David Carson Article #5

David Carson Paper

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David Carson is a well-known graphic designer that has inspired many people to keep up with their art or even just to even begin graphic designing. He was born on September 8, 1852 in Texas then moved to New York City with his family four years later. His higher education began at San Diego State University. He received a BFA in sociology and even graduated with honors. Not just focusing on his studies he also surfed a lot during college. He was ranked number 9 in the country during his college years. He is now principal and chief designer of his own company. This company is called David Carson Design, Inc.

Many groups and clubs around the world for his studio work have recognized Carson. Also, he has had his work published in over 180 newspapers and magazines. These are including some of the most popular publications to this date. He had a cover of New York Times and a feature in Newsweek. Not only do his works gets published in other writings and prints but he has his own publications. His first book that he did with Lewis Blackwell called The End of Print is the best selling graphic design book of all time. It not only printed in English but in 4 other languages as well and sold over two hundred thousand copies. He also has released two other books recently called TREK and The Book of Probes that he did with Marshall McLuhan.

Carson also does lectures all around the world and a lot at colleges throughout the United States. For example, he has done lectures at Rhode Island School of Design, Cal Arts, Cranbrook, and ARTcenter. He also is a professor at the Visual School of Arts in New York City during the summers. Not only does he teach and lecture large groups and symposiums at a time but he has also had many one-man exhibitions all over the world.

He has also won numerous awards from different publications and companies from around the world. A London-based magazine called Creative Review named David “Art Director of the Era.” Also, The American Center for Design in Chicago called some of his work “the most important work coming out of America.” Beach Culture magazine featured some of his work and the Society of Publication Designers in New York named it “Best Overall Design” and also “Cover of the Year.” The International Center for Photography, located in New York, called David Carson “Designer of the Year.” They called him this because of his use of photography and design. Other magazines such as Print Magazine, Ray Gun Magazine, and even USA Today have said nothing but great things about all of David’s work and publications.

David Carson does not work with just graphic design but has recently broadened his horizons and started to branch out into other creative outlets. He has started to work on film as well as television. Carson started directing television shows and commercials within this field. He has done short films and documentaries as well. One recent documentary he has done with Harvard Business School professor John Kao called “The Art and Discipline of Creativity.” He also has designed entire ad campaigns for companies. Two examples of these companies are the Microsoft branding campaign in 1998 and worldwide advertising for Giorgio Armani. Not only did he help design for large company’s advertisements, he has also made appearances in actual advertisements endorsing other large companies. He has appeared in endorsements for companies such as Apple Computers and Samsung. Not only has Carson done all the above but he also uses his creativity as an Art Director and a Creative Director. He is the creative director for the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston.

His creative vision is said to be very subjective. Not only does he use his own personal intuition and style but also he uses influences from readings he does as well as using many different mediums to portray his message. At one point he was dubbed the father of grunge for his work because of his non-mainstream style. He doesn’t follow traditional style of graphic design, as the world knew it before his work. Carson is extremely emotional about his work and its said that he even got lost in the subconscious thought and allowed it to have an influence on his creative ideas and outcomes. He wanted to have a larger influence on his viewer than just that of the eye viewing an image. Carson wanted viewers to see more than just a composition he wanted them to see a design and an emotion behind the idea. Some designers even criticize him for being so new and excessive limits. Many people enjoy this kind of manipulation because they enjoy the new innovative way of viewing a graphic design but more conservative people have had issues with his seemingly outlandish style.

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