Inge Economou - Cultural context of contemporary graphic design

7/28/2019 Inge Economou - Cultural context of contemporary graphic design

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The Cultural Context of Contemporary Graphic DesignInge EconomouMedia Technology Department, Faculty of Art and Design, Port ElizabethTechnikon, Private Bag X6011, Port Elizabeth 6000e-mail: [email protected] design in the contemporary era (postmodernity) seems to be in a state of diversity and pluralism asdesigners produce work without any unifying stylistic or theoretical principles. Although designers frequentlydraw inspiration from stylistic and attitudinal trends at a street culture level in order to produce designs thathave market appeal (to economic ends), seldom do they take the time to analyse contemporary culture at atheoretical level. As a result contemporary graphic designs often emerge as empty consumerist styling thatcelebrates the "postmodern moment" in contemporary culture, or alternatively as a rational, simplified,objectively planned approach that resists the status quo in favour of earlier modernist approaches. This essay,as a theoretical investigation of contemporary culture, attempts to contextualize graphic design within thisculture, by analysing its main features and characteristics as highlighted by leading cultural theorists. This isdone in order to encourage graphic designers to become more self-aware and to reflect critically on the workthat they produce."Everybody's doing it, but nobody is home."Lorraine Wild interviewed by Louise Sandhaus for Eye magazine.

At the outset it is important to note thatat the core of the graphic designprofession lies the concept of visualcommunication. A graphic designerorganizes signs, symbols, images and/orwords on a surface in order tocommunicate a visual message to anaudience. Heller (2001: 9) furtherqualifies activity of the graphicdesigner as the organization andcommunication of messages in order to"establish the nature of a product or anidea, to set the appropriate stage onwhich to present its virtues, and toannounce and publicize such informationin the most effective way". Hollis (1996:10) draws attention to the fact that"graphic design constitutes a kind oflanguage with an uncertain grammar anda continuously expanding vocabulary;the imprecise nature of its rules meansthat it can only be studied not learnt".Yet when one takes a step back to view

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the context in which graphic designoperates, it becomes apparent that thesesuperficial generic stylistic characterizations do not reflect an understandingof the link that always binds disciplinesand practices to their cultural context. Bydefault, they therefore often point todeeper issues at play when one traces theintricate strands of reciprocal influencebetween society and a cultural practicelike graphic design.The closing decades of the twentiethcentury experienced an intensepluralization and fragmentation ingraphic design. It seems as if therevolutionary rebirth of the professionthrough the advent of digital technology,together with Millennium fever, causedits life to flash before its eyes asdesigners feverishly "flew" throughalmost an entire history of styles andideas and even added in a couple of newones.

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While Paula Scher, for example,revisits the typography of RussianConstructivism, Futurism and Dada inthe Great Beginnings self-promotionalbooklet in 1984, April Greimanexperiments with a new digitaltechnology in "Does it all make sense?"a fold-out, life-sized self-portrait forDesign Quarterly magazine, whichexpressivel y overlays digitized (oftenlow-resolution), type, image, illustrationand icon. Meanwhile Vaughan Oliverdesigns record covers for the musicindustry in a surreal moody trademarkstyle that Jeremy Aynsley (2001: 212)describes as "poetic interpretations thataspire to be equivalents of music". TheCranbrook Academy of Art, underdirection of Katherine and MichaelMcCoy, draws influence from the earlywritings on postmodernism in the fieldsof design and architecture (amongstothers) as well as the writings oflinguistic . theorists such as RolandBarthes, and produces "deconstructed"work with multi-layered visual andverbal messages that destabilizereductive, clear communication. DavidCarson further subverts the "clarity" ofmodern communication in his role asdesigner and art director for Ray Gun, amagazine devoted to nineties alternativemusic, blurring the distinction betweenartist and designer as he "paints" ratherthan designs expressive cinematic pagesfor the magazine. In contrast theLondon-based design practice 8vo,formed in 1982 by designers SimonJohnston, Mark Holt and Hamish Muir,launches the magazine Octavo as apersonal initiative (Thrift, 2000: 66).Octavo primarily showcases a modernisttypographic approach, which advocates a"rational objectivity" and clarity ofcommunication, through the use of sansserif fonts and geometric ordering ofinformation using a strict grid system.

