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C R5ON david carson
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introduction 4 first art direction 6 ray gun 8 david carson design 10 later work 12 other accompl isments 16 analysis and accolodes 18
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David Carson is an American graphic designer, art director, typographer, and surfer.
He is best known for his innovative magazine design and use of experimental typography. He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun, in which he employed much of the typographic and layout style for which he is known. In particular, his widely imitated aesthetic defined the so-called era.
“grunge typography�
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david Carson was born on September 8th, 1954 in Corpus Christi, Texas. He attended Cocoa Beach High School, was class president for 3 years, and still considers Cocoa Beach, Florida to be the place he is “most from”. He attended San Diego State University, graduating with “Honors and Distinction” a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. Carson’s first contact with graphic design was in 1980 at the University of Arizona during a two-week graphics course, taught by Jackson Boelts.
he was also a professional surfer, and reached a 9th in the world ranking. Carson had his own signature model surfboard with Infinity surfboards, and his own signiature model fin with rainbow fin co. He still surfs regularly at his property in Cane Garden Bay, the only surfer in history to ever own water front property on the fabled point break.
In 1983, Carson started to experiment with graphic design and found himself immersed in the artistic and bohemian culture of Southern California. He From 1982 to 1987, Carson worked as a attended the Oregon College of teacher in Torrey Pines High School in Commercial Art, only for a couple San Diego, California. During that time, months before accepting an unpaid internship with Action Now magazine, formerly Skateboarder magazine.That year, he went to Switzerland to attend a three-week workshop in graphic design. The teacher of the workshop, Hans-Rudolf Lutz, became his first great influence.
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first art direction
Carson became the art director of Transworld Skateboarding magazine in 1984, and remained there until 1988, helping to give the magazine a distinctive look. By the end of his tenure there he had started to develop his signature style, using “dirty” type and non-mainstream photographic techniques. He was also the art director of a spinoff magazine, Transworld Snowboarding, which began publishing in 1987. Steve and Debbee Pezman, publishers of Surfer magazine (and later Surfers Journal) tapped Carson to design Beach Culture, a quarterly publication that evolved out of a to-the-trade annual supplement. Though only six quarterly issues were
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produced, the tabloid-size venue—edited by author Neil Fineman—allowed Carson to make his first significant
impact on the world of graphic design and typography with ideas that
were called innovative even by those that were not fond of his work, in which legibility often relied on readers’ strict attention. For one feature on a blind surfer, Carson opened with a two-page spread covered in black. After Beach Culture, Carson re-designed Surfer magazine and art directed and design it for the next 2 years, before starting Ray gun Magazine for 3 years. Carson then relocated his studio to New York City, where he is today.
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ray gun
Carson was hired as an art director by publisher Marvin Scott Jarrett to design Ray Gun, an alternative rockand-roll and lifestyle magazine that debuted in 1992. Lead by Carson, Ray Gun explored experimental magazin typographic design. The result was a chaotic, abstract style, not always readable, but distinctive in appearance. That tradition for compelling visuals continued even after Carson left the magazine after three years. In one issue, he notoriously used Zapf Dingbats - Zapf Dingbats - as the font for what he considered a rather dull interview with Bryan Ferry (However, the whole text was published in a legible font at the back of the same issue of Ray Gun. Ray Gun made Carson well known and attracted new admirers to his work. In this period, he was featured in publications such as The New York Times and Newsweek.
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david carson design
In 1995, Carson left Ray Gun to found his own studio, David Carson Design, in New York City. He started to attract major clients from all over the United States. During the next three years, from 1995 to 1998, Carson was doing work for Pepsi Cola, Ray Ban, Nike, Microsoft, Budweiser, Giorgio Armani, NBC, American Airlines and Levi Strauss Jeans, and later worked for a variety of new clients, including AT&T Corporation, British Airways, Kodak, Lycra, Pa c k a r d B e l l , S o n y, Suzuki, Toyota, Warner Brothers, CNN, Cuervo Gold, Johnson AIDS Foundation, MTV Global, Prince, Lotus Software, Fox TV, Nissan, quiksilver, Intel, Mercedes-Benz, MGM Studios and Nine Inch Nails.
