Strange Rover’s raven is hard for Bend music fans to miss. Since the four-piece doom metal band commissioned the logo in mid-2015, it has become a recurring theme in the group’s visual presentation.

The logo — a simple, white-on-black line drawing of a bird with wings outstretched, with “Strange Rover” written in stylized letters across the wingspan — graces fliers, T-shirts, buttons, stickers and an album cover, and has inspired other designs used by the group.

“That was right when we started playing shows, and I decided we needed a little branding,” said drummer and co-founder Paterson Colson.

The logo has also become a calling card for its creator, Bend-based artist, craftsman and musician Jason Chinchen, who has designed album artwork, logos, fliers and more for about 15 to 20 Central Oregon artists since working with Strange Rover. Chinchen’s graphic art talents also have graced magazines and outdoor gear as well as his own self-published book. As Chinchen’s reputation continues to swell, he hopes to do more and more projects.

Colson and the rest of Strange Rover initially hooked up with Chinchen via Facebook.

“I had not actually seen any of his work. I was super new to the whole artist scene in Bend in general,” Colson said.

“We talked really briefly; he was willing to put together a couple (of) little proposals pretty affordably. And I was super impressed with the raven that he did. I loved it instantly. … I feel like we really lucked out right off the bat with that.”

Initially, Colson and guitarist/co-founder Mac Perillo discussed using a falcon for a logo. Chinchen ran with the concept.

“The bird with its wings spread was his idea,” Colson said.

Word of mouth

Chinchen, 44, calls the design his favorite out of the work he’s done for local musicians. He recalled creating the image during a recent morning in Thump Coffee, one of his go-to places for working on art and design ideas.

“I came up with some really quick sketches, and found a cool picture of a raven I liked, but I stylized it,” he said, holding the CD package for Strange Rover’s self-titled EP. “I added a whole lot of extra work around it.”

There’s good reason it’s his favorite. Since designing that logo, Chinchen has been hired by local musicians to create logo designs (defunct rock trio Bravey Don), album covers (Moon Mountain Ramblers’ “A Little After Midnight”), album artwork layouts (Corner Gospel Explosion’s “June,” Wayward Soul’s self-titled debut album) fliers and more.

“A lot of them are repeat business — they come back; they want more things,” Chinchen said. “But the word of mouth is neat, and I love that. I love that feel of being in a community, that you have to be known for something in order to get referred for something.”

Local musician and sound engineer Cameron Harris remembered seeing Strange Rover’s raven around town when his band Wayward Soul was looking for an artist to help put together its album packaging. He did more research and found beer labels Chinchen designed for Craft Kitchen and Brewery.

Chinchen designed the band’s broken arrow logo first. From that design, he and the band brainstormed the idea behind the album’s packaging, which is designed to look like a wallet with leather-working images created by Hank Moss, father of band members Jozee and Wyatt Moss.

“We were brand-new at the time and hadn’t put any visual thing out there,” Harris said. “He was the first person that took a stab at trying to define what that image might look like, and I think he probably was the same thing for Strange Rover and a couple of the other bands that he’s done work for. So in a sense, he’s helping to define and present what the image is for some of these bands, which is pretty big — it’s a pretty big deal.”

Many creative hats

Chinchen has his hand in many creative projects around Bend and beyond. On the local music scene, he’s known for performing with groups such as Juniper and Gin and Hutch & Gentry. Through his graphic design company, Headspace Graphic Design, he has done work for LEVEL Magazine, Vertigo Bouldering Gear, Redlaw Sauce Co. and Two Old Hippies Acoustic Instruments, which owns Breedlove Guitars and Bedell Guitars. Chinchen is also a luthier and has built instruments for Breedlove and Bedell at various points since the ’90s.

Born in British Columbia, Canada, Chinchen spent his childhood moving around Washington, Oregon and California. The family often lived in rural areas with no radio or TV, and Chinchen soon developed an interest in working with his hands.

“I would build little balsa airplanes,” he said, “or I would take apart radios and then take all the little components and glue them together inside of a little plastic box that came with my Erector Set or something and make a little spy bomb or something. Just creative — just nothings, you know, stuff.”

