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More on Modern Times Designers

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Site Man
Posts: 573
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2005 1:03 am
Location: Marlborough, MA

More on Modern Times Designers

Post by Site Man »

OLD FORUM POSTS

Posted by Rick Sacks on December 03, 2001
As I remember back in the early-mid seventies, the sign world was being rocked by a whole new approach to prioritizing copy, color use, panels, logo design, etc. This guy from the south named Chester Cunningham kinda turned my world upside down. Many of us tried to copy his style when the right occassion appeared.

Since then, most of the leading edge of sign design has be coming from the earlier influences. Lotsa turn of the century stuff and layouts from old books and posters.

Do we have anything fresh on the horizon?
Mike Jackson
Hi Rick,
Part of the issue you bring up stems from the clientelle a certain group tries to sell to on a daily basis. Noel Weber and Mark Oatis, for example, both live in towns that are "historically aware" of their past and have a fairly large base of customers trying to keep the look of their town from vanishing under the strip malls. When we first moved to Jackson Hole, the town slogan was "The Last and the Best of the Old West". We sold that concept into almost all the signs we helped design. The Chester Cunningham designs worked much better back in Oklahoma than here. The fact that I liked the old time flavor drew me to this area in the first place, so it was natural that we kept it up. I suspect you deal with quite a few of the same issues in Mendocino, and less in Ft. Bragg.

Whether we like it or not, the new fresh stuff is the MTV generation "grunge" look. That has slowed a little, it seems. Go check out the graphics on the new skateboards and snowboards....cutting edge new work and I like most of it.

Have a great week! Good luck on your recovery, too.

Mike
Raymond Chapman
Rick, I certainly agree that Chester turned my world upside down, too. While his approach was drastically different from what I was seeing around me in my part of Texas, he said that his designs were actually from the influence of earlier signmen in the Chicago area, like the Beverly brothers (I think that was the name) and the Seelanders.

One of my most powerful influences(along with Chester's) came from Mike Jackson and Gary Anderson, who were doing cutting edge work in my estimation because it was so much different from what I had been seeing. Certainly others could not be excluded either: Noel and Mark Oatis from the early days and a whole long list of more present day influences.

It would be interesting to see what a drastic change from today's work would look like. Being that I am reaching upward in age, I probably would not like the image.

I do know that I have no inclination toward what I see in the youth oriented materials around me. Lettersytles that look like they have been photocopied a hundred times and then waded up or torn to pieces is just not my idea of pretty.


Carol
Don't forget Carl Rohrs. I think he is cutting edge and not derivative of some other time.
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