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This complexity evident in designpractice, although seeminglycontradictory at first, points to atransitional period in graphic design, asby the end of the 1970s, it was felt thatthe modern era was drawing to a close.At this time a younger generation ofdesigners started to expand thepossibilities of the InternationalTypographic StyIe, a movement thatepitomized modernist thinking inSwitzerland and had dominated much ofdesign worldwide during the 1960s and70s. A period of rethinking andquestioning marked the emergence ofthis earl y postmodernist strand,evidenced in the work of RosemarieTissi and Siegfried Odermatt, amongstothers, as the visual predictability of themodern aesthetic was challenged(Meggs, 1998: 435). By the 1980spostmodernist graphic design hadestablished itself firmly, emerging firstin Switzerland, then in the US andfinally spreading to other centresworldwide. Graphic designers workingin this new postmodernist idiom "sentshock waves through the designestablishment" as they rebelled againstthe functional, rational and objectivemodernist approach (Meggs, 1998: 432).A personal, subjective and intuitiveattitude was embraced and design duringthe eighties was characterized by anintense interest in play, visual wit,surface texture and colour.Postmodernist styling, as seen in thework of designers such as AprilGreiman, Dan Friedman and MichaelVanderbyl, to name only a few, ischaracterized by "a playful kineticgeometry featuring floating forms,sawtooth rules, and randomly placedblips and lines; multiple layered andfragmented images; pleasant pastelharmonies; discordant letter-spacedtypography; and frequent references to



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art and design history" (Heller andI Chwast, 2001: 221).

This postmodernist graphic designof the, eighties evolved into a consumerstyle in the nineties due to its inherentanti-establishment qualities thatappealed to a youth market. And so thenineties became marked as a time ofsearching for a "new", "individual"style. This unique style was expressed inthe "edgy" deconstructed design of thestudents at the Cranbrook Academy ofArt, the work of Neville Brody and themagazine layouts of David Carsonamongst others. Ironically theseindividualistic visions and initiatives thatwere truly revolutionary were "quicklyimplanted into the body of commerce"and became part of a to and frointerchange between innovation andassimilated style which is described inthe following passage (Heller andChwast, 2001: 236, 8):

It was a period when styles were frequentlyappropriated to meet market demands. It was atime when disorder was considered 'edgy',and then order even edgier. Edginess becamethe rallying cry for a revolution that reallysignified adherence to a new conformity.A further irony was that this new"conformity" brought with it the hybrid

of a radically new visual approach,which pushed boundaries andexemplified diversity, pluralism and"chaos" on many levels. At the sametime the digital revolution certainlyplayed its part in advancing a new visualaesthetic, by not only revolutionising theways in which designers worked, butalso by making possible "anunprecedented manipulation of colour,form, space and imagery" (Meggs, 1998:455). Whereas the industrial revolutionhad fragmented the design process into aseries of mechanical steps, which thedesigner had limited control over and asa result diluted his or her personal

