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Conversation with David Carson
BY
TAXI
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TAXI How do you feel about being hailed as the world's greatest graphic designer?
David Carson Wellllll, that feels pretty good. But just a tad bit subjective don't you think? Not something one can take seriously. There's lots of great designers out there.
It was never my intent to be well known, I just did what I enjoyed and was passionate about, and it's worked out pretty well. Better than I ever would have imagined, and i feel really fortunate for the way my career has gone. Graphic design has always felt more like a hobby to me than work.
It's been like that old saying, if you work really hard at something you really love it will eventually pay off. And as Marshall McLuhan said, if you're totally involved in something, it's no longer work, it's play or leisure.
TAXI What was the first thing that came to your mind when you first embarked on the Ray Gun project? Did you foresee the kind of success and exposure it would get?
David Carson I really thought my previous work on the magazine Beach Culture, was more solid, and holds up better. I really felt Beach Culture was more likely what my work might be known for. But so few people actually saw Beach Culture, its impact was minimal.
By the time I started designing Ray Gun, I really thought it was a way of
working I'd been doing for some time, and was surprised at the response.
The difference I think was that people actually could find Ray Gun, unlike Beach Culture.
Hopefully my design was evolving, and the subject matter was different than Beach Culture, so it needed its own look and feel--one that was consistent with the subject matter, while keeping the intended audience in mind.
It really hit some nerve out there. The letters were so overwhelmingly positive, (and continue to this day, though now in email form) people thought we were making them up. I finally had to label that section "actual letters" trying to indicate they really were real letters we were receiving. The people who hated it tended not to write, which might be different now as it's so much easier to send mean hate mail quickly with the Internet.......
TAXI You’re a vocal proponent and critic of mainstream as well as alternative journalism. What is your perspective on the role of journalism?
David Carson It should be honest and intelligent.
I don't know why graphic design doesn't attract better writers. It seems to me, if you're really good at your craft, say writing, then you're asked to write outside of your specialty, based on your writing talent. But this almost never happens with design critics/writers.
An exception would be Kerrie Jacobs, writing at Metropolis and Dwell magazines. She's a great example of a talented writer who can write intelligently about things besides typefaces and famous designers. Phil Meggs, with his background, could speak and write with more validity than most. Chip Kidd is a wonderful writer, possibly the best designer who writes equally well, and Mike Bierut is a decent writer, just not much of a designer.(his best work is STILL the poster his kid did decades ago, pre-dating all the current hand lettering stuff) The lists stops pretty quickly after these.
One well known, talented writer/critic from England is referred to by Neville Brody as "the ultimate design groupie", which, I guess you sorta have to be if you want to spend your life writing about those who do work you can't. But I'm just not sure "design groupie" is a great criteria for a design writer...
It's a little bit like movie critics, people who for the most part couldn't direct a movie if their life depended on it, and now they get a TV show, a funny side kick, and sit in a theater TV set and critique some amazing director's work. I just have more respect for the directors of some movies than the characters on TV who dissect it.I admire the people who can actually do the creative work more than those who chose to write about work they could never do and often don't comprehend.
But, that said, I never would have had such a wonderful career without all
the press,good and bad, so I owe all the writers a hearty thank you!
A few of the more suprising experiences regarding writers would include:
Once, after a lecture for a national AIGA conference I ran into a very well-known design writer/critic, and asked her if she'd just heard my lecture. "No" she replied, 'I just don't understand your work".
Hello??
Design writers have an easy audience, who seem to cower in front of them, giving them a disproportionate amount of power. Designers can be a meek group, who simply accept what they read uncritically. So I think often we end up with default writers, ones who couldn't necessarily get work in other writing fields.
But with graphic design, and all the magazines and web sites and blogs looking to fill pages, they can write, and get printed, relativily easily. Everyone can be a designer! And everyone can be a design critic!! Great. But if you're truly a gifted writer, you should occasionally be writng about things besides typefaces and famous designers.
Say for example, the tragic, misgided, unnecessary, pathetic war in Iraq
might be something to address with the forum you've been given as a writer.....especially American and British writers....Often the writers are not as adept at their field as the designers they report on are in theirs.
I.D. magazine in New York, once did an article on me. Then editor Chee Pearlman called me in an airport to tell me who she had assigned for my "interview" and article.
Various comments I had heard from this writer's students, and some things I personally heard him say, made me feel this was not a wise nor acceptable choice to do the interview. "You mean you're refusing to do this interview?" Ms. Pearlman asked in an angry tone. "Well, yes", I replied. As she abruptly hung up the phone, Ms. Pearlman's comment to me was: "You'll be sorry".
