David Carson

David Carson

During the 1980`s David Carson stopped being a teacher and surfer in order to become one of the most influential people in editorial design. He disregarded the use of grids, hierarchy of text and regular and orderly layouts and rejected predictable compositions in favor of expression and experimentation. His unconventional work was quite evident when he worked as a designer and art director for Transworld Skateboarding, Beach Culture and Ray Gun amongst others. He made image captions extremely tiny and the page numbers large. He used the titles of the articles as a design and a form of expression which was very unconventional and innovative at the time. 

Hans Rudolf Lutz

Carson`s also very much challenged legibility, what he was really looking for was not function and readability but expressing his inner thoughts and feelings whether be it a poster, book cover or article. Since he was never trained as an artist, what shines the most in Carson`s work is how he breaks the conventional rules. He was ignorant to these rules and therefore he just did what felt right to do at the time which make his works even more interesting. He was also influenced by the swiss designer Hans Rudolf Lutz for his experimental work. In his work for the Ray Gun magazine one can clearly see his experiments with space, type and columns amongst others. His designs reflected the content and meaning of the text. 

An interesting spread by David Carson is for the ray gun ‘choice comes to pensacola’. In an interview, Carson explained how the day before the band L7`s arrival for a concert, an abortion clinic was attacked and one of the doctors was killed. In this spread, Carson reflected the content of the article, the chaos and strangeness that these band members found upon their arrival in Florida. Especially when knowing the context of this work, one can clearly sense this chaos and confusion.  The word ‘choice’ is not completely visible as if it is hiding behind the wall because they are scared and confused. The opening spread in itself is narrating a story providing the reader with a little insight on what he will find in the article.

David Carson Ray Gun ' Choice comes to Pensacola'

An interesting work of Carson is his Ray Gun spread that covered Bray Ferry. The artist expressed how disappointed and bored he was when he read the article by changing the entire article in zapf dingbat. Of course the article was not legible but the artists expressed his feelings and it was a message to the readers that the article was definitely not worth the read.  

David Carson Bryan Ferry article for Ray Gun

David Carson Bryan Ferry article for Ray Gun

Another Astonishing work is his 2013 Poster for an art exhibition opening in Montreal.

David Carson  2013 Poster for an
Art Exhibition Opening in Montreal

The illustrations of this poster are done by Ola Carson. I very much like how the space is organized, the unconventional typography and the limited use of colour. Although you have text and illustrations that are overlapping one can still read the important details. The text is being used a design at the expense of a little loss in legibility. This poster reflects the works that could be found in the exhibition and in fact, in an interview, Carson states that if you liked this poster, you would have definitely liked the exhibition itself. I personally find this work especially interesting. I love how he is playing around with lines, thickness of lines as well as typography. 

David Carson 2014 Poster for A.I.G.A

David Carson 2014  Second Poster for A.I.G.A

References:

interview with graphic designer david carson. 2015. interview with graphic designer david carson. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.designboom.com/design/interview-with-graphic-designer-david-carson-09-22-2013/. [Accessed 28 January 2015].

Philip B. Meggs, 2011. Meggs' History of Graphic Design. 5 Edition. Wiley

Rick Poynor, 2003. No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism. Edition. Yale University Press.