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vISIon, the digital revolution put theproduction process squarely in the handsof the designer. Postmodernist designthrived on computer graphicsexperimentation and encouraged thepluralism and diversity already evidentat the time. In complete contrast to whatwas happening around them, severaldesigners resisted this postmoderninsurgence and continued in the moderntradition, albeit in new guises, eventhough the modern era had experiencedits prime decades earlier. Otherdesigners fostered a counterstyle which,working against the chaotic complexitythat accentuated design in the midnineties, and returning to a modernorigin, featured a minimalist approachwhile incorporating aspects ofpostmodernist thinking.Design historians have resorted tousing thematic captions for thenumerous groupings of styles and/ortheories, in order to make sense of thisundeniable, often contradictory state ofmultiplicity in contemporary graphicdesign. For example, on the contentspage of Graphic Style from Victorian toDigital (Heller and Chwast, 2001: 7), thefollowing are some of the subtitles thatappearl: "American New Wave","American Punk", "Deconstruction","Fontism", "Controlled Chaos", "Rave","Kinetics" and "New Simplicity". Hellerand Chwast (2001: 8) further expose thismultifaceted, contrasting nature ofgraphic design when they describe thetime from 1985 to 2000 as "a periodwhen designers looked backward andforward, invented and mimicked,cluttered and economized". The juvenilerebellion that exemplified much of thegraphic, fashion and product design ofthe eighties and the grunge aesthetic ofthe nineties, has mostly been replaced bya more sophisticated, cool and stylishvisual in the twenty-first century. Yet,although the graphic design scene has



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certainly "quietened down" significantlysince the eighties2, there still is no signof a unifying stylistic or theoreticaltendency emerging, as Wild (2000: 13)makes apparent in the following piece:

Now the number of people who practicegraphic design (whether or not they c a ~ l it tha9has increased hugely. The field ISgeographically diverse, pluralistic,democratic ... not so ingrown. We are told thatthe business world now realizes that we areessential and that there is strength in numbers.But that has come at a price: a fracturing of thedesign community into sub-groups, likenarrowly focussed chat rooms, with littlegeneral dialogue or agreement on commongoals or anything so antiquated as "gooddesign".

Today graphic designs often emergeas empty (and even cynical) responses tothe consumerism and informationoverload prevalent in society with verylittle indication of ethical3 reflection, andseemingly with no real understanding ofwhat it is responding to. Jessica Helfand(2000: 6) describes how designers seemto be "caught between the spirit ofacceleration that typifies contemporaryculture (make it fast) and the economy ofmeans that has come to characterize allthings modern (keep it simple)".Similarly Monika Parrinder (2000: 9)explains that designers usually respondto the information overload prevalent inculture today by either attempting "tomake sense" of it (hence the emergenceof graphic designers labellingthemselves information architects), or bycreating designs that "attempt to block itout, by delivering "experiences" notinformation". Andrew Blauvelt (2000:38), on the other hand, advocates a"complex . simplicity" as a mediationpoint between the two opposing stylisticand theoretical streams evident incontemporary graphic design, namelyexpressionistic pluralism and retrogradesimplicity. Later on in the document itwill become clear that these opposing

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stylistic streams correspond with themodern moment, on the one hand, andthe postmodern moment on ? t ? e ~ :and that Blauvelt's "complex sImphcItyas mediation point between theseopposing streams can be interpreted as a"poststructuralist" moment that refusesassimilation to either side.The value of insights andcontributions to debates that graphicdesigners contribute in journals such asEye, Design Week, Graphis and Emigreis invaluable (Parrinder, 2000: 8). Thesecontributions initiate the development ofa clearer understanding of how graphicdesign functions within the largerstructure of contemporary culture. Inaddition they serve to monitor the designprofession with the aim of providing aforum to address problems that mayarise in a fairly open environment wherea varied mix of skills and knowledge canconnect. Practising graphic designers arenot necessarily "uncritical", but eventhose who think "critically" about theirown work are not necessarilytheoretically critical and informed. Adistinction also needs to be madebetween the designer who is culturallyaware, to an economic end - who useshis or her knowledge of contemporaryculture in order to speak to the consumerin a language that will encourageconsumer behaviour - and the designerwho is critically aware, to theoretical andethical ends. There certainly are graphicdesigners who are theoretically skilledand whose work indicates a sophisticated

~ t h i c a l understanding of the culture inwhich they practice. Yet, with referenceto the graphic design profession at large,there still seems to be a need for furtheranalysis of contemporary culture, fortaking a step back in order to view thelarger context in which graphic designoperates, and to clarify how thisrelationship between . encompassingculture and cultural practice functions



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reciprocally. As Andrew Howard (2000:10) indicates: "the graphic designprofession is not equipped with the righttheoretical tools - common analysis ofpolitics, economics and culture - thatwould make it easier to understand howvisual communication influences theway we think socially and what we thinkabout".The following extract by PhilipMeggs (1998: xiii), although written toaccentuate the importance for graphicdesigners to know and understand theirpast, is equally relevant to the argumentthat intelligent, effective and appropriategraphic design necessitates a knowledgeand understanding of contemporaryculture and of the relation betweenculture and cultural practice.