David Carson Wellllll, that feels pretty good. But just a tad bit subjective don't you think? Not something one can take seriously. There's lots of great designers out there.
It was never my intent to be well known, I just did what I enjoyed and was passionate about, and it's worked out pretty well. Better than I ever would have imagined, and i feel really fortunate for the way my career has gone. Graphic design has always felt more like a hobby to me than work.
It's been like that old saying, if you work really hard at something you really love it will eventually pay off. And as Marshall McLuhan said, if you're totally involved in something, it's no longer work, it's play or leisure.
TAXI What was the first thing that came to your mind when you first embarked on the Ray Gun project? Did you foresee the kind of success and exposure it would get?
David Carson I really thought my previous work on the magazine Beach Culture, was more solid, and holds up better. I really felt Beach Culture was more likely what my work might be known for. But so few people actually saw Beach Culture, its impact was minimal.
By the time I started designing Ray Gun, I really thought it was a way of
working I'd been doing for some time, and was surprised at the response.
The difference I think was that people actually could find Ray Gun, unlike Beach Culture.
Hopefully my design was evolving, and the subject matter was different than Beach Culture, so it needed its own look and feel--one that was consistent with the subject matter, while keeping the intended audience in mind.
It really hit some nerve out there. The letters were so overwhelmingly positive, (and continue to this day, though now in email form) people thought we were making them up. I finally had to label that section "actual letters" trying to indicate they really were real letters we were receiving. The people who hated it tended not to write, which might be different now as it's so much easier to send mean hate mail quickly with the Internet.......
TAXI You’re a vocal proponent and critic of mainstream as well as alternative journalism. What is your perspective on the role of journalism?
David Carson It should be honest and intelligent.
I don't know why graphic design doesn't attract better writers. It seems to me, if you're really good at your craft, say writing, then you're asked to write outside of your specialty, based on your writing talent. But this almost never happens with design critics/writers.
An exception would be Kerrie Jacobs, writing at Metropolis and Dwell magazines. She's a great example of a talented writer who can write intelligently about things besides typefaces and famous designers. Phil Meggs, with his background, could speak and write with more validity than most. Chip Kidd is a wonderful writer, possibly the best designer who writes equally well, and Mike Bierut is a decent writer, just not much of a designer.(his best work is STILL the poster his kid did decades ago, pre-dating all the current hand lettering stuff) The lists stops pretty quickly after these.
One well known, talented writer/critic from England is referred to by Neville Brody as "the ultimate design groupie", which, I guess you sorta have to be if you want to spend your life writing about those who do work you can't. But I'm just not sure "design groupie" is a great criteria for a design writer...
It's a little bit like movie critics, people who for the most part couldn't direct a movie if their life depended on it, and now they get a TV show, a funny side kick, and sit in a theater TV set and critique some amazing director's work. I just have more respect for the directors of some movies than the characters on TV who dissect it.I admire the people who can actually do the creative work more than those who chose to write about work they could never do and often don't comprehend.
But, that said, I never would have had such a wonderful career without all
the press,good and bad, so I owe all the writers a hearty thank you!
A few of the more suprising experiences regarding writers would include:
Once, after a lecture for a national AIGA conference I ran into a very well-known design writer/critic, and asked her if she'd just heard my lecture. "No" she replied, 'I just don't understand your work".
Hello??
Design writers have an easy audience, who seem to cower in front of them, giving them a disproportionate amount of power. Designers can be a meek group, who simply accept what they read uncritically. So I think often we end up with default writers, ones who couldn't necessarily get work in other writing fields.
But with graphic design, and all the magazines and web sites and blogs looking to fill pages, they can write, and get printed, relativily easily. Everyone can be a designer! And everyone can be a design critic!! Great. But if you're truly a gifted writer, you should occasionally be writng about things besides typefaces and famous designers.
Say for example, the tragic, misgided, unnecessary, pathetic war in Iraq
might be something to address with the forum you've been given as a writer.....especially American and British writers....Often the writers are not as adept at their field as the designers they report on are in theirs.
I.D. magazine in New York, once did an article on me. Then editor Chee Pearlman called me in an airport to tell me who she had assigned for my "interview" and article.
Various comments I had heard from this writer's students, and some things I personally heard him say, made me feel this was not a wise nor acceptable choice to do the interview. "You mean you're refusing to do this interview?" Ms. Pearlman asked in an angry tone. "Well, yes", I replied. As she abruptly hung up the phone, Ms. Pearlman's comment to me was: "You'll be sorry".
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I wasn't, but it did give me pause about the level of professionlism of writers and editors in our field.
