Carson, the new convention?

Figure 1

David Carson, an American graphic designers, is best known, as the art director of 'Ray Gun' magazine, for his unique and innovative magazine covers.  He challenged the conventions of magazine layouts and designs, even if sometimes he wasn't so successful.

Every single cover of Ray Gun was extremely different. The house style was never the same, neither was the logo or even the positioning of the bar code.

Although David Carson's covers are now collectable items, at the time his covers only appealed to a niche audience. This is because people like familiarity. By experimenting with conventions Carson's non-conformist approach made it difficult for audience to easily understand the cover or grasp Carson's concepts and was therefore not always successfully popular. 

Figure 2

It is undeniable that every cover is interesting and unusual. However, not all of his covers are eligible. For example, figure 3 uses a font that makes the artists featured in the magazine extremely hard to read. It was Ray Gun's unique and bizarre style which was not only its greatest strength but also its largest weakness. 

For me, some Ray Gun issues are very attractive and are defiantly appealing, whereas other issues do not attract me at all and would possibly deter me from purchasing the magazine. My personal opinion is likely to also be that of others. 

Figure 3

  The lack of convention make most covers appear more like posters than     magazines; this therefore indicates how essential conventions are.

By attempting to break convention Ray Gun became a relatively short loved magazine, releasing only 74 unique covers.  By using conventions, a magazine creates a sense of familiarity; this is important as audience need to be able to astatine the desired information is a short space of time. A magazine that uses a consistent logo is easier to spot on a cluttered newsstand than a magazine that is different every issue. The average population don't like change, therefore experimenting with any product risks loosing your target audience.