About

The CSA Images collection is the result of a life-long passion for advertising art by designer Charles Spencer Anderson, who discovered growing up in a small rural town in the center of Iowa, that the best escape from the monotony of small town life was an overactive imagination fed by a steady diet of 1960's and 70's comic books, monster magazines, and a love of drawing. In the early 1970's while still in high school, Charles met a retired commercial artist named Clyde Lewis, who had spent his entire career drawing advertising art for everything from matchbooks to menus.  All his illustrations, including the lettering, were created freehand with brush and ink. Clyde Lewis' talent and friendship inspired Charles to pursue an education in graphic design. When Clyde Lewis passed away, he left Charles his original artwork, which became the basis of the CSA Images collection. Later, when Charles attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), all of these low influences stood in direct opposition to the college's Swiss modernist design approach, which eventually instilled in Charles an understanding and appreciation of European modern design--even as it clashed with his passion for low-brow pop culture. 

After graduation, Charles was hired by his MCAD instructor and mentor Peter Seitz to work at his newly formed design firm. Peter attended the New Bauhaus in Ulm, Germany, and studied under design legends Otl Aicher and Max Bill. Peter continued his studies at Yale University and studied under Paul Rand, Herbert Matter, and Bradbury Thompson. After working for architect I.M. Pei, Peter was recruited to Minneapolis as the Design Director of the Walker Art Center.  Charles spent his first formative years working for Seitz. Then in 1985, Charles became the first designer recruited to join the newly established Duffy Design Group, an affiliate of Fallon McElligott & Rice advertising, and later became a partner. In 1989 with a single client, the French Paper Company, he formed Charles S. Anderson Design, which specializes in identity development, packaging, and product design. Unlike other design firms,  however, in addition to their highly recognized client work, CSA Design is unique in creating what has become one of the most extensive and well-respected archives of licensable artwork in existence. Painstakingly built over many decades. 

Over the years, CSA has created countless original photographs, illustrations, and design elements in addition to seeking out and acquiring entire collections of original art from copyright owners.  All told, CSA has spent hundreds of thousands of hours creating, commissioning, curating, and purchasing images in addition to researching historic materials for rights clearance and protecting and policing its original art and derivative works. 

CSA Images includes hand drawn original illustrations and photographs created by over one hundred talented designers, artists, and photographers who have worked with CSA Design over the decades.  The varied collections of CSA Images have been nearly 40 years in the making, starting with Clyde Lewis's original advertising art spanning his career from the 1930's-1970's, to the staggering amount of time spent searching through every conceivable type of historic printed material to find the small percentage of images out of millions that are aesthetically interesting enough to be considered for inclusion in the collection. These images are then simplified and made more graphic for impact, and in some cases redrawn or combined with other elements to change the context and convey new ideas. CSA Images also contains collections of original artwork work that have been commissioned and purchased over the years.

The constantly expanding CSA Images collection is continually inspired by the entire history of graphic design, and illustration from their origins in printing and commercial art through the digital age. It also continues to grow into different mediums and markets. In 2006, CSA Design, in collaboration with their long-time client the French Paper Company, launched a series of products under the Pop Ink brand.  Pop Ink products are backed by the extensive CSA Images library and printed on French Paper. 

The Charles S. Anderson (CSA) Design Company headquarters on First Street in Minneapolis was built in 1854. When CSA renovated the building, they worked with the Historic Preservation Commission to preserve the building's facade. The interior is completely modern.

The CSA building is a metaphor for much of CSA's work, which is modern, yet takes its inspiration from the history of design, illustration and typography.

A cross section of CSA Images shows the diverse illustration styles. CSA has evolved far beyond just the black and white line art that started the collection decades ago. It remains the most unique and highly esteemed modern design resource in existence. Unlike many vast, crowd-sourced collections containing millions of good, bad, and mediocre images that leave viewers overwhelmed and under inspired, CSA Images is the most tightly curated library of art available.

A 1980s designer passed out working on the first CSA Archive collection by hand with black & white ink (pre-computer). The first CSA Archive book of line art illustration contained 7,777 images and took seven years to complete.

CSA Archive The images shown here represent a small selection from tens of thousands of black and white CSA Archive images (vernacular line art). CSA's black and white Archive images are iconic, simple, powerful, and timeless. In contrast to a full-color, computer-rendered world, hand-drawn black and white images cut through the cyber slick digital clutter and powerfully express the true soul of illustration.

CSA Images is constantly expanding with tens of thousands of images online at CSAImages.com searchable by keyword.

Initially conceived to be used internally for their own design projects, CSA Images has since expanded and is now used by designers throughout the world.

