David C a r s o n

David Carson,  born September 8, 1955 in Corpus Christi, Texas, is  American graphic designer, whose unconventional style revolutionized visual communication in the 1990s. Carson came to graphic design relatively late in life.

Carson started designing in the 80s with no formal schooling in the field and has since focused heavily on typography and photography. His work became well-known in the late 80s and early 90s through skateboarding and surfing magazines. Later, he started Ray Gun Magazine, a lifestyle and music magazine, and went on to start his own design firm, David Carson Design. Carson has written and co-authored a handful of books characterizing design trends. 

He continues to be active in the surfing community. Clients include Quiksilver, Suicide Girls, Samsung, Adidas, Nine Inch Nails, Pepsi, and Toyota.

In 1989 Carson became art director at the magazine Beach Culture. 

Although he produced only six issues before the journal folded, his work there earned him more than 150 design awards. By that time, Carson’s work had caught the eye of Marvin Scott Jarrett, publisher of the alternative-music magazine Ray Gun, and he hired Carson as art director in 1992. Over the next three years, with the help of Carson’s radical design vision, Ray Gun’s circulation tripled. Because Carson’s work clearly appealed to a youthful readership, corporations such as Nike and Levi Strauss & Co. commissioned him to design print ads, and he also began directing television commercials.

After leaving Ray Gun in 1995, Carson established David Carson Design, with offices in New York City and San Diego, California. The firm was instantly successful and attracted well-known, wealthy corporate clients. In 1995 Carson produced The End of Print: The Graphic Design of David Carson (revised edition issued in 2000 as The End of Print: The Grafik Design of David Carson), the first comprehensive collection of his distinctive graphic imagery.