If we ignore this legacy, we can run the risk ofbecoming buried in the mindless mass ofcommercialism whose molelike vision ignoreshuman values and needs as it burrows forwardinto darkness.

There are many complex,interwoven strands of influence fromcontemporary culture that work, somedirectly and some reciprocally, inshaping graphic design. These canloosely be classified as historical,political, . technological, economic(capitalist), and cultural. The latterincludes cultural sensibility, culturaltheory and cultural practice (used here inthe narrower sense of the word toinclude creative cultural activities suchas art, architecture, fashion, cinema andgraphic design). Aynsley (2001: 202)points out that not only digitaltechnology. played a part in constitutinggraphic design at the end of the twentiethcentury, but "broader ideas from culture,philosophy, fashion and "style" were justas important for graphic design".Cultural theorists andcommentators, such as David Harvey,Fredric Jameson, Jean-Francois Lyotard

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and Jean Baudrillard amongst others,provide in-depth critical reconstructions(and sometimes deconstructions) of thecontemporary cultural landscape, inorder to facilitate understanding of itsvarious components and characteristics.It is important to note, though notsurprising, that a consonant relationseems to exist between contemporarygraphic design and contemporaryculture, as this article attempts to show.Terms from cultural theory that arecentral to understanding postmodernity(contemporary culture) and which willbe discussed in the following sectionsare premodernity, modernity and itscounterpart modernism, postmodernityand its counterpart postmodernism andalso poststructuralism, which will onlybe mentioned briefly.Postmodern. By simple analysis ofthe word one is able to gain some insightinto what it represents. It can be assumedthat in terms of history the word refers toan occurrence after the modern era. On atimeline the zenith of the modern era,which first emerged in recognizableform in the eighteenth century, could beplaced around the first half of thetwentieth century, while postmodernityemerged from the late sixties butespecially during the last three decadesof the century (Harvey 1990: 38).Furthermore the word postmodern4 doesnot draw attention to what it is, butrather to what it is not, an indication thatit does not reall y know itself. Andperhaps most importantly the termpostmodern does not seem to referencethe modern in an affirming manner, suchas a term like late-modernism does, butrather in a more opposing manner whichindicates a breaking away.These precursory observations areconfirmed as one explores what has beenwritten on this complex subject. WalterAnderson (1996: 3, 6) refers to StephenToulmin's observation that we are living



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in a new world, "a world that does notknow how to define itself by what it is,but only by what it has just-now ceasedto be". Anderson goes on to explain thatthe term "postmodern" is a makeshiftword - one that we are using until we candecide "what to name the baby". Ourattention is therefore drawn to the factthat the culture we are living in is in atransitional stage, which is characterizedby varying degrees of uncertainty.Fredric Jameson (1985: 112) points outthat postmodernism emerges as specificreactions against the established,dominant forms of modernism. As aresult there will be as man ypostmodernisms as there have beenmodernisms to react against. Jamesonreinforces Anderson's view when hehighlights that it is quite a complex taskto describe postmodernism as a coherentmovement; as its character is notconstructed from within but from themodernisms that it is seeking to displace.With reference to graphic design history,Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast(2001: 221) confirm Jameson's positionin the following extract:

Despite the Post-Modern label, design style inthe eighties must be defined as a sum of itsvarious parts. Evidence definitely exists of acommon period vocabulary, or at least akindred aesthetic sensibility and artistic crosspollination, visible in all media and applied todiverse products. Yet the aesthetic continues toevolve primarily from the styles of specificdesigners... propagated through the media aspopular fashion. Only time will reveal its truenature and significance.

