Grunge

Grunge is a movement which emerged in Seattle in the 80s and 90s. This movement was spread from music to fashion and also to graphic design. The grunge movement was inspired from previous movements which were the Punk, Heavy metal and Indie rock. Grunge was quiet known for its messy and chaotic designs and also for its scratchy typefaces. Grunge became very popular throughout the years and it became well known in the recent design history.

David Carson

David Carson is the most important designer who explored the ‘rule breaking’ ideas of Punk and Deconstructivisit design. His style challenged the traditional, editorial and advertising design of the 80s and 90s. He graduated from sociology and started teaching in high school while he was training to be a professional surfer. Surfing one of the reasons for his motivation and success to direct and design various snowboarding, surfing magazines, website, advertisements and products like Quicksilver, Burton among others. Carson became very well known from his designs that were published on the Ray Gun magazine which was the peak of his design career and started to attract new people.

Here is a poster made by David Carson:

Characteristics:

·         Asymmetrical layouts

·         Pages with densely layered image

·         Fragment typefaces

·         Contrasting weights sizes and forms

He produced two books which were ‘The end of print’ (1995) and ‘David Carson: 2^nd Sight’ (1997).

 

Erik Spiekermann

Erik Spiekermann is a German designer who studied in Germany then moved to London and worked for Pentagram. Spiekermann is an author, an information architect, type designer and an author of books and articles about type and typography. He is the co founder of MetaDesign.

He has designed several typefaces such as the Meta typeface as an alternative to Helvetica. Meta typeface has more curves and pseudo serifs to give it more character. He wrote a book ‘Stop stealing sheep and find out how type works’.

Meta Typeface

References

Neli Todorova's blog, (2013). David Carson - 'The Father of Grunge'. [online] Available at: https://nvtodorova.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/david-carson-the-father-of-grunge/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].

Fontfont.com, (2015). Designers: Erik Spiekermann. [online] Available at: https://www.fontfont.com/designers/erik-spiekermann [Accessed 29 Jan. 2015].