Deconstruction - 'Thinking with Type' Task

According to Lupton, text has more 'integrity and wholeness' as opposed to content surrounding it. Text is usually composed and treated for a specific purpose or context as indicated by either the writer or the designer; each of which poses its own limits. However, although the main purpose of typography within text is to engage people with the written word, Lupton suggests its focus is to 'help readers avoid reading'. This is supported by the views of deconstructionists who believe readers should not be forced to read though a particular structure but instead, text should instigate shortcuts and offer the readers own interpretation.

Before printing allowed text to be mass-produced, handwritten documents were abundant with individual errors which would be duplicated and altered when copies and copies of copies were made. Due to the innovation of the printing press, authors were put in the forefront and people were made well aware of the ownership of a particular piece of text. This form of closure meant the text was unchangeable and as a result, provided one meaning; the meaning what the author intended to evoke.

Roland Barthers, in his essay 'From Work to Text', disputes two forms of writing, the 'closed, fixed work' in comparison to the 'open, unstable text'. As typography was fixed and unchangeable due to printing and mass production, written text was supported by features which enhanced the readers navigation and engagement with the aforementioned text; some of which include page numbers, footnotes and contents. As a result, the 'death of the author' emerged and indicated how typography allows the reader to create meaning and understanding by looking at the form aswell as the intended function.

Deconstruction was a term coined by Jacques Derrida for the comparison of the conceptual binary oppositions or distinctions of a given subject to prove that one is not more fundamental than the other. It became a dominant mode of graphic design in the 80s and 90s as contemporary designers began to explore Barthes's theory - that the author no longer controls the significance of text but instead its form indicates how it should be interpreted.

Katerine McCoy, Cranbrook Graduate Poster, 1989 [online] Available at: http://www.webdesignstuff.co.uk/hp005/2011/01/26/deconstruction-and-web-page-design/

Katherine McCoy was a leading tutor for the design program at Cranbrook Academy of Arts. Pluralism and the art of combining pre-existing materials through photo montage and overlaying text is evident in this design by McCoy and is typical of deconstructionist graphic design. Rather than conforming to a usual structure, McCoy seems to have spontaneously placed the text to allow open interpretation for the reader. The design has been composed so there is no definitive starting point and as a result, creates a non-linear structure.