Our design heroes

[YellowPeril]

Another thread on this site encouraged me to start this one and hopefully older designers will have a pang of nostalgia and the younger ones perhaps a wiff of inspiration.

At college I had three main heroes, one was Herb Lubalin (see A lesson in logo design on this site), the second was John Gorham (see this link Graphic Journey Blog: May 2009 ) and third was a part time tutor we had called Eric Lochrane. He was a man who would stand by you with encouragement and come up with fifteen brilliant ideas to your sort of OK one. He would show you a flick book animation he'd created on the train that morning, he would pick up someones guitar and play it, despite never having played one before, he would crash at your house and cook a gourmet meal, he was a brilliant photographer before becoming fed up with it and teaching himself graphics, he was reputed as having been the only photographer present with the locked in Glasgow docks strikers and to have taken the famous picture of David Bedford (the runner) collapsing. I was teaching part time at Redditch and mentioned him to a colleague and he said that h Eric had been his tutor at Stoke and how brilliant he was. It was said when being interviewed for that post, the interviewing panel representative came out and told the rest that they may as well go home - who knows, but he was inspirational.

So come on blow your heroes trumpet!

[Ian Bonner]

David Carson. I followed him at the start and still do now. He defied the rules with his typography and I think that design is all about breaking rules, not keeping to them.

[YellowPeril]

Ian, I'm not familiar with David Carson, any links or samples?

[Ian Bonner]

Ian, I'm not familiar with David Carson, any links or samples?

Yeah of course.

dcd

The book that got me interested in him was 'The End Of Print - The Graphic Design of David Carson'

I think it's probably on its 3rd or 4th reprint now.

[YellowPeril]

Once I'd seen some work I recognised the fact that I'd noticed his stuff but not gone out of my way to find out who he was, so I guess that probably means something. Quite liked certain aspects of his work but not all of it was my cup of tea. However someone only a few months younger than me, still with a full head of hair is liable to cause some resentment!

[DanielMartin]

One of my design heros is born and bred Dot Design , :D He just seems to captivate the stylish unique fontaine of modern design ( check him out on the forums )

[Ian Bonner]

Once I'd seen some work I recognised the fact that I'd noticed his stuff but not gone out of my way to find out who he was, so I guess that probably means something. Quite liked certain aspects of his work but not all of it was my cup of tea.

I agree he definitely won't be everyones cup of tea. I think he was 'allowed' to use typography like that because he was working on RayGun. It allowed him more creative license. I also like the work he did for Pepsi and Nike over the years, where he seems to restrain himself a little, but the style of his work is still there.

[sthomas]

When I was studying at Uni (mid 1990's) everyone was into David Carson and lots of students (me included) bought The End of Print.

At the time, we couldn't understand why our tutors weren't that keen on the work and instead pushed us to look at designers like Herb Lubalin or Paul Rand. Our tutors wanted us to learn the rules of typography before we followed Carson's path and completely destroyed them

Now when i revisit Carson's work, I have to admit that I'm not that keen on that style anymore. While some of it still looks exciting and was a major factor in why I become a designer, it hasn't really lasted the test of time. It definitely seems like he was painting with typography with no concerns for legibility.

For any design students who don't know his work, it's definitely worth checking out to see what all the fuss was about.

[Ian Bonner]

Now when i revisit Carson's work, I have to admit that I'm not that keen on that style anymore. While some of it still looks exciting and was a major factor in why I become a designer, it hasn't really lasted the test of time. It definitely seems like he was painting with typography with no concerns for legibility.

I feel stupid for mentioning him now. lol

I think to use typography in that way you need to know the rules in order to break them. The style he used was directed at a particular audience and as I said before, won't ever be to everyones liking. But he also produced work for some extremely large brands and successfully. He was able to adapt his style in order to do that. His typical style wasn't going to work for them brands so he toned it down.

I think sometimes people like design to follow the guidelines but to quote Paul Arden, "If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules".

[dedwardp]

I feel stupid for mentioning him now. lol

I think to use typography in that way you need to know the rules in order to break them. The style he used was directed at a particular audience and as I said before, won't ever be to everyones liking. But he also produced work for some extremely large brands and successfully. He was able to adapt his style in order to do that. His typical style wasn't going to work for them brands so he toned it down.

I think sometimes people like design to follow the guidelines but to quote Paul Arden, "If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules".

I don't think you should feel stupid for mentioning him, everyone has different ideas and that's what's so wonderful about an art such as design I guess!

Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of the more radical pieces but, as has been said, each to their own