Discourse – Ray Gun

David Carson article on Bryan Ferry.

Ray Gun was an iconic rock and roll magazine that published over seventy issues throughout it’s lifetime (1992 – 2000.) The cover tagline,’the bible of music & style’ sums up the content perfectly; the magazine became just as infamous for experimental design as it did for musical content. Ray Gun always maintained an edge over the competition, by promoting up-and-coming artists in advance of its rivals.

The typography and page layouts were pushed to the extreme, sometimes to the point of being illegible. An example of this is in the film Helvetica. David Carson, the magazines original art director discusses issue 21, the legendary article on Bryan Ferry. To reflect on the dullness of the interview, he ran the article in Zapf dingbats font. Ray Gun’s hard to read design ethics proved to be unfavorable with some people. However, many thought that this added to the magazines appeal.

Ray Guns groundbreaking style can be compared to Émigrés. The innovative type featured in both magazines helped bring about the realisation that it was possible to have a successful career dedicated to designing new typefaces. The rise of Ray Gun was documented in Émigré in 1992 (Issue 24) and David Carson featured in issue 27 in 1993.

Extract from Helvetica – David Carson on Bryan Ferry article.

References

Web -

http://www.emigre.com/Editorial.php?sect=1&id=17

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Gun_(magazine)

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Raygun-Magazine

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3065/is_n12_v21/ai_13634968/

http://joeclark.org/design/davidcarson.html

http://www.emigre.com/EMag.php?issue=24

http://www.emigre.com/EMag.php?issue=27

Film -

Helvetica

Image taken from http://magculture.com/blog/?p=1209