What Is Carson's Work

During the period of 1982–1987, Carson worked as a teacher in Torrey Pines High School in San Diego, California. In 1983, Carson started to experiment with graphic design and found himself immersed in the artistic and bohemian culture of Southern California. By the late eighties he had developed his signature style, using "dirty" type and non-mainstream photography. He would later be dubbed the "father of grunge."

Carson went on to become the art director of Transworld Skateboarding magazine. Among other things, he was also a professional surfer and in 1989 Carson was qualified as the 9th best surfer in the world. His career as a surfer helped him to direct a surfing magazine, called Beach Culture. This magazine lasted for three years but,
through the pages of Beach Culture, Carson made his first significant impact on the world of graphic design and typography with ideas that were called innovative even by those that were not fond of his work. From 1991-1992, Carson worked for Surfer magazine. A stint at How magazine (a trade magazine aimed at designers) followed, and soon Carson launched Ray Gun, a magazine of international standards which had music and lifestyle as its subject. Ray Gun made Carson very well-known and attracted new admirers to his work. In this period, journals such as the New York Times (May 1994) and Newsweek (1996) featured Carson and increased his publicity greatly. In 1995, Carson founded his own studio, David Carson Design in New York City, and started to attract major clients from all over the United States. During the next three years (1995-1998), Carson was doing work for Pepsi Cola, Ray Ban (orbs project), Nike, Microsoft, Budweiser, Giorgio Armani, NBC, American Airlines and Levi Strauss Jeans.

From 1998 on, DCD started an international career and worked for a variety of new clients, including AT&T, British Airways, Kodak, Lycra, Packard Bell, Sony, Suzuki, Toyota, Warner Bros., CNN, Cuervo Gold, Johnson AIDS Foundation, MTV Global, Princo, Lotus Software, Fox TV, Nissan, quiksilver, Intel, Mercedes-Benz, MGM Studios and Nine Inch Nails.

In 2000, Carson opened a new personal studio in Charleston, South Carolina. During this period, Carson became a father, a fact that affected his design and work. In 2004, Carson became the Creative Director of Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston and designed the special "Exploration" edition of Surfing Magazine and directed a television commercial for UMPQUA Bank in Seattle, Washington.

Carson became interested in a new school of typography and photography-based graphic design, which came from the academic explorations of Edward Fella at Cranbrook Academy of Art and California Institute of the Arts.
Carson is largely responsible for popularizing the style, and was an inspiration for a generation of young designers coming of age in the 1990's. His work does not follow "traditional" graphic design standards (as espoused by an older generation of practitioners such as the late Paul Rand). Carson has a part of himself in every piece and he is emotionally attached to his creations. Carson's work is considered an exploration in thoughts and ideas that become "lost" in his (and his target audience's) subconscious. Every piece is saturated with visual information that could easily be considered too heavy for the eye to interpret, but Carson still manages to communicate both the idea and the feeling behind his design. His extensive use of combinations of typographic elements and photography led many designers to completely change their work methods and graphic designers from all around the world base their style on the new "standards" that have distinguished Carson's work. Carson is most famous for his ability to create spreads that even with little content seem to be
substantive.

Carson's work is familiar among the generation that grew up with Raygun Magazine and its progeny such as huH and xceler8, and in general, the visually savvy MTV generation, but his work still receives criticism from a generation that refuses to engage with his connotative excesses.