Publication Content

Post Modernism is a difficult area to define. It began in the late 1970’s inspired by the punk movement. In graphic design, it was generally a response to Modernism, it rejected order, function and any rules that came with Modernism. It began to take every aspect of design and push it to its boundaries, and beyond. It was a period of extreme experimentation that questioned readability, functionality, colour and communication. Post modern design was for the individual, it embraced culture and this shows through the design, where modernist design was aimed at communicating with the masses post modernism is focussed on creating a connection with the individual.

“I am for an art… that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum. I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a starting point of zero. I am for an art that embroils itself with everyday crap and still comes out on top” Claes Oldenburg

Readability and legibility is an area of design that is constantly challenged throughout the postmodern era. David Carson’s design practice is focussed on exploring the relationship between communication and legibility. He uses legibility to make a connection with the reader, getting them involved with the deciphering and understanding of the work makes them a part of the work,  which is entirely different to the graphic design of Modernism, where the function of a poster is to communicate quickly and clearly. Pushing the viewers ability to gather meaning from a deconstructed design works to a certain extent but trying to read and understand text that has been changed beyond recognition becomes frustrating and annoying. This area of post modernism developed a lot of stylistic features that influenced what we know as Post modernism, the main one of these is ‘grunge type’. Grunge type is typography that has no apparent order or cleanliness, it is dirty and rough and in some cases barely legible.

“Taking the integrated whole apart, or destroying the underlying order that holds a graphic designer together” Phillip Meggs

Deconstruction is an integral part of Post Modernism, adopting a hand made, cut and paste ethos produced aesthetics that ignored all ideas of sticking to a grid. Neville Brody worked a lot with dismantling type and re-assembling regardless of if it was readable or even resembled anything similar to the original word.

The Cranbrook Academy began to teach deconstruction in design in the 1990’s, which was based heavily on theoretical understanding. Jaques Derrida heavily influenced this movement with his pairs of words that separated society into two opposing sides such as: Art/ Science, Mathematic/ Poetic, Mythology/ Technology. Katherine McCoy (Tutor at Cranbrook) said that “the emerging ideas emphasized the construction of meaning between the audience and the graphic design piece.”

The work produced at the Cranbrook Academy is very interesting. I can really appreciate how the ‘deconstruction’ idea gets the audience involved and engaged with the work, deciphering the message and understanding what is being communicated is like a puzzle. (see front cover of this book) Other examples of this include Allen Hori’s Typography as Discourse poster and Elliot Earls The conversion of Saint Paul.

“Design is more than just a few tricks to the eye. It’s a few tricks to the brain.” Neville Brody

Related to the idea of deconstruction, post modernism has a recurring theme of geometric shapes used in design work. April Greiman heavily uses basic shapes (square, circle, triangle) in her posters, layouts and publications. This comes from the influence of constructivism from around 1919, with designers such as El Lissitzky. Other designers known for use of geometric shapes include Kazuma Nagai and Jay Vigon.

Post Modernism is very interested in pop culture and consumerism. It uses familiar imagery to communicate with the viewer on a friendly level. This gives it a tone of voice that is ‘human’ in comparison to some older modernist design. It takes images from history and recycles and reuses them however it wants to. It looks to the past and the present rather than the future- which is what Modernism did. It breaks the boundaries of high and low culture by using imagery that everyone understands.

Art Chantry is a good example of this use of found and familiar imagery, he uses famous figures, layouts taken from advertisements and cartoons in his designs which create a humorous, interesting and friendly outcome.

“The messiness of human experience is warming up the cold precision of technology” – Cranbrook 1990

I like the theories and ideas of post modernism but I think that, in some cases, aesthetics are unappealing due to designers going out of their way to break rules even if this means that it doesn’t look good or work well as design. In conclusion, Post modernism is a style that incorporates defining features and ideologies. Mr. Keedy describes it well by saying  "First there is modernism with a capital "M," which designates a style and ideology…Then there is the modern, with a small "m." It is often confused with Modernism with a big M, but being a modern designer simply means being dedicated to working in a way that is contemporary and innovative, regardless of what your particular stylistic or ideological bias may be"

I think this well defines the contemporary design around at the moment it has no stylistic bias but it draws from past styles if it is relevant to the purpose of the work being produced.