The new version of the old idea, first things first "manifesto", began at the top of the food chain and attempted to force its way down the throats of the masses. This is not how true change happens. True change, or revolution, or new movements, start from the bottom and work up. Not from one self-anointed Czar of design criticism. In order to be real, to have some legitimacy and/or effect, it would have had to been generated by students, or young graphic designers.
I sent a detailed and long rebuttal to the "manifesto" folks at Adbusters. The editor rejected it, saying "the purpose of printing the manifesto was to provoke discussion". Hello?? So now you're choosing not only who is asked to sign, but who gets to respond???
And the hypocrisy of the many signers who had made large sums of money from cheesy advertising, now saying advertising is bad!! Shame on the rest of you who have to make a living!! (and weren't asked to partake)...... Overall a particularly low chapter in design writing.
I recently was invited to be part of a book about design, authored by AIGA board member Debbie Millman. When I started getting emails from people reporting things she was saying to them in private and public discussions, I chose not to be part of her book. When i told her of my decison, this is the email i received from her: "You should be ashamed of yourself. You don't even belong in a book with Sagmeister, Bierut, Paula, Brody, and Glaser". Well, okay,fair enough, but then why did you ask me to?? And later say what a great interview it had been?
An instructor at Cal Arts , part of the "angry old mens club", told me he
would 'NEVER" write negative comments about a writer or critic, as they might then write something dismissive or negative about his work......Jeeeez.
Graphic design writers/critcs get off way too easy I reckon. I just wish more of them were as creative as some of the folks they admire, stalk and write about.
TAXI Having worked with several corporate giants, what do you think is the biggest challenge in communicating with prospective clients?
David Carson To find one person in the higher levels of the company to really support and believe in your work. The bigger the company the bigger the "design approval" committees tend to be, and committee design rarely ends up with anything awful or great.
So the challenge is to get them to let you do the work they hired you to do. I've been fortunate because the people who would tend to give me the least freedom are the ones I don't hear from. But if you have a reasoning for what you're doing, if you're addressing clients needs and concerns, remembering the audience, AND presenting work you're proud of and feel works for that situation, you might be pleasantly surprised and what freedom you're given. It's an odd part of our profession where you sometimes have to try and "sneak in" the good stuff....
TAXI How much influence does surfing have in your creative process?
David Carson Not directly, but growing up in southern California, it's easy to develop a certain attitude of experimentation when approaching life or design. Being around and involved in the surfing world I'm sure helped me develop a less strict "follow the rules always" kind of approach. I suspect if I had grown up in the Midwest, the work might be slightly different, though I think the overall sensibility would still be the same. I began my careering on TWSkateboarding magazine and always thought it very important that the design fit the attitude of the sport.
Without formal training I never learned all the things I wasn't supposed to
do. I would read the article and try to express the emotion or feeling of
the article. I just did what made sense to me in interpreting the writing. I still work that way today , and have stayed away from grids or formal systems, that often leave work uninspired, emotionless and forgettable.
As I recently told a Japanese magazine, the best, most creative work comes from the West Coast. New York is best for spotting trends and swooping them up in a big way, for big clients. NYC does it well and professionally, but very little creativity is actually born there.. for true creativity and orginality, it's the West Coast. And rarely the big agencies, more often it's the smaller design studios doing the truly creative, original work.
TAXI I like that how your works, to paraphrase museum director Peter Walsh, ‘slow down the reading process a lot.’ In a way, readers have the time to absorb and digest the information, as opposed to having a huge chunk of information shoved down their throats. What was your intended response for your works?
David Carson Well, it's been said, I believe Katherine McCoy said it, the things we remember best are the things we read slowly, or need to take some time with. I want to bring the reader into the article visually, and hopefully they're rewarded with some worthwhile reading. And I always felt with my audiences, in particular, and now most audiences in general, it's hard to get them to dive into a page of grey type, regardless of how brilliantly its written.
There's a reason almost all major newspapers use color photos and/or graphics on their front pages. The New York Times even puts, heaven forbid, colored SPORTS photos occasionally on the front page. Circulation for printed newspapers, reporting news you already know from yesterday's Internet, continues its steady decline.
TAXI Given a chance, what would you say to "the people who hate what you do and stay far away"?
David Carson Hmmm,not much. But that's fine. It's not for everyone. On the other hand, if you're a little more open minded, say, you didn't vote twice for Bush, then maybe come to one of my many lectures I give all over the world, almost always for free,(the AIGA doesnt pay its speakers) and hear what I have to say and show. Generally the people who write the most meanspirited, silliest and just plain untrue things are ones I've never met or talked to....
TAXI What is the WORD, which you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years?
David Carson How about: Self-indulgent. Passion.
