David Carson

David Carson is the first of the graphic designers I’ve looked at this week that isn’t formally trained in art or design. He has a sociology degree, during which he did a three-week graphic design course. His career started as a high school teacher, where he experimented with graphics and became part of the underground scene in North Carolina. He then began art directing a skate-boarding magazine, while also working as a professional surfer. His links to the surfing world helped land him an art directing job at the surf magazine Beach Culture. The design was so experimental that many advertisers stopped working with the publication, however his time at the magazine won him over 150 awards in the graphic design community.

In 1992 he launched Ray Gun magazine. It’s cutting-edge style attracted public notoriety, with articles on David Carson appearing in Newsweek and New York Times. It can be said that after Ray Gun, design became equal to content in segments of the magazine market.

Since then he has published many books, including ‘The End of Print’, the largest selling book on graphic design. He now runs David Carson Design, which works on photography, film and web based projects with clients such as Nine Inch nails, Toyota, Mercedes Benz, Microsoft, Quiksilver, David Byrne and Pepsi. Recent work by David Carson can be seen in the book ‘Trek’ (image above), which is published through Ginko Press.

Images above are from typogabor.com and davidcarsondesign.com