It is important to indicate that adistinction should be made betweenpostmodernism and postmodernity, andlikewise between modernism andmodernity. "Postmodernity" and"modernity" can be explained asconcepts that refer to cultural conditions,whereas "modernism" and "postmodernism" refer to artistic or critical

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responses to these cultural conditions5For example art and design such as theBauhaus, De Stijl, or the SwissInternational Style (InternationalTypographic Style) represent amodernist response to modernity. Fromthis example it should be clear thatmodernism and postmodernism refer tocritical, creative responses to a culturalcondition and are therefore criticalconcepts, . whereas modernity andpostmodernity refer to different culturalconditions and have definite"period sing" connotations. It followslogicall y that postmodernity historicallyis preceded by modernity and thatpre modernity precedes modernity.6 It isinteresting, though complex, to note thatcontemporary culture, or postmodernity,can feature moments of premodern,modern and postmodern culturalpractice, existing side by side. In thefollowing extract Anderson (1996: 6)explains in a striking manner thedifferences between postmodernity,modernity and pre modernity in terms ofa culture's experience of universality(sameness, generality) or lack thereof invarious stages of history:

People in premodern, traditional societies havean experience of universality but no concept ofit. They could get through their days and liveswithout encountering other people withentirely different worldviews and,consequently, they didn't have to worry a lotabout how to deal with pluralism. People inmodern civilization have had a concept ofuniversality - based on the hope (or fear) thatsome genius, messiah or tyrant would figureout how to get everybody on the same page -but no experience of it. Instead, every war,every trade mission, every migration broughtmore culture shocks. Now, in the postmodernera, the very concept of universality is, as thedeconstructionists say, 'put into question' ...Postmodernity, then, is the age of overexposure to otherness - because, in travelling,you put yourself into a different reality;because, as a result of immigration, a differentreality comes to you; because, with nophysical movement at all, only the relentlessand ever-increasing flow of information,cultures interpenetrate. It becomes harder and



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h a r d ~ r . to live out a life within the premoderncondition a? undisturbed traditional societyor even wlthm the modern condition of astrong 'and well-organized belief system ... Weare living in a new world, a world that doesnot know how to define itself by what it is, butonly by what it has just-now ceased to be.

Historically the premodern worldcan be described in terms of life in tribalcultures, or small isolated villages, andas Anderson (1996: 5) elaborates,"premodern societies weren't necessarilysimple or primitive, but people in themwere relatively free from the "cultureshock" experience of coming intocontact with other people with entirelydifferent values and beliefs". Themodern world arrived with the advent ofmodern science and the industrialrevolution and through colonialconquests, travel, war and other meansof contact" not only became exposed tothe diversity of cultures, but also reacted"against" it. The modern world ischaracterized by a modernist search for a"universal" (sameness) to re-establishunity among humankind, in the face ofthis newfound plurality of cultures. Thepostmodern world on the other handembraces the diversity and is "aware"that a search for a "universal" ispointless. Post-structuralists apparentlyrealize that to choose between the"universal" and diversity would be a lossof one or the other, and proposetherefore a both/and logic or approachwhere the "universal" and diversity (theparticular, plurality) can coexist7 Thedominance of the one or the other inmodern and postmodern logic is replacedin poststructuralist reason by atensioning in thinking the universal andthe particular together. As pointed outearlier, it is fascinating, yet complex, torecognize that within the contemporaryera, referred to primarily aspostmodernity, there are pockets ofpostmodernist, poststructuralist,

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modernist and even pre modernistthought patterns ( cultures, worlds) thatcoexist.

