As a young adult, it seemed far-fetched to David Carson that his future profession, and eventually passion, would one day be graphic design. Coming in the design world later in his life, he was a competitive, professional surfer during his college years and ranked ninth in the world. Proudly graduating with honors and distinction from San Diego State University, Carson started out as a sociology teacher at a high school on the west coast.
It was around the age of 27 that David discovered graphic design. He attended a two-week design class and discovered his calling. From that, he enrolled at a commercial art school before working as a designer at a small surf magazine, Self and Musician. To him, not having a strong educational background in the field doesn’t mean you can’t be a successful designer. “Its certainly not crucial or important to being a good designer, and can often be a hindrance. Some combination of actual work, workshops, conferences and a course or two is probably best, and remember, in order to break the rules, you must first not know them.”
Following his first design gig, he spent four years as a part-time designer for the magazine Transworld Skateboarding. By the late 1980s he became art director at the magazine Beach Culture and although he produced only six issues before the magazine stopped circulation, his work for the publication earned him more then 150 awards.
Publisher of music magazine Ray Gun hired Carson as art director in 1992 and over the next three years he helped the magazine triple it’s readership. His work appealed to youthful readers and he was commissioned to design print ads for Levi Strauss & Co. and Nike. After leaving Ray Gun, Carson established David Carson Design, with offices located on both coasts. (New York City and San Diego, California)
Carson’s success allowed him to publish his first book, The End of Print, which is the top selling graphic design book of all time and has sold over 200,000 copies. The content consists of various one-man exhibitions throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia and Australia and has been printed in five different languages.
By 1998, Carson’s clients consisted of numerous well know brands like: Pepsi, Ray Ban, Microsoft, Budweiser, Giorgio Armani, NBC and American Airlines to name a few. Because of the work he produced for these clients, Carson was able to take his career to an international level and secured clients like: AT&T, British Airways, Kodak, Lycra, Packard Bell, Sony, Suzuki, Toyota, Warner Bros., CNN, Cuervo Gold, MTV Global, Mercedes Benz and MGM studios. Some of who are his clients.
His creative perspective is very interesting and unique. Characteristics include chaotic spreads with overlapped photos, mixed and altered type fonts. Carson experiments with ways of communicating in a variety of mediums because “overall people are reading less” and he’s merely trying to “visually entice them to read.”
Nothing he produces starts out with the intention of being illegible or hard to read. His work begins as an expression to communicate the feeling or message of the article to the reader upon contact. Because of this, the actual words of the article may be obscured, illegible, or just non-existent.
Carson is a hands on designer and likes to keep his studio small and mobile. His designs are subjective and largely driven by intuition, with an emphasis on reading material before designing. Once, he accidentally cut his finger on an X-acto knife. He decided he liked the drops of blood that fell on the layout, and left them in the final design.
His west coast upbringing indirectly, according to Carson, has influenced his work. “Growing up around the beach, and surfing, I think gives you a certain freedom and experimentation in terms of how you approach other things in your life, and in your design. And I think I had a subject matter and audience that expected, and in some unspoken ways, demanded a more expressive, experimental approach to the work.
Since the release of the first book, Carson has produced other books titled: 2nd Sight, Fotografiks, The Book of Probes and the most recent- TREK. In the past few years, Carson has also branched out into film and television to direct commercials and videos. Currently he serves as the Creative Director for the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston. His other projects include: designing for Quiksilver in California, creating type heavy commercials, working with Nine Inch Nails for the concert designs and releasing the revised edition of The End of Print.
Carson, along with his work, has been featured in over 180 magazine and newspaper articles across the globe. Journalists have to referred to him as “Art Director of the Era” and deemed his work as “the most important work coming out of America.” USA Today described his work as “visually stunning” and also added he designs “may actually get young people reading again.”
He lectures extensively throughout the world particularly at colleges throughout the U.S. Carson teaches a week-long workshop at The School of Visual Arts in New York City every summer. Recently, David was acknowledged at the Charleston ADDY awards where he won in four categories.
Today David is no longer seen has the “bad boy” of graphic design and uses one word to define him today, “Dad.” Final words the designer lives by; “Trust your gut. Do what you love. Life’s to important to be taken seriously."