The new version of the old idea, first things first "manifesto", began at the top of the food chain and attempted to force its way down the throats of the masses. This is not how true change happens. True change, or revolution, or new movements, start from the bottom and work up. Not from one self-anointed Czar of design criticism. In order to be real, to have some legitimacy and/or effect, it would have had to been generated by students, or young graphic designers.
I sent a detailed and long rebuttal to the "manifesto" folks at Adbusters. The editor rejected it, saying "the purpose of printing the manifesto was to provoke discussion". Hello?? So now you're choosing not only who is asked to sign, but who gets to respond???
And the hypocrisy of the many signers who had made large sums of money from cheesy advertising, now saying advertising is bad!! Shame on the rest of you who have to make a living!! (and weren't asked to partake)...... Overall a particularly low chapter in design writing.
I recently was invited to be part of a book about design, authored by AIGA board member Debbie Millman. When I started getting emails from people reporting things she was saying to them in private and public discussions, I chose not to be part of her book. When i told her of my decison, this is the email i received from her: "You should be ashamed of yourself. You don't even belong in a book with Sagmeister, Bierut, Paula, Brody, and Glaser". Well, okay,fair enough, but then why did you ask me to?? And later say what a great interview it had been?
An instructor at Cal Arts , part of the "angry old mens club", told me he
would 'NEVER" write negative comments about a writer or critic, as they might then write something dismissive or negative about his work......Jeeeez.
Graphic design writers/critcs get off way too easy I reckon. I just wish more of them were as creative as some of the folks they admire, stalk and write about.
TAXI Having worked with several corporate giants, what do you think is the biggest challenge in communicating with prospective clients?
David Carson To find one person in the higher levels of the company to really support and believe in your work. The bigger the company the bigger the "design approval" committees tend to be, and committee design rarely ends up with anything awful or great.
So the challenge is to get them to let you do the work they hired you to do. I've been fortunate because the people who would tend to give me the least freedom are the ones I don't hear from. But if you have a reasoning for what you're doing, if you're addressing clients needs and concerns, remembering the audience, AND presenting work you're proud of and feel works for that situation, you might be pleasantly surprised and what freedom you're given. It's an odd part of our profession where you sometimes have to try and "sneak in" the good stuff....
TAXI How much influence does surfing have in your creative process?
David Carson Not directly, but growing up in southern California, it's easy to develop a certain attitude of experimentation when approaching life or design. Being around and involved in the surfing world I'm sure helped me develop a less strict "follow the rules always" kind of approach. I suspect if I had grown up in the Midwest, the work might be slightly different, though I think the overall sensibility would still be the same. I began my careering on TWSkateboarding magazine and always thought it very important that the design fit the attitude of the sport.
Without formal training I never learned all the things I wasn't supposed to
do. I would read the article and try to express the emotion or feeling of
the article. I just did what made sense to me in interpreting the writing. I still work that way today , and have stayed away from grids or formal systems, that often leave work uninspired, emotionless and forgettable.
As I recently told a Japanese magazine, the best, most creative work comes from the West Coast. New York is best for spotting trends and swooping them up in a big way, for big clients. NYC does it well and professionally, but very little creativity is actually born there.. for true creativity and orginality, it's the West Coast. And rarely the big agencies, more often it's the smaller design studios doing the truly creative, original work.
TAXI I like that how your works, to paraphrase museum director Peter Walsh, ‘slow down the reading process a lot.’ In a way, readers have the time to absorb and digest the information, as opposed to having a huge chunk of information shoved down their throats. What was your intended response for your works?
David Carson Well, it's been said, I believe Katherine McCoy said it, the things we remember best are the things we read slowly, or need to take some time with. I want to bring the reader into the article visually, and hopefully they're rewarded with some worthwhile reading. And I always felt with my audiences, in particular, and now most audiences in general, it's hard to get them to dive into a page of grey type, regardless of how brilliantly its written.
There's a reason almost all major newspapers use color photos and/or graphics on their front pages. The New York Times even puts, heaven forbid, colored SPORTS photos occasionally on the front page. Circulation for printed newspapers, reporting news you already know from yesterday's Internet, continues its steady decline.
TAXI Given a chance, what would you say to "the people who hate what you do and stay far away"?
David Carson Hmmm,not much. But that's fine. It's not for everyone. On the other hand, if you're a little more open minded, say, you didn't vote twice for Bush, then maybe come to one of my many lectures I give all over the world, almost always for free,(the AIGA doesnt pay its speakers) and hear what I have to say and show. Generally the people who write the most meanspirited, silliest and just plain untrue things are ones I've never met or talked to....
TAXI What is the WORD, which you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years?
David Carson How about: Self-indulgent. Passion.