David Carson

            David Carson is an American graphic designer, an art director and also a surfer. He is famous for his innovative designs of magazines and his use when it came to deal with experimental typography. He was also an art director of a famous magazine called Ray Gun in which he implemented much of his typographical and layout styles for which he is known most for. He was also the founder of the ‘grunge-typography’ era.

            He was born on the 8^th of September of 1954 in the area of Corpus Christi in Texas. In his early years he attend the San Diego State University and graduated with a Bachelors in Sociology. The first time Carson came contact with graphic design was during a  two weeks graphic design course at the University of Arizona in 1980. From 1982 – 1987, Carson worked as a lecturer at a highschool which goes by the name of Torrey Pines High School in San Diego. While he was teaching there he was enjoying his life as a professional surfer and during 1989 he got the ranking of 9^th best surfer in the world.

          During 1983, Carson started his experimentation with the graphic design and he quickly plummeted into the world of the artistic and relaxed culture of Southern California. That same year he went abroad to Switzerland and attended a three-week long workshop which was part of his degree in graphic design. The workshop was being taught by Hans Rudolf Lutz thus Carson used him as his first great influence.

        After some time Carson became an art director of a magazine called Transworld Skateboarding and held his position with the magazine up till 1988 to help the magazine get a distinctive look and get more appealing to people. While he was working there he developed his style by using the ‘dirty’ type and photographic techniques which were against the norm. He also collaborated on another version of their magazine called ‘Transworld Snowboarding’.

AIGA | the professional association for design, (2015). David Carson. [online] Available at: http://www.aiga.org/medalist-david-carson/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].

Flask, D. (2015). David Carson : Design Is History. [online] Designishistory.com. Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1980/david-carson/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].