Art was pretty much an obvious choice, but Chen's education, like everything in his life, turned out to be unorthodox. Enrolled in a conservative design program at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Chen soon outraged his teachers by imitating David Carson, then a nascent force at Beach Culture. "I didn't learn anything from school," he admits. "I got most of my training from watching graphics on TV." His schooling also came from design books, which he frequently buys.
Once out of school, Chen worked in several places, but finally built his reputation on the site he maintains at Typographic.com (U.S). He initially launched it as a reaction to a creative director who once told him that "design is not type," but it has since evolved considerably.
"I use Typographic to talk about my emotions," he says, "It's really a personal work, a graphical diary. I've never put my name on it anywhere."
Needless to say, Chen eschews any serious attempt to articulate his design philosophy. "The process is simple," an earlier version of his own site reads, "You do this. You do that. Put this into that. It's done."