In contrast to Anderson'sexplanation of these concepts, thepoststructuralist Jean-Francois Lyotard(1984: 79), author of the influential bookThe Postmodern Condition: A Report onKnow/edge, observes that "thepostmodern is the modern in its nascentstate and that state is constant", and that"every work of art is first postmodernbefore it is modern". This may seemparadoxical at first, but what it means isthat in order to create a modernistartwork or design, one that embodies theuniversal (stability), there first wouldneed to be an experience of diversity ofpossibilities (flux). In other wordsstability (the modernist "gesture" ofstabilization) cannot be understood orexperienced unless it is viewed againstthe background of flux or instability thatprecedes it. Here is a wonderful exampleof Lyotard's poststructuralist logic atwork, which refuses to submit to eitherextreme, be it modern or postmodern.Lyotard's use of the terms "modern" and"postmodern", unlike those of Anderson,is primarily as critical concepts, and canbe used to describe postmodern (andsometimes a l s o ' poststructuralist)tendencies that appeared at variousstages in history, before the advent of thepostmodern era as we know it today. It isimportant to emphasize that bothLyotard and Anderson's use of theterms, together with varied descriptionsfrom other postmodern theorists, arevalid in that they complement each otherin creating a greater understanding of thecomplexity of the postmodern condition.In his early work Lyotard is stillquite positive about the diversity, or"difference", as he describes it, whichcharacterizes the post modern condition.He concludes the essay included in ThePostmodern Condition: A Report on



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Knowledge with a call for people to"activate the differences" (1984a: 82).Later in his career, as is evident in hiswritings in The Inhuman, Lyotard (1991:6) becomes less optimistic aboutpostmodernity. He points out verypessimistically that "the ideology ofdevelopment" is positioning itselftowards global domination. Byimplication this ideology subvertsgenuine differences.Other mainstream character-izationsof contemporary culture make use ofdescriptors such as "heterogeneous","fragmented" and "multi-layered", toemphasize the pluralism and complexityof the present-day world. Graphic designas part of the contemporary culturallandscape and in a position of reciprocitywith it, finds itself not untouched by thisstate of flux and pluralism. DavidHarvey (1990: 44) states that whatappears to be the most patentcharacteristic of postmodernity(contemporary culture) is "its totalacceptance of ephemerality,fragmentation, discontinuity and thechaotic". A similar point is illustrated inthe following piece, but with reference tocontemporary graphic design (StevenHeller, 2000: 9):

Our relatively recent past is notable for amyriad of styles that occupy comparativelybrief, concurrent periods and come and gowith such speed that a kind of culturaldetonation results when one collides withanother.

Anderson (1996: 2) refers topostmodeniity as " a burst of culturalchaos and creativity... a rampantpluralism" and graphic design historianPhillip Meggs (1998: 432) refers to "anera of pluralism" and "a growing climateof cultural diversity". A warning isnecessary here, however. It is easy to bemisled by the modernist search for theuniversal into thinking that modernism

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itself exemplifies only rationality,stability, order and structure - this is notso, as David Harvey (1990: 22) pointsout, "Modernism internalized its ownmaelstrom of ambiguities,contradictions, and pulsating changes atthe same time as it sought to affect theaesthetics of everyday life". It isimportant to emphasize that diversityand flux have been experienced in bothmodern and postmodern culture, thedifference between modernism andpostmodernism being in the way thatartists and cultural practitioners respondto this condition. Whereaspostmodernists, . or at least thosedescribed by Hal Foster (1985: xii) as"reactionary" postmodernists, are quitecontent to experience, or even tocelebrate flux and diversity, modernistswere intent on "resisting" the conditionthey found themselves in.Modernists such as Baudelaire werealready aware of the "postmoderncondition" (at least as an awareness offlux or "becoming") as early as themiddle of the nineteenth century,although he did not use the term itself(Harvey, 1990: 20). Baudelaireunderstood the role of a successfulmodern artist as a twofold process,first! y to record the fleeting, theephemeral, diversity and flux ofeveryday modern life and secondly, tofind and extract from it, that which isuniversal and eternal. In other words themodern artist's task was to find ananswer to the question: "how torepresent the eternal and the immutablein the midst of all the chaos" (Harvey,1990: 20). Modernists used variousstrategies such as stabilization,"domestication", and formal reduction inorder to make accessible and "universal"the multiplicity of the world in whichthey lived. For instance the graphicdesign of the Swiss International Stylewas intent on presenting information in



