Hardcover, 488 pages, color images, 9.2 × 11.2 inches ISBN: 978-0-50-002906-0
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