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He named and designed the first issue of the adventure lifestyle magazine Blue, in 1997. David designed the first issue and the first three covers. Carson’s cover design for the first issue was selected as one of the “top 40 magazine covers of all time” by the American Society of Magazine Editors. In 2000, Carson closed his New York City studio and followed his children to Charleston, South Carolina, where their mother had relocated them. Since then, he has lived in San Diego, Seattle, Zurich, and Tortola. Currently, he is living back in New York City.
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Later Work
Carson was invited to judge the European Design Awards in London in both 2010 and 2011, and was the keynote speaker of rthe Fuse branding conference in Chicago in 2014 and the international creativity festival in Dubai in 2015. Since 2010, he has lectured, held workshops and exhibitions across Europe, South America and the United States. In 2015, Carson was commissioned to design the posters and publicity for the Harvard Graduate School of Design, for the 2015–2016 school year, including a set of over 30 poster designs for events and speaker series. In 2004, Carson became the freelance Creative Director of the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston. That year, he also designed the special “Exploration” edition of Surfing Magazine and directed a variety of TV commercials, including Lucent Technologies, Budwieser, American Airlines, Xerox, and numerous others. In 2011 Carson worked as worldwide creative director for the Bose Corporation. He also served as Design Director for the 2011 Quiksilver Pro Surfing contest in Biarritz, France, and designed the branding for the 2012 Quiksilver Pro in New York City. He designed a set of three posters for the San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain and the covers for Huck,Little White Lies, and Monster Children, magazines. He has been featured in over 280 interviews worldwide. The international design magazine CASA called Carson, in a 2014 cover story, “The Most Famous Graphic Designer in the World.”
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David Carson’s
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other accomplishments
Carson graduated with “honors and distinction” from San Diego state university, where he received a BFA in sociology. A former professional surfer, he was ranked #9 in the world during his college days. Numerous groups including the New York Type Directors Club, American Center for Design and I.D. magazine have recognized his studio’s work with a wide range of clients in both the business and arts worlds. Carson and his work have been featured in over 180 magazine and newspaper articles around the world, including a feature in Newsweek magazine, and a front page article in the New York TImes. London-based Creative Review magazine dubbed Carson “Art Director of the Era.” The American Center for Design called his work on Ray Gun magazine “the most important work coming out of America.” His work on Beach Culture magazine won “Best Overall Design” and “Cover of the Year” from the Society of Publication Designers in New York. Carson’s first book, with Lewis Blackwell, The End of Print, is the top selling graphic design book of all time, selling over 200,000 copies, and printed in 5 different languages.The work featured in The End of Print is the subject of various one-man exhibitions throughout Europe and Latin America,Asia and australia. Carson’s other titles include 2nd Sight and
Fotografiks with design historian Philip Meggs. He has two recently released books, TREK and The Book of Probes with Marshall McLuhan. David is also art director for the Mcluhan estate. d a v i d 16
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analysis and accolades
The International Center for Photography singled out Carson as the “Designer of the Year” for his use of photography and design. Print Magazine proclaimed his work “Brilliant,” while USA Today described it as “visually stunning,” adding that his design of Ray Gun Magazine “may actually get young people reading again.” Newsweek magazine said of Carson that he “changed the public face of graphic design.”
Design writer Steven Heller has said, “He significantly influenced a generation to embrace typography as an expressive medium”. Design educator and historian Ellen Lupton said after the release of Carson’s book Trek, “David Carson continues to be one of the world’s most distinctive typographic voices—much imitated, but never matched”. AIGA, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, called Carson “our biggest star”. The magazine Eye produced a graphic chart showing Carson to be the most ‘Googled’ graphic designer ever. Typography, a title published by Graphis magazine, lists Carson as a “Master of Typography.” I.D. magazine chose Carson for their list of “America’s most innovative designers”. The graphic design publication Emigre devoted an entire issue to Carson, the only American designer to be so honored in the magazine’s history. In April 2004, London based creative review magazine calls David, “the most famous graphic designer on the planet”. When Graphic Design USA Magazine listed the “most influential graphic designers of the era” David was listed as one of the all time 5 most influential designers, with Milton Glaser, Paul Rand, Saul Bass and Massimo Vignelli. Carson claims that his work is “subjective, personal and very self indulgen.” David’s work continues to be subjective and largely driven by intuition, with an emphasis on reading material before designing it, and experimenting with ways to communicate in a variety of mediums. Carson remains a very hands on designer, keeping his studio small and mobile.
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