MAIN NAME SHEET David Carson was born in Texas in the United States. Many of
his design influences have come from his early childhood while travelling around
America, Puerto Rico and the West Indies. His first significant exposure to
graphic design education came as part of a three-week workshop in Switzerland,
where the Swiss graphic designer Hans-Rudolph Lutz influenced him. He then
worked in a high school near San Diego from 1982 to 1987.
During this time he also carried highly experimental graphic design as the
art director of the magazine Transworld Skateboarding. Among his abilities of
art directing, graphic designing and film directing, he was also a professional
surfer. His immense interest in the surfing culture persuaded him to return to
the West Coast where he helped launch the magazine Beach Culture.
The magazine only lasted three years but Carson’s pioneering approach to
design, particularly toward typography challenged the fundamental aspects of all
design and graphic communication. SURFER SHEET Carson’s work was often arresting
and powerfully communicative. From 1991 to 1992 he worked on Surfer magazine.
The straightforward styling of the covers was a strong contrast to the later How
magazine covers. Here you could associate with Carson as his unique use of
typography filled each cover to give an interesting introduction to the
contents. After this came his break into an international profile when he helped
launch Raygun magazine, designing the first 30 issues.
This magazine, aimed at the youth market with the sub-title of the bible of
music+style, received more attention for Carson’s design than for its relatively
conventional text content. After this very successful period of Carson’s life,
his work began to attract wider audiences: it was featured by many mainstream
publications, including the New York Times in May 1994, and Newsweek Magazine in
1996.
The main comments from the publications were how Carson stood out for his
ability to communicate in mass-media print with a new graphic language, one that
worked on a level beyond words. RAY-BAN SHEET His commercial clients included
major American brands such as Pepsi Cola, Nike, Levi-Strauss, Microsoft,
Budweiser, Giorgio Armani, Ray-Ban and NBC.
This particular advert for Ray-Ban sunglasses is a good use of a visual pun.
The product was called Ray-Ban Orbs, and here you can see that he uses the
sunglasses as the ‘O’ of the word. This idea was also used across posters, print
ads and postcards. As you can see in the corner of this ad, unlike the majority
of designers, Carson likes to show the reader that he is the designer and
insists on most of his ads to carry his name. This use of self-advertising is
particularly useful because Carson has seen the opportunity to publicise his
name and to show people that he is linked with major brand companies. You may
also note that his name is more prominent than the actual Ray-Ban logo and that
it appears directly below the logo. By doing this, Carson may feel that his name
is more of an endorsement than the actual logo or that his name is only used
with the most prolific brands.
