David Ray Carson was born in Texas in the United States but he moved in New York 4 years later. Since then he is traveling all around the world but always he has NYC as his base of operations. David Ray Carson or dcd (the way that his work is signed) now owns 2 studios, one is NYC and one in Charleston, SC, he is also the creative director and a designer at R/GA (Robert Grennberg and Associates) . In order to achieve this level of recognition and be known as “The Best Graphic Designer” or the “Art Director of the Era” dcd has passed through different stages in his career that one after the other made him what he is now.

Because of his father dcd traveled all over America, Puerto Rico the West Indies. This journeys(treks) touched him and the first signs of his talent were shown in a very young age, but his first actual contact with graphic design was made in Switzerland. David Carson was making a BA(Hons) in Sociology when he made a three weeks workshop in graphic design as part of his degree. The first great influence he has was his Swiss teacher of the course named Hans-Rudolph Lutz that he was a graphic designer. During the period of 1982 – 1987 Carson worked as a teacher in a high school near San Diego. In 1984 Carson starts to experiment with graphic design and becomes the art director of Transworld Skateboarding magazine. David Carson among other things was also a professional Surfer and in 1989, Carson was qualified as the 4th best surfer world wide. This might have nothing to do with graphic design but his career as a surfer helped him to launch his own magazine called Beach Culture that lasted for 3 years but thought the pages of Beach Culture Carson made his first impact to the world of Graphic Design and typography with ideas that were called innovative even by those that are not font of his work. In 1991 till 1992 Carson worked for the Surfer Magazine, the How magazine followed and soon Carson launched the Ray Gun a magazine of international standards that had to do with music and life style and made Carson very known and attracted new admirers to his work. In this period journals like New York Times (May 1994) and Newsweek (1996) featured Carson and raised him in the publicity chart. In 1995 Carson has founded David Carson Design New York City his own Graphic Design agency and started to attract major clients from all over the U.S.A During the next three years (1995-1998) Carson is doing work for Pepsi Cola, Ray Ban (orbs project), Nike, Microsoft, Budweiser, Giorgio Armani, NBC, American Airlines and Levi Straus Jeans.

From 1998 and on dcd starts an international career and new clients like 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, quicksilver, Intel, Mercedes Benz, MGM Studios and Nine Inch Nails

In 2000 Carson becomes member of the R/GA (Robert Grennberg and Associates and also opens a new personal studio Charleston, SC. His career reaches the top and during this period Carson becomes a father a fact that affect his design and work in a very high level. In 2004 Carson has become 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.

David Ray Carson inspired many designers and created a whole new school of typography and photography based graphic design. His work doesn’t follow the graphic design standards, in every piece Carson has a part of his self and he is emotionally attached with his creations. David Carson work is an exploration in thoughts and ideas that are lost in his and its target audience subconscious. Every piece is so full of information that could be easily be considered heavy for the eye to interpreter, but still he manages to pass both the idea and feeling behind his design. His extensive use of typographic elements and photography mixture led many designers to a complete change of working and graphic designers from all around the world base their whole style on the new “standards” that David Carson stands for. Finally Carson is really famous for his ability to create spreads that with even little content seem to be rich, vivacious and meaty.

Publications

In November (1995) Carson publishes his first book the End of Print. The end of print sold over 200.000 copies in 5 different languages and soon became the ever best selling graphic design book worldwide. His second book called 2nd Sight will follow in 1997. It is said that this book simply changed the public face of graphic design (Newsweek). In 1998 Carson has worked with Professor John Kao of the Harvard Business School on a documentary entitled "The Art and Discipline of Creativity." The 3rd book that Carson published is called Fotografiks (1999) and gave to Carson the Award of Best use of Photography in Graphic Design. Finally the last Carson’s book named trek has just been released. Carson has also helped in the development of "The History of Graphic Design" by Philip Meggs and "The Encylopedia of Surfing" by Matt Warsaw.

Awards

During the period of 1989 – 2004 David Carson has won over 170 Awards for his work some of these awards are:

• Best Overall Design, Society of Publication Designers in New York. • Cover of the Year, Society of Publication Designers in New York. • Award of Best use of Photography in Graphic Design • Designer of the Year 1998, International Center of Photography • Designer of the Year 1999, International Center of Photography • Master of Typography, Graphis magazine (NY) • The most famous graphic designer on the planet, April 2004 - London Creative Review magazine (London)

Bibliography

Fotografiks by David Carson and Phillip B. Meggs Publisher: Laurence King Publishing ISBN: 1856691713

by Lewis Blackwell, David Carson Publisher: Chronicle Books ISBN: 0811830241

by David Carson Publisher: Universe Publishing (Incorporated, Div. of Rizzoli ISBN: 0789301288

Trek by David Carson Publisher: Gingko Press ISBN: 1584230460

External links

• David Carson - Personal Site
• Davidcarson Design - Company