CSA Images are included in museum collections throughout the world.

• The Museum of Modern Art, New York
• The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York
• The Nouveau Salon des Cent-Centre Pompidou, Paris
• The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
• The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
• The Museum Für Gestaltung, Zürich
• The Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai
• The Museum of Modern Art, Hiroshima

CSA Images is one of the most highly awarded stock illustration collections and was named, along with Apple, Adobe, and French Paper, as one of the top brands to an audience of designers, an influential group of early adopters and disseminators.

CSA Images is divided into many unique stylistic categories and is searchable by a comprehensive system of keywords painstakingly and consistently created over many decades.

CSA Plastock This collection was CSA's initial step into stock photography. Plastock is plastic pop culture and was one of the first all-digital, rights managed photo collections ever created.

Plastock is based on Charles S. Anderson's lifetime collection of 100,000 plastic objects compiled from antique dealers, flea markets, and collectors around the world. CSA's designers hand-painted thousands of these pieces and then spent over a decade photographing them and even more time transforming the photographs in Photoshop.

CSA reasoned that if Andy Warhol could take low campy pop culture and elevate it to the level of "fine art", then CSA could take these bizarre objects and elevate them to the slightly less ambitious level of "stock art." Plastock is synthetic eye candy.

Many Plastock objects were originally photographed on gray backgrounds so various other background colors could be viewed in order to achieve the best combinations. This before-and-after example demonstrates the extensive retouching and color work used to transform these dusty plastic objects into bright modern art.

"The line between cute and creepy is a fine one. No one gets this pop culture phenomenon like the folks at Charles S. Anderson Design Company." — Daily Candy

The few examples here are a small representation selected from over 4,000 photos that currently make up the Plastock collection.

CSA Snapstock Images that bridge the gap between line art and fine art. The CSA Snapstock Collection took five years to design, illustrate, and color by hand. The book contains 5,000 images, weighs five pounds, and there were lots of high-fives when it was finally finished!

Snapstock contains illustrations in the American Modernist tradition, with mass pop consumer appeal.

The first stock art library to actively live up to the "art" in its name, CSA Snapstock takes the schlock out of stock.

CSA Printstock Images with the real look and feel of hand-made illustration and ink printed on paper.

The Printstock collection contains thousands of images, with new art constantly being created.

CSA PATTERNS In both color and black & white, CSA Images contains thousands of patterns from figurative to abstract.

The patterns shown here represent just a fraction of the patterns that CSA has and continues to create.

CSA Mysterio Bad taste beautifully rendered. An illustration collection inspired by pulp book covers and gouache paintings.

CSA Images Engrave Ink Our most distinguished and distinctive collection of black and white illustration.

Engrave Ink includes ridiculously detailed, meticulously etched, engraved, stippled, and cross-hatched drawings.

CSA Images is Charles S. Anderson's life's work. It includes illustrations and photographs as well as design elements like icons, dingbats, patterns, ornaments, and other essential design building blocks not offered by other image collections.

The CSA illustrated word collection contains an ever-expanding series of graphic words and short phrases. Searchable by keyword, word images can provide a verbal and visual approach to help express an idea. CSA illustrated words are based on thousands of rare, hand-drawn, beautifully imperfect letter forms, in addition to obscure and classic versions of metal and photo type fonts that span the history of typography.

The CSA icon collection includes thousands of simplified images created over many decades. These timeless icons retain the authentic look of hand-drawn ink on paper and stand out in stark contrast to the glut of computer-rendered, mathematically perfect images that have had a dehumanizing effect on design.

The CSA border collection contains eclectic enclosures, frames, and rules inspired by design and printing, spanning the 19th Century to today. These borders range from classic to current and retain the authentic look and texture of ink printed on paper.

The CSA dingbat collection includes hundreds of graphic forms and symbols, including arrows, snowflakes, and unique abstract images that are difficult to describe with keywords. Browse these inspiring dingbats and discover a collection of the most compelling, hand-drawn shapes and symbols ever created.

The CSA ornament collection contains classic ornate elements from the tradition of typography and printing, including flourishes, accents, brackets, and underlines, all with the authentic and imperfect texture of ink printed on paper.

The CSA schematic collection contains detailed technical images and charts inspired by science, engineering, and commerce. These hand-drawn images capture the look of technology while also conveying the accelerating timeline between innovative and outdated.

Mex Ink is a black & white comic art style collection of hand-drawn images created with brush and India ink that range in subjects as varied as romance to robots.

CSA Images are timeless, iconic, and modern, yet inspired by history and commerce. They are classic and have limitless applications, and resist obsolescence due to fashion and cultural changes.

