david carson/on a plane from tijuana mexico back
to new york city/.mac/.inprogress.
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You are a designer who inspires and influences others, what/who inspires
you:
The painter mark rothko, my numerous travels. moods. music.the work
itself.
When you were working at Raygun did you realise your
work was changing design or did you just have fun and roll with it:
Never realized or thought about it. was too wrapped up in doing and
enjoying the work, experimenting, and playing.
There has been a fair bit of discussion on various
design forums lately about whether it is necessary to have a formal
design education to be a good designer, as a designer who did not first
study design what are your thoughts on this:
Its certainly not crucial or important to being a good designer, and
can often be a hinderence. some combination of actual work, workshops,
conferences and a course or two is probably best. and remember, in order
to break the rules, you must first not know them.
Has being a 'celebrity' designer influenced your design
work:
Not that i m aware of. but its kinda fun sometimes. its sure gotten
me to see alot of the world and meet lots of amazing and friendly people,
and i have to think all those experiences have and continue to influence
the work in some way....sure beats looking at design anuals.... its
a pretty small world this design world of ours, and on a day to day
basis, i dont feel like any sort of 'celebrity '. only sometimes when
im asked to give a talk and i show up somewhere like equador (last month)
and the talks are completly sold out standing room
only, and for a minute you think whoa, whats going on here?? then its
back on the plane back my studio, friends, music .reality. if its winter,
hopefully back to some surfing in the carribean. summer, then point
dume.in california. both right hand point breaks.....
You have recently put up a splash for your new site,
do you enjoy designing for the web:
The biggest problem is finding the time to really do it, and do it in
a way im happy with.when i was doing ray gun, and especially beach culture
magazine, i wasnt doing much else, so all the time and energy got poured
into those projects..now im alot busier and its frustrating not being
able to devote
100percent of my time to really exploring designing on the web .....
and i can be pretty critical of my own work--there was never a great
issue of ray gun, (there were a couple sweet spreads tho)..and ive never
been able to design a good book cover for myself ....so with the web
its mostly frustrating finding the time...but i am getting more and
more intriguied and immersed in it..i enjoy most the untapped potential
of the web....
Do you think that it is inevitable that most print
designers will be drawn to the web:
Yes. hopefully for creative reasons, but its definetly where eveything
is headed. and if your not a particulary talented or intuitive designer,
its the best place to get work....
The splash page looks clean, you are known for you
grunge work and chaotic typography, but here we see clean imagery and
little type. Is this a new approach you are taking:
Ive never thougth of myself as a 'grunge designer'-whatever that is,
and the typography was never trying to be chaotic...
but hopefully the work evolves...its a bit like the books. there's 3
of them now(end of print, 2nd sight and fotografiks) and 2 on the way,
and i see them more like albums(cds) it depends what interests me at
the time...so the last book was mostly fotographs with very little type,
and the work i did for
nine inch nails last year was mostly just my fotography..some of the
new work for the marshall mccluen estate,has a bit more type exploration.....so
hopefully the site is just a result of the natural progreswsion the
work takes..i think
my work has always been as much about the overall imagery and concept
as much as it is the type.
What can we expect behind the doors of the new Carson Design website:
Well , the site i REALLY want to do will probably be the next incarnation,
but the new one, well. im still sortin it out...and it
may be something better viewed than talked about in an interview..kinda
like all those books and articles you see with the little squares from
web sites capturing none of the excitment, creativity. energy...etc.
You have visited Australia several times (I think),
do you think that Australian's have a unique design style:
No. but they do have plenty of great design ..there 's some amazingly
creative design going on in australia, but i dont feel its has its
own "australian"stamp to it..... i.m starting to get interested
in architecture and my favorite house design
books are always australian. theres a unique fresh, inovative approach,
to buiiding living spaces in australia-espcially in alot of the beach
houses, that i dont t hink it s as obvious or distinctive in grafik
design....but thats true most places today...very few places ive been
would i say have a
unique style only to their geographical area...design seems to have
gotten more global and homogenized, and thats a bad thing.
As a surfer what do you think of the waves over here
in Aus:
Well obviously its got great waves, but in the 4 or 5 times ive been
ive never seen it epic. ive only been to sydney and melbourne and
would really like to see some other areas of australia....i did find
some amazing secret points in southern new zealand a few years back
while doing a 2 week workshop
there.....
How has surfing and its lifestyle influenced your
design:
Indirectly, but im sure strongly. growing up around the beach, and
surfing i think gives you a certain freedom and experimtation in terms
of how you approach other things in your life , and in your design.
and i think i had a subject matter and audience that expected and
in some unspoken ways demaned a more expressive, experimental approach
to the work, .....i learned design by doing surfing, skating and snowboarding
magazines........
Will you be coming back to Australia for lectures
or talks any time soon:
I hope so. i love it down there. but maybe no more invites after this
comes out?
Do you have any projects coming up that you can tell
us about:
Hmmmm, well im art directing and designing alot of stuff for quiksilver
in california, and this new book of marshall mccluen (the medium is
the message guy) quotes should be interesting....the revised edtion
of 'end of print"will be out in a couple of months, im finishing
up some type heavy commercilas,and theres some new nine inch nails
stuff from their concerts in the works, and im talking with some folks
about a very experimental new website that i dont want
to jinx by talking about yet.....but mostly,after a very busy spring
and summer, i'm getting ready to start heading back to my house in
the carribean as the fall+winter storms start kicking in new swells...
Any final comments:
Trust your gut. do what you love. lifes to important to be taken seriously.
Thanks David!