The brief was to create a poster of a famous graphic designer with their style.

David Carson came to graphic design relatively late in life. He was a competitive surfer ranked eighth in the world—and a California high-school teacher when, at age 26, he enrolled in a two-week commercial design class. Discovering a new calling, he briefly enrolled at a commercial art school before working as a designer at a small surfer magazine, Self and Musician. He then spent four years as a part-time designer for the magazine Transworld Skateboarding, which enabled him to experiment. His characteristic chaotic spreads with overlapped photos and mixed and altered type fonts drew both admirers and detractors. Photographer Albert Watson, for example, declared, “He uses type the way a painter uses paint, to create emotion, to express ideas.” Others felt that the fractured presentation obscured the message it carried.

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