Meet the York College graduate who designed two Microsoft Windows desktop images and a music legend's book

Chris Ashworth started a two-year York School of Art HND course in Graphic Design during 1988 at what was then known as York College of Arts & Technology.

He had completed a BTEC OND (Ordinary National Diploma) at the Southport School of Art that summer, having left school in the Sefton seaside town with just one O Level in Art. 

But the inspiration he went on to garner from his College tutors has led Chris to still recognise “100 per cent” that, 35 years on, none of what he has gone on to achieve would have been possible without the York School of Art, where he enjoyed the last formal education of his life.

Having started out designing flyers for nightclubs such at Toffs in York, one of Chris’ biggest breaks came when he was handed the responsibility of creating the brochure and promotional material for the first MTV Europe Music Awards in 1994.

He would go on to become a leading design figure in 1990s music magazine culture – a job that involved him putting together front covers featuring some of the biggest bands and singers on the planet. 

It was work that saw him meet the likes of Britpop legends Blur and supermodel Helena Christensen and resulted in him working all over the world in places like Russia, India, Holland, Sweden and America, where he fulfilled a childhood dream of living in LA.

During this period in his life, Chris also spent a week in Michael Stipe’s summer house, helping the REM lead singer design his new book. 

Stipe’s previous guests just days earlier had been Nirvana legend Kurt Cobain and his wife Courtney Love!

Going on to land top Creative Director roles running in-house studios with Getty Images, Nokia and Microsoft, Chris’ talents proved to be just as on brand and in demand in a more corporate world and, now a freelancer, his clients have included the likes of New Order, Nike, Diesel and Adobe.

A constant throughout this highly impressive journey, though, has been an adherence to the skills and style he first nurtured as a York School of Art student.

Even the sub-title of his new book “Disorder: Swiss Grit Vol. II” harks back to those formative years.

On the appeal of York and the city’s college in the late 1980s, Chris recalled: “As well as York having the most pubs per square inch in the UK at the time, it just felt right. It seemed like a place I could enjoy living in and the train access made it easy to travel home to Liverpool.

“The course also had a strong focus on typography, which really interested me, as did the illustration course run by the legendary Roger Hallam. It wasn’t the usual illustration course. 

“He taught a huge variety of craft, especially cut and paste, and one of his lessons had the single biggest impact on my career, which I talk about in my new book. The ‘Swiss’ part of the title is also reflective of my time at York when I was introduced to the Swiss movement of the 1950s and 60s by another tutor Jim Deans.

“The tutors taught me everything about the principles of Swiss graphic design and that’s the basis for all great design in my opinion. If it wasn’t for the quality of that tuition, I wouldn’t be where am I now – 100%. Those two years at York from 1988 to 1990 were my last in education and had the biggest impact on my career.”

Chris describes his College-influenced creative approach – termed Swiss Grit - as “a blend of Swiss principles fused with a typographic street aesthetic that brings some soul”.

His passion for graphic design, meanwhile, first manifested itself in childhood.

“I grew up in the 80s and, whilst at school, I would make covers for my VHS cassette boxes reflecting the movies I was taping,” he explained. “That’s where I first did layout via cut and paste - cutting up old magazines. 

“I also used to make scrapbooks whilst on my summer holidays to the South of France.”

Encouraged by his mum, whose friend was an art teacher, Chris then began to consider the subject as a potential vocational pathway. 

After completing his HND, he took his first steps into the industry when he set up a small business Orange Typography – “we came before the telecoms thing!” he points out – with two good friends he had made on the College course.

The gifted trio were soon producing “an enormous amount of club flyers for the North of England”, quickly growing too big for the spare room in the house they shared in Knavesmire and moving to a back office in Gillygate’s Depth Charge Records store, where they also designed the shop front and the company’s brand identity.   

With bigger cities established as more advantageous hubs for graphic designers back in the early-to-mid 90s, before digital advancements made the world smaller, Chris decided to first move to Sheffield and then London. 

His willingness to put himself out there during those formative years and make his work known to as many people as possible would also propel him onto the international stage – quite literally. 

“I wrote a letter to MTV when I was working in Sheffield asking if they had any work for us,” he remembered. “I included samples, they liked my work and, from there, it just snowballed. 

“Back then, I would ring people in London that I admired and drive down for a long day with my portfolio - meeting anyone that would see me. I was a travelling design salesman of sorts, because you had to get up and get out there. The work wasn’t going to find you.”

An opportunity to design Blah Blah Blah Magazine in London followed, before he was given the thrilling chance to become Ray Gun Magazine’s Art Director across the Atlantic. 

“In 1996, I won a design pitch with my great friend Neil Fletcher, who was also from York College, to design Blah Blah Blah Magazine,” he said. “It was a joint venture between MTV and Ray Gun and, after that, I got the Ray Gun job in LA designing a monthly mag.

