Whither David Carson?

A number of people after reading GDANH come away thinking that I am dismissive of the work of David Carson. This is in fact not the case. Carson refused our requests to reproduce his work, something an editor tells me he does now with regularity. For this reason I was forced to cut out quite a bit of text about him for the sake of balance in the book. Here is what I had to say:

Published in the autumn of 1993, Ray Gun issue #11, “The UK Issue,” serves as a showcase of Carson’s technique. Subtitled “The Bible of Music and Style,” Ray Gun sought to provide an edgier alternative to the rather middle-aged leader of this genre, Rolling Stone. The cover of issue #11 features a slightly blurred photo of the group Swervedriver below a horizontal band of yellow (figure 1). The magazine’s title, which one would expect to be placed firmly on the yellow background, has instead slipped down half an inch where the bottoms of the letters get lost in the photo. The lettering of the name Ray Gun appears to be based on fanciful nineteenth century eclectic typefaces, as the letters are made up of clipped illustrations featuring an odd assortment of creatures and bits of machinery. The words “The UK Issue” are scarcely legible as the letters of the first and last words appear to be drawn from some mutant roman alphabet, while the sinuously sprawling and massive letters “UK” drawn by Calef Brown splay across the musicians’ faces.

Inside issue #11, an article on the Manic Street Preachers by Nina Malkin begins on a two-page spread. Legibility is at a premium, as Malkin’s last name is blacked out by a large, hovering question mark (figure 2). It appears as if the letters are running amok across the page. The left hand page’s content complements the chaotic typography in that it features a snippet from a longer interview that is out of context and difficult to make sense out of. The right hand page presents the viewer with a photograph that is so out of focus that one sees only the silhouettes of the band members, adding an air of mystery and even menace to the piece. The edges of the photo make it appear as if it has been crudely torn out of another work. The body text on this page has been contorted into a funnel like shape, creating a bottle neck part-way down the page. Throughout the spread, Carson left the alignment boxes that were used to place the text, as if he had casually left off in the middle of the process. This last device is exemplary of how Carson at times seems to be invoking a Dadaesque “anti-aesthetic,” one which attempts to subvert the idea of graphic design as a harmonious pursuit of beauty.

Already by 1993, excitement over the design of Ray Gun was starting to rival the content, as witnessed by numerous readers’ letters published in issue #11 that praise or criticize the format. In the letters section, a seemingly random decorative box runs up the gutter, threatening to obliterate the readers’ thoughts. Paul Cowen of London summarized the views of Carson’s fans when he wrote, “I am a London graphics student and after reading the last four editions of your magazine, I feel compelled to write and tell you how fucking good I think it is. The art work layouts and typefaces are all raw and exciting. . .” On the other hand, CA Schneck of Michigan declared “I got Ray Gun for the first time today. Unless you switch to a readable layout, it is also the last time.” More sophisticated Critics have repeatedly raised the issue of whether Carson’s designs exist only on a surface level, lacking a thorough conceptual basis. Under their analysis, the word “decorative” takes on a negative tenor, suggesting ephemeral pleasure at the expense of serious thought. It is notable that the work of Carson and of several Cranbrook educated designers share a lot of stylistic similarities, even though they arose out of very different environments; while Carson has often highlighted his lack of formal art education, the Cranbrook school is heavily into the theoretical dimensions of graphic design. In a certain sense, Carson’s work relates to Cranbrook’s in the same way that Paul Rand’s related to the Ulm design school; in each case, designers with vastly different levels of theoretical sophistication came up with strikingly similar formulations when they put their ideas into practice.