Disorder
Chris Ashworth

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. Recently, his expressive personal work has led him to design for a range of clients including New Order, Monster Children magazine, Nike and Bush.

Ashworth sees his work – craft-based, handmade – as a counterpoint to our screen-dependent digital culture. It’s the manifestation of an alternative view which argues that creative development away from the computer offers unique and precious merits. Disorder: Swiss Grit Volume II, the first publication to survey his work, celebrates this approach to graphic design over nearly 500 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 analogue design, the details, imperfections and happy accidents. An AI-free-zone.

“Anyone who knows me, or follows my Instagram feed @ashworthchris, will be well aware of my ‘hoarding superpowers’,” Ashworth says. “My vast archive has enabled me to cherry pick the ‘best-of’ from over 40 boxes. In the book, this work is accompanied by numerous pieces of new design and typography that have been made especially for the publication.” Disorder: Swiss Grit Volume II is the second book of a proposed two-volume set that Ashworth hopes to publish and covers work made from 1997 to 2024. Its prequel, Swiss Grit Volume I is slated to follow and focus on projects created from 1990 through to 1997.