Dingbat Design

Ray Gun, 1994One of the funniest design stories that never fails to make me giggle is that of David Carson – art director of Ray Gun magazine – outrageously printing what he considered a boring story on Brian Ferry in Dingbat font.

Carson is best known for innovative magazine layout, and his use of experimental typography. At art school we were taught one of the most aspects of graphic design was communication, but as Carson says:

Don’t mistake legibility for communicationIn fact, the Brian Ferry story was published in a legible font at the back of the same issue of the magazine. A sense of humour is important too.