“The day I landed in LA it felt like home. I’d grown up watching movies in the 80s and the LA and American ones always resonated. 

“As soon as I saw the palm trees and the wide streets, it just felt familiar. It’s still my favourite place and I designed 15 issues of Ray Gun from front to back, 120 pages every month. 

“There were no grids. It was a case of starting from scratch with each issue and it was the greatest time of my life.”

In that role, Chris designed covers focusing on all the biggest stars of the era, including Oasis, David Bowie and U2.

Perks, meanwhile, included receiving an advanced copy of Radiohead’s Grammy and BRIT Award-winning album OK Computer, leading to the production of a front cover on the Oxfordshire band being remembered as a “special time”.

He also recalls rock group Jane’s Addiction as the hardest band to please, but that REM’s Michael Stipe – the unmistakable voice of hits such as Everybody Hurts and Losing My Religion - could not have been more hospitable.

Chris designed Stipe’s book, “Two Times Intro: On the road with Patti Smith” and admitted: “That was a dream project. I went out to his house in Athens, Georgia for a week and stayed in a summer house in his back garden where Kurt and Courtney had stayed the week before. 

“We would work in his kitchen all day, paginating his photographs of Patti Smith on the road with her band. Then, I went back to LA to design the book.”

Subsequently, he was made Executive Global Creative Director at Getty Images – a role he fulfilled from 1999 to 2007, before other similar corporate positions running in-house studios followed with Nokia (2008-2009) and Microsoft (2010-2023). 

Happily, he found that he did not have to sacrifice any of his artistic values in the new working environment, reasoning: “It’s all creative problem solving. One is impulsive, the other (corporate work) responsive.” 

Detailing his career highlights with each household-name organisation, Chris revealed two projects that will be familiar to pretty much anybody who has opened a laptop or turned on a screen monitor over the past decade, having led the Microsoft Windows 10 desktop image rebrand and launch campaign and Microsoft Windows 11 desktop image launch campaign. 

“At Getty Images in Seattle, I turned a production team of 25 people into a respected Creative Studio,” he said. “At Nokia, I learned how to present to large audiences around the world and keep them engaged and, at Microsoft, I twice led the creation of the Windows desktop image used across billions of screens and in marketing campaigns around the world.

“That required top-to-bottom leadership from ideation to the final asset across three different organisations within one of the biggest corporations in the world.”

Chris is now enjoying running his own business again with the likes of Nike and English rock royalty New Order calling on his services. 

“Both brands believed in me and hired me for my creativity and design approach,” he pointed out. “I had specific briefs but also a lot of creative freedom to bring something original to the table.”

Chris’ working life has also coincided with the graphic design industry’s largescale shift from traditional print to digital media, but he maintains that he is still heavily reliant on the same skills he was taught as a York School of Art student 35 years ago.

“I’ve never transitioned to more computer-based work,” he declared. “I guess I used the PC more from 2010 to 2023 at Microsoft but that was for email!

“I use the computer for typesetting large amounts of body copy and for production, but 75% of what I do is still handmade. Making things with your hands is rewarding, original and good for the soul and your mental state.”

Understandably, therefore, Chris has reservations concerning the rise of DIY graphic design tools such as Canva, who use AI (Artificial Intelligence) to produce assets.  

“The greatest human gift is creativity and I’m not just referring to the field of design,” he argues. “AI may well prove to enable humans to spend less time on mundane work and more time being creative and driving things but, for now, it is something that I am keeping at arm’s length. My fundamental issue with it right now is that it is allowed to scrape 30 years of my work without my consent!”

Chris has welcomed our recent relaunch of the York School of Art, meanwhile, following a number of years in which its identity had become a little lost, pointing out that it is important for students to belong to a creative community in the city and generate a sense of pride from it. 

“The creative community is one of the most important things we have to inspire us, to connect us and to keep us thriving,” Chris said. “The York School of Art should never have gone away. 

“It was a great programme and, although York wasn’t a big-name college, it delivered an incredible curriculum and it’s great to see the name back.”

As was the case for himself in the early 1990s, meanwhile, Chris believes there are “always opportunities” for modern-day York School of Art graduates looking to carve out a creative career.

His advice? “Understand technology. Be doggedly determined. And be creatively brave.”

To order a copy of Chris' book “Disorder: Swiss Grit Vol. II”, please click here 

More examples of his work can be viewed here

Information on our BA (Hons) Graphic & Communication Design can be found here

For details on our full offering of York School of Art adult and degree-level courses, visit here

Visit our next Open Event on Thursday, 19th June (5.30pm-7.30pm), meanwhile, to meet tutors and discuss any of our courses. Register a place here