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Cape Town DC
David Carson is a key figure in recent graphic design history. Responsible for
The End of Print, his chaotic experiments with design articulated the zeitgeist of a
generation and defined a new benchmark by which all future visual experimentation will
be judged. Sean O' Toole chatted with the surf-loving designer who will be at Design
Indaba 7 in Cape Town next year.
JUST USING A "COOL" FONT DIDN'T GUARANTEE GOOD DESIGN.
You were also a sociology
teacher; did you have any
particular field of interest?
It was just sociology in
general, why and how people
interact.
Your design seems to reflect a
uniquely southern Californian
vernacular, one that captures
the raucous energy of the
surfing and skating culture
there.Would you agree?
When I'm working on
something surf/skate culture
related, I'd agree that I capture
that energy of the subject
matter. I like to think I do that
with all my work.
Looking through old issues of
Raygun magazine, I see you
had more than twenty typeface
designers consulting on the
magazine. What would you
saywere some of the outcomes
and lessons learnt from such
frenzied experiments with
type?
It just helped free things up in
general. Type designers got to
be stars (!) and have their own
conferences (!) for a while. It
was a fun time, but the fonts
that came in the quickest and
hardest were always the first
to fade out. Hopefully people
learned that just using a
"cool" font didn't guarantee
good design. And hopefully
that spirit of experimentation
would overflow into other
areas, but I'm not so sure that's
happened.
Raygun's early contributors
included the likes of Spike
Jonze and Doug Aitken. Do
you still keep in touch or
collaborate with any of
Raygun's contributors?
I'm still in contact with a lot of
them, often through email,
and still use some of them
when possible. I think Raygun
helped launch a lot of
illustrators' careers, as well as
a few photographers.
Is it true that part of the reason for your departure from
Raygun in September 1995 was because of an argument
over using David Bowie's neck as cover image?
Yes. It would have possibly been the best cover I did at
Raygun, but the publisher and his wife just didn't get it. It
helped me realise it was time to move on. I'd been there
since the start, and did 30 issues over a three-and-a-half
year period.
Who were your early influences? The Z-boys? [A motley
1970s skate crew that included Tony Alva, who shaped
contemporary skate graphics.]
Not the Z-boys. Probably early Russian deconstructionists
and some of the Dada guys.
Other than David Byrne writing the introduction to The
End of Print, have you two collaborated in any other
ways?
He's had me do a poster for a film he did, video packaging,
and title and credits for a film. Plus we were neighbours in
Greenwich Village in New York City.
A quick question about your online work: How was
adventurefront.com received? Have you been involved in
any other web-based
projects?
Adventurefront.com went
bust before it ever went up. I
think it was headed in a good
direction, but it was a dot-com
causalty. I have just started
work on a website for the
Gibbes Museum of Art in
South Carolina, am always
tweaking my own, and have
been sending Quicksilver [a
surf clothing company] a
bunch of stuff they haven't
used yet.
You have many critics. What
do you think really irks
critics about your designs?
What irks them the most is the
following I have worldwide.
And its still amazing to me
that after all this time ink on
paper can still get people so
riled up, both positive and
negative.
If you had to encapsulate
current design in a handful of
words, what would they be?
Confused, weak, and overrun
by mediocre writers.
Surf is where it all started for you
and, judging by your art direction
on an issue of BIG surfing
magazine, it is still very much a
preoccupation. What's the link
between you and the sea, and the
sea and your design?
I started out working at Transworld
Skateboarding for three-and-a-half
years, then went on to Transworld
Snowboarding, Musician and Self. I
worked for about five years before
doing anything surf, which was a bit
what Beach Culture was, though it
had much more to it. In fact most of
the surf guys didn't really
understand it. I still think Beach
Cultureis some of my best magazine
work. Now I do work for colleges,
politicians, art museums and Nine
Inch Nails. The BIG issue, done
almost two years ago, was fun
because I'm so familiar with that
world, and was able to experiment
with some new illustrators and
photographers, as well as a new
typeface or two. Surfers are always
searching, not necessarily on a
mission, but always searching. I feel
the same way.
After your visit to the 1999 Design Indaba you nipped off to J-Bay. How was it?
I got a fun surf in. Not epic, but one of the fastest waves I've ridden. It was a whirlwind
trip, but I was glad I did it.
And how was the Design Indaba? Did it surprise or impress you?
It seemed well run with a lot of interesting creative people - some even on stage. I'll be
curious to see how it's developed this year...
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