David Carson
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American Graphic Designer, David Carson, is best known for his work as the art director of 'Ray Gun' magazine. He challenged the usual conventions of magazines layouts and designs by creating unique and innovative magazine covers. the barcode and masthead - if there was one was never placed in the same particular place. As all the magazine covers were abstract and different there was no particular house style and theme as the logo was never the same.
To the right are some examples of his work. He challenged the magazine conventions as none of the mastheads re the same they are all in different fonts, sizes and colours so there is no uniformity or continuity. The cover lines are never placed in the same position as other issues, similarly to the masthead they are in different fonts, sizes and colours. The main images have no certain style and for example on 'Vogue' covers they always have models on the front or music magazine such as 'NME' would have artists on the front. Raygun however doesn't always feature the artist as the main image on the cover and the image isn't necessarily upright as shown in one of the cover shown to the left.
As Carson created unique covers every month it meant that it lacked a theme so there was no certain recognition for the magazine which could reduce the amount of consumers as they cant't recognise the magazine. Not all the covers were eligible due to the fact the font on some magazine were not readable. Whilst every issue is recognisably unusual and interesting only 74 covers were released as there was a lack of of a sense of familiarity. This shows us that magazines need a logo and a theme to maintain ca strong customer base as its easy for them to spot the logo on a busy magazine stand.
In my opinion I found some of the magazine covers very interesting and attractive as they were unique and different so it was something refreshing from your usual music magazine. On the other hand I strongly disliked some as to me I didn't see the point in what Carson was trying to portray. Some of the fonts were difficult to read so it gave me the impression the rest of the magazine would be similar. I feel that my opinion maybe explains why the magazine failed to continue as not everyone could see Carson's perspective and what he was aiming for. Although breaking the conventional magazine rules can be cool and unique, I personally would stick to the conventional way as it's more likely to attract and maintain a customer base.
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