Unlike static stock collections, CSA Images is an active and dynamic resource, constantly growing and updated with thousands of new images each year, supported by CSA Design.

Inspired by the highs and lows of art and pop culture, CSA Images are graphic, diverse, and populist in nature and subject matter.

The CSA Images collection is stylistically diverse and both timely and timeless because it takes its inspiration from the entire history of design and illustration.

In 2006, CSA Design, in collaboration with their long-time client the French Paper Company, launched a series of products under the Pop Ink brand. Pop Ink products are backed by the extensive CSA Images library and printed on French Paper.

A dog wearing a dog fur coat models a few CSA buttons to demonstrate just a fraction of the verbal-visual concepts that can be created using CSA Images.

Based on artwork from CSA Images, these buttons showcase some of the diverse subjects and styles.

CSA designed a series of books published by Harry N. Abrams and distributed worldwide by Time Warner Books. The first book in the series was "Happy Kitty Bunny Pony," an instant hit that reached #2 on Amazon.com in the humor category. Each book in the series contains hundreds of CSA images with text by Michael J. Nelson of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" fame. These books provide a glimpse of the strange and varied imagery along with the odd humor that defines CSA Images.

This dinnerware package contains a set of four "culinary art" melamine plates. CSA has designed over 90 different plate designs, in dozens of collections using CSA Images.

Tokyo To Go - Junk Food Geishas!

Food For Thought - equally offensive to vegans and meat eaters alike. . . Also popular in North Korea!

Naked Lunch - a.k.a. Dirty Dishes.

Fawn-Due - the perfect compliment to our woodgrain plates called Smorgas-Board.

Smorgas-Board - the perfect compliment to our nature plates called Fawn-Due.

Squeaky Meal - appeals to kids from 1 to 100.

These represent an overview of various soap packages, and demonstrate the variety of styles and subjects in the CSA Images collection.

These soap packages continue the CSA tradition of art and wit with names like Skinny Dip, Wash-sabi, and Bird Bath.

Memo books featuring eclectic and diverse designs from CSA. Who needs an iPhone or a Blackberry when you can text on paper?

Gift wrap is made in a wide variety of CSA patterns. Ugly, funny, strange, beautiful, stupid-anything except boring (we hope).

Gift wrap using CSA Images ranges in design and wit from pretty, to pretty out there.

These note card designs show a fraction of the diverse subjects and styles of the CSA Images collection.

Boxed Christmas cards showcase seasonal CSA Images. Each set contains cards, envelopes, and greeting stamps.

For example, the Dutch fashion company Oilily used CSA Images as the basis of their entire fall line.

Lucky Brand used CSA Images to promote themselves at the Magic Show in Las Vegas. They also used them in a series of billboards and ads across America and Europe.

Juicy Couture created their logo by using CSA Images. It is a classic and enduring identity and also a good example of how well CSA Images can work in the hands of other designers.

CSA Images have the depth, wit, humour aeshetics and variety to transform blank t-shirts into an unending sucession of visually compelling design products.

CSA Images' bold, iconic aproach is the essence of pop culture, with tens of thousands of images that exude a low brow, camp, kitsch, vernacular aesthetic.

CSA Design used Plastock and Archive images as the basis for the all-encompassing Target Halloween campaign. It proved to be one of the most successful Halloween campaigns in Target's history. Many of the items continue to thrive in popularity as collectors' items and in online auctions, like the top-selling, CSA-designed "Little Squirt" costume shown above.

CSA Images' elements, patterns, and templates were distributed in digital form to Target's manufacturers around the world. The result was a diverse selection of products that made a powerful and cohesive impact in Target stores.

Best-selling book covers, all created by other designers (including Chip Kidd) using images from virtually every CSA images collection.

"Artist Proof" is the name of a brand of liquor that doubles as a frame, right down to the woodgrain texture molded into the glass. Artist Proof licenses an infinite number of CSA Images offering an endless selection of styles, subjects, color palettes, and motifs including topics such as holidays, seasonal, and special events.

This Pop Art approach to packaging is unique to CSA Design. We take a broad overview of a product category and approach it in a fresh new way, viewing the package as a surface to showcase an unlimited series of artwork from CSA Images. This provides a continuously new face for the product as well as an infinite number of package variations to fill the constantly hungry online blog-o-sphere.

Unlike most typical stock image collections all filled with similar cliché images, the continually expanding, ever evolving CSA Images collection is the creative spark that fires the imagination of both consumers and creative leaders constantly looking for something fresh, unique, and new.

In today's era of information overload resulting in a glut of images online, a tightly curated collection with a specific point of view is a rare, essential resource.