David Carson

This project was to create an art show for the graphic designer David Carson. Using his style of craziness and pops of color, I created a poster, billboard, ticket, program, and web banner that looks like something David Carson might have created. Also, these were used as advertisements and physical items for the art show.

Purpose: Senior Portfilio

Programs: Adobe InDesign and Illustrator

Project: Typography Experimental

Year
2026

Preliminary Sketches

The original sketches for this project were for the poster, ticket, and the front cover of the program. These sketches were used to start drumming ideas.

Color Palette

My ideas of color were based off the research I did looking at David Carson’s artwork. I wanted to use colors that were be able to pop on their own without the color being too overpowering to the main typography. The dark royal blue was used as the main color of the typography. While the other three colors are used in the letters that are found in the background and throughout some of the collages found throughout the pieces.

Typography

The from there the typography that had the information of the art show on the poster, program, billboard, and web banner was Helvari. The main information about David Carson and The Gaslight Theatre was Ariel and finally the information on the ticket was Helvetica LT Pro Bold.

Digital Drafts

The colors did work together but it did not look like something David Carson might create. I also started to box in the text and the different images found that they started to make each part be an element on their own and had no tie to each other. I decided to add on a billboard and web banner as well.

Final Designs

From my research of David Carson’s work, I noticed he used color as a source of color and not as the main color background. Also, I wanted to incorporate the letters of my typography Playway into my pieces by using those letters in the background, faded a bit, and in the little collages I made. This brought more of the craziness to my pieces. I also wanted to make sure all the pieces flowed together. I wanted all my pieces to be eye catching yet being able to draw people in on wanting to see David Carson’s work.