Chank Diesel, also known as Charles R. Andermack (née Anderson), is a contemporary

type designer Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below. A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...

. He was born in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and raised in the U.S. state of

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

Biography

Chank was born Charles Anderson, but neighbors called him "Chanky," after Spanky from the Little Rascals. The childhood name evolved to "Chank" as he grew up, and "Anderson" became "Andermack" when Chank married and combined his last name with that of his wife. Chank was educated at

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

St. Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

. He began designing

typefaces A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...

when he was

Creative Director A creative director (or creative supervisor) is a person who makes high-level creative decisions and, with those decisions, oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos. Creative director positions ar ...

for the alternative music magazine CAKE. During this time, he road-tripped back and forth across the country visiting designers at various record companies and earning himself the nickname "The Traveling Font Salesman." His fonts appeared on a number of album covers. Chank established his

type foundry A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and M ...

, Chank Fonts, in 1996, which he now operates from his home office in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

. He creates primarily display typefaces; typefaces with more personality than would usually be suitable for large bodies of text. His customers range from average computer users to professional designers. Chank creates custom fonts for corporations wanting exclusive rights to custom designed fonts, leading to his fonts' use on Taco Bell wrappers, Honeycomb cereal boxes, Tanqueray billboards, bottles of Ocean Spray cranberry drink, and movie posters for James and the Giant Peach. Chank sells his fonts (and also distributes free fonts) from his website
Chank.com
In addition to designing fonts, Chank conducts font workshops, where he explains the process of font design and creates new fonts with the help of attendees. Some of Chank's fonts were featured in the Smithsonian's

Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Inst ...

as "important examples of contemporary typography" in 1996. He was profiled in ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' in 1997. In 2008, he was featured in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' article "Down With Helvetica: Design Your Own Font." In addition to being a font designer, Chank is also a painter.

External links

Chank FontsTypophile Biography
* ttp://www.mnartists.org/article.do?rid=217589 DESIGN: ABCs for You and Me (The letters and labors of Chank Diesel)br>Video profile of Chank on TPT's "MN Originals"

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Diesel, Chank Canadian typographers and type designers Type foundries American designers People from Minneapolis Living people Macalester College alumni People from Florida Year of birth missing (living people)