Mike Chandler’s funeral 1.30pm this Friday Jan 18 at Macquarie Park; wake at Palm Beach Golf Club
January 17 2019, 7:02 am | | 2 Comments
The funeral service for the great Mike Chandler, who passed away late last week, will take place at 1.30pm this Friday, January 18, at Macquarie Park Cemetery and Crematorium, opposite Northern Suburbs Crematorium, cnr Delhi Road and Plassey Road, Macquarie Park.
Following the service a wake will be held from 4pm to 7pm at the Palm Beach Golf Club, 2 Beach Road, Palm Beach.
Note from photographer Derek Hughes on this famous MADC poster from the early 80s: “Mike as Pav..early 80’s. Shot in my Melbourne studio, a dinner suit just arrived out of nowhere by courier.. then Lionel & Mike after a big Melbourne lunch…. the ad for Face drawn on a napkin…the only job Lionel ever art directed with me…a fun arvo!”
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To think I’m lucky enough to have worked with this man, and to have ordered type and sat and watched him craft it. Lucky me.
Once Mike asked me if I would do an ad for Face. The Type Workshop. It was such an honour to be asked, considering all the great work he had produced for Face over the years, I was determined to do something good. I wrote an ad that had sort of quirky observations about interesting letters of the alphabet all on one page. And the strapline was: We know a lot about type.
Mike liked the idea so much he said, “Why not do them as separate ads?” Which of course made it great. We did that and then he wanted an ad for every letter. It took me about a year to research and write but it worked.
A few years later, Stan May called me and asked if I would go to the Adelaide office of Leo Burnett and help sort out some problems they were having there with a campaign.
I said, “Sure.”
Then he asked me, “Who do want to take as your Art Director?”
I said, “Mike Chandler.”
Stan thought that was a good idea and Mike was free to go and consequently I got to spend time over a couple of months living and working closely with him. After a couple of weeks in a hotel, they put us up in a beautiful little house near South Terrace. I can’t say it was all smooth sailing and he is not a good man to share a bathroom with but this is where I got to know him best. Working until late at night, going out for dinner somewhere and then farting all the way home.
We would talk about what a great place Adelaide was and speculated idly about taking advantage of the cheap real estate, buying a building there and starting a company. And we shared life stories, as you do. We also travelled all around Adelaide and the Barossa producing the campaign and along the way we met some terrific people and enjoyed some great food and wine.
I wish we could do it all again.