David Carson (graphic designer)
David Carson is a prominent graphic designer known for his innovative and unconventional approaches to typography and page layout. Born in 1954 in Corpus Christi, Texas, he initially pursued a career as a professional surfer and later became a high school teacher before discovering his passion for graphic design through workshops in the 1980s. His early work as an art director for magazines such as Transworld Skateboarding and Ray Gun showcased his experimental style, which emphasized a chaotic yet visually stimulating aesthetic. Carson's designs broke away from traditional conventions, often featuring deconstructed layouts and distorted fonts to challenge readers and provoke thought.
His influential book, *The End of Print*, published in 1995, detailed his loose and intuitive design techniques, contributing significantly to the emergence of the "grunge" style in graphic design. Throughout his career, Carson has collaborated with major corporations and has been involved in various creative roles, including directing commercials and short films. His work has been recognized with several awards, and he is regarded as one of the most influential figures in the graphic design field, inspiring future generations to explore innovative forms of visual expression.
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Subject Terms
David Carson (graphic designer)
Graphic designer
- Born: September 8, 1955
- Place of Birth: Corpus Christi, Texas
Education: San Diego State University
Significance: The methods of graphic designer David Carson transcended the boundaries of typography and page layout within traditional print mediums. His work disregarded the established rules of graphic design and became known for its chaotic yet stimulating imagery. Carson's work popularized the convention-defying, modernist outlook of graphic design.
Background
David Carson was born in 1954, in Corpus Christi, Texas. Carson's early career had nothing to do with graphic design. He had been a professional surfer in his youth and at one point had ranked ninth in the world. He attended San Diego State University, where he studied sociology. Carson worked as a high school teacher in southern Oregon throughout the 1970s. In 1980, the twenty-six-year-old Carson noticed a flyer for a summer program in graphic design at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Although the program was meant for high school seniors, Carson decided to enroll in the workshop. The program introduced him to Arizona artist Jackson Boelts, who became Carson's friend and mentor. He continued to explore graphic design throughout the 1980s and later enrolled in another summer workshop in Rapperswil, Switzerland. His workshop instructor, Hans-Rudolf Lutz, encouraged Carson to challenge everything he knew about design and discover new ways to define shape and form within the visual arts.
Carson's earliest design work stemmed from his position as art director at the magazine Transworld Skateboarding between 1984 and 1987. He then worked as art director for the magazines Transworld Snowboarding and Beach Culture. Carson's experimentation found a new outlet with the advent of computer design tools in the 1990s. Page layout and design software such as QuarkXPress and PageMaker provided Carson with convenient tools that allowed him to accelerate his creative output and further his experimental designs. About this time, his work caught the attention of publisher Marvin Scott Jarrett, who was about to launch a new music magazine called Ray Gun. Jarrett offered Carson the position of art director at the magazine, and Carson accepted. The magazine released its first issue in 1992. Ray Gun quickly became more known for Carson's off-the-wall design methods than its written content.
Life's Work
Carson spent three years with Ray Gun where he defied conventional graphic design standards for a more avant-garde approach to page layout. Carson's work was known for its deconstructed page arrangement and distortion of fonts, making the letters on a page a source of artistic expression. He challenged the traditions of print media and even demanded emerging artists discover new areas of expression for their own designs. His eagerness to break the rules of design garnered him a number of followers. Although Carson was not the first to experiment in this way, his creations were among the first to be viewed by a general audience.
Carson's first book, The End of Print (1995), detailed his design techniques as loose and intuitive, erupting from a pure space unspoiled by others' instruction. He refused to conform to the grid systems and traditional formatting of typography—the appearance of printed characters on a page. Carson's work wanted to upset the balance of a page in order to intrigue and challenge readers. In a 1994 issue of Ray Gun, Carson's chaotic design of the featured band page included irregularly shaped columns, uneven sentence spacing, columns pushing outside the edges of the page cutting off text, and the second half of the final paragraph being placed at the beginning of the article. Another famous instance of Carson's unconventional techniques involved replacing the text of an entire interview with singer Bryan Ferry with dingbats, a type of font that consists of nothing but non-text characters. The full text interview was still available at the back of the issue, but Carson's aim was to weed out lazy readers. The graphic design world began referring to Carson's and similarly principled designers' works as "grunge" style—characterized by its unclean, disrespectful, subcultural implications. The End of Print went on to sell more than two hundred thousand copies in the years following its publication and was translated into five languages. He wrote other books as well: 2nd Sight (1997), Fotografiks (1999), Trek (2004), and nu collage.001 (2019)
Carson's designs greatly appealed to the younger generation, and he soon found himself fielding offers from advertisers hoping to commission his talents for major corporations. Between 1995 and 2003, Carson designed ads for companies such as Pepsi, Nike, Toyota, Microsoft, Quiksilver, and MTV. He ran his own studio during this time in New York City and began accumulating a wide array of clients in the entertainment and fashion industries. He also lectured all over the world and regularly taught workshops at various institutions around New York.
After closing his studio in 2003, Carson served as art director for Quiksilver until 2005. He also found work as a freelance creative consultant for numerous projects. From January through October 2010, he served as the Bose Corporation's creative director. Carson also tried his hand at film and television direction, helming short films and television commercials for companies such as Lucent Technologies, Xerox, and Budweiser. Carson continued to take short-term freelance positions and commissions throughout the 2010s for organizations such as Cheil Worldwide and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Impact
Carson's designs have been featured in more than 180 magazines and newspaper articles throughout his career. His disordered approach to the field of graphic design revolutionized the print world's understanding of typographical standards. Carson's work inspired future generations of graphic artists to think outside the box, and he is regularly referred to as one of the most influential artists in the history of graphic design.
Personal Life
Carson has received numerous honors and awards for his work in graphic design. In 2014, he received a gold medal from the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
Bibliography
Alluzzi, Virginia. "Anti-Grid David Carson, the Graphic Superstar That Never Snapped to Guides." ADF Webmagazine, 17 Feb. 2024, www.adfwebmagazine.jp/en/design/anti-grid-david-carson-the-graphic-superstar-that-never-snapped-to-guides/. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
"Bio: David Carson." David Carson Design, www.davidcarsondesign.com/t/about/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2017.
"David Carson." LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/davidcarsondesign/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2017.
"Interview with Graphic Designer David Carson." Designboom, 22 Sept. 2014, www.designboom.com/design/interview-with-graphic-designer-david-carson-09-22-2013/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2017.
Lupton, Ellen. "David Carson." American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), www.aiga.org/medalist-david-carson/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2017.
Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs' History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012.
Poynor, Rick.No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism. Laurence King Publishing, 2013.