Saturday, 3 October 2015

David Carson

David Carson

David Carson (born September 8, 1954) is considered by many to be one of the world’s most influential graphic designers; He has won several awards in the design field and his work include print media, film, videos, and corporate designs but he is best known for his innovative magazine design and the use of typography; all of these disciplines have given him an experience that can be valuable both in the design community and to the general public.
Whilst being a designer, and an art director, graphic design was not Carson’s primal career path. He graduated with a degree in sociology and started teaching while training to be a professional surfer. He started experimenting with graphic design in the early 1980′s. With surfing being a general part of Carson’s life, it has played a great role on his design career. It is one of the reasons for his motivation and success to direct and design various surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding magazines, websites, ads and products like Quiksilver, Burton, SURFportugal, TwSkateboarding, etc.




His main association was Ray Gun. Ray Gun magazine was an exploration of typography, layout and visual storytelling that would shift the approach of many graphic designers. The magazine was founded in 1992 and led by the work of David Carson, who served as its art director for the first three years of its career, which lasted 7 years and over 70 issues. Ray Guns monumental success over the next three years is most commonly attributed to David’s incredible design strategy that was particularly appealing to the youth.
Carson's style of typographic experimentation influenced the development of the deconstruction style of design and a whole new generation of designers. The experiments by Carson and other Ray Gun designers were chaotic, abstract and distinctive, but sometimes illegible.


David Carson is also known to be the godfather of grunge. This particular art movement became more and more popular during the 1990s.  It appeared to be a very messy and chaotic kind of design. Words, textures, backgrounds that formed posters and ads for various things were designed in a very interesting and different typography style. A style called Grunge that became ubiquitous throughout the years and it became the largest, most widespread movement in recent design history.


He was also known for breaking the rules in the field of design like the grid system. The grid system can be a helpful starting point, but isn't always an effective tool for every layout. The foremost purpose of a grid, in graphic design at least, is to establish a set of guidelines for how elements should be positioned within a layout. David Carson was one of the first designers to successfully disregard the grid system by not placing the images or text in correct form but relying heavily on overlapping text, images and diagonal lines. His innovative style defined the so-called "grunge" movement, and Graphic Design USA magazine named him one of the top five most influential designers of the current era. His ground-breaking indifference to the grid system shows that the breaking of rules can help fuel creative expansion.

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