No, no, no....I don't see Chester as either a genius or the original. He too learned and was influenced by others whom he admired. What you see in CC's work is just that, work. Calling him a genius overlooks and disregards all the hard work, sweat and study he put into his signs. It's too easy to justify our own shortcomings by saying he was 'gifted' and then go back, push print and slap some crap down on a piece of corro.
I see flaws in his work, just as any signwriter does. It's the overall package that is outstanding. What made Chester great was his passion and curiosity, pride and his love for what he did. Waiting around for hours to photograph his work in the best light conditions is called passion and perfectionism.
All the newbies out there (and the rest of us) would do themselves a benefit by studying or revisiting his work. If you break his designs down, they use a minimum of elements in such clever ways. He didn't use embellishment to get his signs noticed, he used colour, simple graphics and good layout. Some of his work may look familiar, but it never looks old. Simple reason is that his style has been copied (for want of a better word) so much and so often that it's become somewhat of the norm.
If you were a signwriter back in the day and got your hands on Chesters' book, you could be forgiven for thinking that before Chester, there was nothing....his work is that good.
