David Carson

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David Carson David Carson (b. 1955, Corpus Christi, TX) graduated from San Diego State University. Arguably one of the world's most famous graphic designers, he created a few fonts and is credited with launching the typographic grunge style in the 1990s. When people talk of "David Carson" fonts, they usually mean fonts he used in publications he helped realize, like Ray Gun and Eye magazines, and the End of Print book. A number of these fonts that have appeared in Ray Gun (for which he worked from 1992 until 1995) while Carson was art director are available for sale from Garage Fonts. A font designed by Carson (emulating hand/finger gestures) is included in one of Neville's FUSE series. At FUSE 7, he published Fingers. In 1995, Carson left Ray Gun to found his own studio, David Carson Design, in New York City. In 2000, Carson closed his New York City studio and followed his children to Charleston, South Carolina, where their mother had relocated them. Since then he has lived in San Diego, Seattle, Zurich, and Tortola. Currently he lives and works in NYC. Joe Clark ends an interview like this: I sent David Carson a copy of my published story via poste escargot, only to have it returned unopened with a handwritten note declaring: "Joe-- I'm not interested in your type of 'journalism.'" The design prima donna's antics are increasingly irrelevant now that he has been dismissed from Ray Gun (ding-dong!) and is now a meta-personality famous for being famous, rather like Zsa Zsa Gabor on The Hollywood Squares. No quantity of hagiographic Apple and other advertisements, David, can substitute for a genuine career. And your new magazine Speak comes dangerously close to monomania. Letting you lay it out and edit it and write it is the Peter principle brought to life. Though you're not interested in my type of "journalism," more and more readers are losing interest in yours. First, a font list of fonts attributed to David Carson (but read on about that after the list): Australis, BigEd, BigLazyBoy, ChicaShica, ChickenPlain, Coniption, Contrary, Copper, Cystfun, Darwin, Dead, Evangelic, FragileReg, Freeway, Fux, Gangly, Gunnnn, Hawkwindps, Heroin, JapanNetta, Johndvl, Manifesto, Macanuda Pro, Magical, Mexican, Newcent, Note, O, OCROver, One, Ooombabold, PhaseGothic, Pizzaface, Public, PublicEnemy, Serifedsans, Seven, Shurpa, SignSystem, Spicadog, Temblorosa, Thaitrade, Times, Timstypo, Wingnut, Wrongfont, Yoyoyo, Zwigaforma. This text was found on the web, by an anonymous poster: By Carson's own admission, he has designed "only a few typefaces." In fact, only one face from his own digital foundry (he is the founder of Garage Fonts) is credited to him---and even then it is in conjunction with Betsy Kopshina (Chicken Scratch). He has however, modified some existing faces from various designers for his own design work. Yet the majority of what you see labled Carson is "in the manner of," as he is generally recognized as the father of deconstructive (grunge) type and style, having lead the design of RayGun magazine and most notably being the author of "The End of Print." His style is literally taught at many design schools such as American Applied Arts, CalArts, and Cranbrook; where he is often a featured speaker. A substantial amount of work from schools such as these are incorrectly credited to Carson, when they're actually student assignments following his style. Still another portion are thought to be rejected submissions to Garage Fonts. And yet others are just misfilings (where no one took the time to get info). I have identified the source of many of the [fonts] credited to Carson. They are as follows: Addmorph - should be - Cranbrook (student: Schorn) Big Eds Used Type - should be - American Applied Arts (student: Edwin Utermohlen at CalArts) Boutime - should be - CalArts (student: Smith) Canadian Photographer - should be - Font Police/RSF (Rodney Sheldon Fehsenfeld) - note: this is a pre-Garage version Caustic Biomorph - should be - Fuse by FontShop (Barry Deck) Coppertop - should be - CalArts (student: unkn) EveFace - should be - CalArts (student: unkn) Freeway - should be - American Applied Arts (student: unkn) Ghettout - should be - Font Police/RSF (Rodney Sheldon Fehsenfeld) One Ioda - should be - Laport, Sue (probably a student at one of the schools) Sacred Cow - should be - Cranbrook (student: D. Shields) Spiker - should be - CalArts (student: unkn) STA Portable - should be - American Applied Arts (student: Christa Skinner) Swimblur - should be - Tozzi, Craig (probably a student at one of the schools) Author of the successful text The End of Print: The Graphic Design of David Carson (Chronicle, 1995). Wikipedia link. Interview with Joe Clark (Toronto). Very readable bio. %d Apr 19 2000	EXTERNAL LINKS David Carson [Designer info] MyFonts search Monotype search Fontspring search Google search INTERNAL LINKS Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Books on type design ⦿ Type scene in Texas ⦿ Type scene in New York ⦿