One thing his family did have was a record player. Chinchen would listen to his parents’ oldies records, as well as discs by Pink Floyd, KISS and Kenny Rogers. At 8, his father taught him how to play the Beatles’ “Blackbird” on acoustic guitar. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he had to figure out how the instrument worked.

“A lot of (guitars), they smell amazing inside because it’s raw wood in there, and maybe it’s damp or whatever, and this smell comes out of the guitar,” Chinchen said. “And I remember just the smell, and then I looked inside the sound hole of my dad’s guitar, and I was like, oh, I could build this. And I was 10, and so since that age, I made it a goal: One day, I’ll build a guitar.”

He also spent much of his youth drawing. Inspired by a classmate, he began drawing more seriously when he reached the sixth grade. He attended a high school in Riverton, Washington, that gave him access to screen presses, graphic design computers and a photo dark room. “I was constantly in visual communications class doing that, or I was in stage technologists class where I ran sound and lights for all of our productions at the school,” he said.

Discouraged by his pastor father from studying art in college, Chinchen eventually found his way to Bend in the ’90s, where he worked jobs at restaurants and ski resorts. He eventually landed a job at Breedlove, fulfilling “a lifelong dream.”

When the Great Recession hit in 2007, Chinchen, his now ex-wife and kids hit the road in a motorhome. Breedlove brought him back to town once again in 2013. He worked at the company as the inlay artist — creating designs embedded into instrument bodies, necks and sound holes — until 2015.

“It sort of just organically happened where I was working at Breedlove Guitar Company as the inlay artist, and playing a lot of shows, and (I) had a band, and I was in another band,” he said. “You know, we need posters, so I’ll design a poster. We need a T-shirt, so I’ll design a T-shirt. And then, that kind of organically grew, and as I got more into the community and made more new friends and contacts. … people just started asking me to do work for them.”

Contributing to the scene

Chinchen said he usually cuts his rate in half for musicians looking for design or artwork.

“It really depends on the project, but I’ll design you a poster for 50 bucks or a T-shirt for 100 bucks or a CD cover for 300 bucks is about where I’m at,” he said.

The discount helps out many local bands strapped for cash, including Corner Gospel Explosion. Drummer/vocalist Bradley Parsons said Chinchen has designed “three or four different things” for the indie rock duo, including graphic design work on the band’s 2016 EP “June.”

“For the average band starting out, you really don’t have much to work with at all, so these budgets are so small that you need someone who, one, understands that you don’t have a lot of money, and two, is willing to freelance and give you a rate that you can afford,” Parsons said. “With us, (Chinchen’s) been really good because he’s left it up to, ‘Well, how much do you think this is worth?’ Which sort of makes me want to pay a little bit more, because he’s so laid back with — I’m just kind of here to help you out, and I understand that it’s hard for everybody to get those important, necessary things.”

Visuals have always been an important component in music (just look at “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”). Wayward Soul’s Harris knows the power of a good logo — or even just a still image coupled with a new song release online — especially as the internet continues to make it harder for artists to stand out amidst the glut of information.

“Right now, if you post just a song — like an audio link — on a social media, it basically gets no activity generated whatsoever,” Harris said. “But if you post a simple lyric video or something that has some visual component, all of a sudden, it’s 10 times more appealing to somebody, and you’ll get all sorts of clicks on a video when you won’t get that on the audio. Even if it’s just the audio with a still image, people will be more inclined to see a visual component.”

And Chinchen is happy to provide that. He said his biggest goal with his graphic design work is to take on more freelance projects, whether from established companies or local musicians. In addition to graphic design, Chinchen works with Will Nash at Nash Woodworking & Design and coaches kids in rock climbing at Bend Endurance Academy. In October, he published a guide book, “Central Oregon Bouldering,” which he wrote and designed himself over the course of 2 1⁄2 years.

He’s also recording a solo EP at Parkway Sounds with Scott Oliphant, and hopes to release it sometime next year. That project will combine pretty much all of Chinchen’s creative interests, from the instrument he built, wrote and recorded the music on, to the artwork he’ll eventually design for its cover.

“To be able to build something out of chunks of wood that then you can write a song on and then share that song with people, record that music on that instrument — that song you wrote on that instrument — to a record, and then draw a picture and put it on the cover and print it,” Chinchen said, “it doesn’t get any more all-me than that. … It’s just a neat thing.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7814, bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com