Creators: Chank Diesel

Chank Diesel is an artist at Chank Co. in Minneapolis, making cool fonts and paintings, and is one of my early Internet heroes from the mid-90s. Follow him on Twitter at @chankfonts.

1) What have you been making lately?

Chank: Mostly custom fonts for embedding in new video games and other apps. And updating my old fonts to look better on the web. And I just finished about ten paintings & a big public art mural, working on the next one now. So as per usual I’ve been making fonts and paintings lately.

2) What’s your favorite and/or newest tool that you use for work?

My favorite tool for fontmaking right now is a pencil! Sometimes I feel like I could take over the world with a pencil and a ream of paper. I like sketching things and refinining, detailing, erasing. I like erasers a lot!

I’ve been painting with some cool new aerosol acrylics from a company called Montana. The pigments are real rich, the coverage is great and the colors you get to choose from are delightful. Artist-grade spray paint, such a treat.

3) What’s your favorite and/or newest tool that you use for fun?

I’ve been riding my bike a ton lately. Minneapolis is a great city to ride a bike in. I like that my bicycle doesn’t need any gas, it always starts and never breaks. I bought from a friend ten years ago for $100. It is a good bike, a 15-speed Marin.

4) What’s something great you’ve read lately?

Just finished the new Malcolm Gladwell book, “What the Dog Saw.” I think Gladwell is so smart, I’d read anything he writes. I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s blog a lot, I like his sentiment. Oh and sixwordstoryeveryday.com is always a favorite because they are such good, concise, typographic stories daily.

5) Who should I interview for this series?

How about Mike Doughty maybe? He’s in Brooklyn, @Mike_Doughty_ on Twitter. He’s a musician and a poet, but I bet he’s got a gadget or two that he likes. He’s working on drawing a font for me to make for him.

“Creators” is a new SplatF feature, highlighting my favorite creative-types and the tools they use for work and fun.