David Carson is a graphic designer and art director. He is most well-known for his unusual and innovative magazine cover designs. A turning point in Carson’s career was when he was appointed as Art Director for RayGun magazine from 1992 -1995. His style of magazine design showed no continuity or typical conventions of magazine design throughout every issue he designed. He specialised in unusual typography and many claim he started the ‘grunge typography era’.

In my opinion Carson was incredibly brave to disregard magazine conventions as boldly as he did. His magazine covers were always unique, yet not always completely aesthetically pleasing, which showed that to an extent he created these wild and wacky magazine covers to spark a reaction rather than because they were attractive to the public. Problems that RayGun would have found with Carson’s style of design is that the lack of continuity killed any familiarity that that audience could identify with the magazine. If there is even one feature that is always present, in the same place, font and size/colour on the front page, potential readers will be able to identify the magazine in a crowded zoo of glossy covered publications at a newsstand.

However, Carson showed the future of magazine art directors that conventions can be broken, and it won’t be the end of the world. Looking at publications before and after Carson’s 3 year stint at RayGun, the difference is noticeable. Post Carson covers show more spontaneity in the placement and colours used, whereas before Carson covers were more uniform and refined in terms of eye-catching features.

 

It is much more noticeable how more refined and plain the 1990 cover is compared to the 2000 cover, which has many more cover lines on the cover, and has also used 3 font colours as opposed to 1 on the older cover. The newer cover seems more commercialised and eye-catching, due to the influence Carson placed on colours used within magazine design.