- Deconstruction became a dominant mode of graphic design in the 80s and 90s, especially in America
- Integration of theory and practice
- Result of post modernism - questioned unwritten assumptions and had a multiplicity of styles and approaches
No coherence to type, grid etc, anti-technique & anti-aesthetic; doesn't rely on colour theory; references to high and low culture - pluralism (...the doctrine that reality consists of several basic substances or elements .)
- Deconstruction = Approach associated with post-structuralism and Jacques Derrida
- Blended with 20s Russian constructivism = Deconstruction in architecture
- Deconstructionism = Visually interpreted in design
Jacques Derrida
Deconstruction was a term he coined for the critical examination of the fundamental conceptual distinctions, or “oppositions”. These oppositions are characteristically “binary” and “hierarchical,” one of which is assumed to be more fundamental than the other, the latter being secondary.
"Approach to texts which analyses their systems of representation - the systems which frame communication."
- Anything in culture that can be read and analysed
- Hidden contradictions below surface level meaning
- Construction of binary opposites is flawed - we often privilege one over another
An example of this can be the comparison between speech and writing. Speech is often treated as a more authentic form of language than writing whereas deconstructions disputes the hierarchal ordering.
Speech
- Interior to the mind
- Requires no equipment
- Spontaneous
- Natural, original
- Present subject
Writing
- Exterior to the mind
- Requires equipment
- Culturally constructed
- Artificial
- Absent subject
Form/Content
- Design is seen as secondary to content
- Content is privileged over form
- Is form invisible in books/posters/typography?
Conventions of typography include grids, weight, legibility, spacing, kerning, layout, style, page settings etc. However, are these are a vehicle for content or are they secondary? Does text influence how we interpret content or does form convey as much as context?
Cranbrook Academy of Art
- Graphic design co-led by Katherine McCoy
- Late 1970s and through 1980s
- Influences of post-structuralist theory (among other approaches)
Roland Barthes
Death of the Author (1968)
- The illusion that the author gives meaning
- People can be readers and can bring their own interpretation but decide not to; instead they follow the norm
Deconstruction in Graphic Design
1) Visible Language special issue, 'French Currents of the letter' (1978)
- Text slowly deconstructs itself
- Columns become fragmented
- Spaces are irregular and spontaneous
- Relationship between body and reference is disrupted
- How controlled are you by a typographic layout?
2) David Carson: Ray Gun Magazine (92-95)
- Onslaught of type and imagery
- Overwhelming - no structure/order
- Stylistic
- 'The end of print'
3) Peter Eisenman: Tokyo Office block
- Doesn't conform to usual structures
- Expositing limitations of creating a building
- Deconstructing architecture through architecture
4) Bernard Tschumi: Le Parc de la villette
- Contructed on 3 planes: Lines, surfaces, points
- All overlay across each other
- Thinking simultaneously
- Constantly shifting meaning
Summary
- Derrida re-examines the relationship between speech and writing
- Taken up in architecture (as an imposed 'ism')
- Invoked in graphics at Cranbrook Academy of Art
- Recognised in works of others e.g. David Carson
- Overlaps with stylistic traits of postmodernism.