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an objective, structured and clear mannerof "universal" appeal, through the use of

p h o t o ~ a p h y , sans-serif typography, thee x c ~ u s l o n of ornament, ranged left typesettIngs, narrow text columns andcomposition based strictly on the gridsystem ( H e l l ~ r and Chwast, 2000: 196).Kenneth HIebert explains that themethodology of the Basel School one of. 'two major schools that promulgated theSwiss design philosophy, is derived fromthe idea that "abstract structure is thevehicle for communication" and thatfurthermore (Heller and Chwast, 2000:199):

It re.lies on an analysis that rigorouslyquestIons and accounts for all parts of themessage. The act of searching for anappropriate structure forces the designer tomake t,he most basic enquiry about a message,to isolate its primary essence fromconsiderations of surface style.The modern ethos, especially as

expressed by Baudelaire, is clearl ydetectable in this piece as one recognizes"the diverse" in "an analysis thatrigorously questions and accounts for allparts of the message" and "theuniversal" ,as "the primary essence" ofthe message.Harvey (1990) provides anotherframework through which the qualitiesof modernity and postmodernity arerevealed in terms of the "EnlightenmentProject:'. The Enlightenment Project,whIch IS synonymous with Modernity, ischaracterized by a utopian belief inprogress. ,Theorists critical of thepostmodern, such as Jiirgen Habermasfor example, believe that modernity, oralternatively the Enlightenment Project,?as not been given the opportunity to runItS full course and prove its worth.Referring to Habermas, Harvey (1990:12) expounds the task of theEnlightenment Project as (supposedly)the positive upliftment of humankind:

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!hat project amounted to an extraordinaryIntellectual effort on the part of Enlightenmentthinkers 'to develop objective scienceuniversal morality and law, and a u t o n o m o u ~art according to their inner logic'. The ideawas to use the accumulation of knowledgegenerated by individuals working freely andcreatively for the pursuit of humanemancipation and the enrichment of daily life.

The Enlightenment Project, whichlasted historicall y from the lateeighteenth century through to the midtwentieth century, is described as a wayof bringing all the diverse people in theworld to see things in the same way - ina rational, lucid, coherent way, a waybased on "reason" (Anderson, 1996: 4).In brief, the Enlightenment Project wasbased on the belief in linear progress,freedom and the creation of a betterworld through the power of science overnature, the uncovering of absolute truthsand the development of "rational" formsof social structures. Enlightenmentthinking was anchored in the belief thatthere existed a single correct way ofinterpreting the world. In light of this,Harvey (1990: 28) describespostmodernity as the cultural conditionafter the breakdown of theEnlightenment Project. This means that"the idea that there was only onepossible mode of presentation began tobreak down" and was replaced by "anemphasis upon divergent systems ofrepresentation". Shifting to a differentregister, we see this in practice as aradical transformation within latemodernity, starting in the early twentiethcentury in the art of Matisse, Picasso,Brancusi, Duchamp, Klee, de Chirico, inthe music of Stravinsky, Schoenberg,Berg and Bartok amongst others, and inavant-garde art and design movementssuch as Vorticism, Constructivism, Dadaand Futurism (Harvey 1990: 28). Ingraphic design it is important to note thatmovements from the first half of the



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twentieth Century, namely Cubism,Futurism, . Constructivism, Dada, DeStijl, Bauhaus, and Swiss InternationalStyle, form the zenith of the modern era.Accordingly, even though most of thesemovements may fall under the late-modern label, this does not indicate adissipation of modernist theory. It ispossible to see in the existence of thesedifferent movements a preparation forthe multiplicity so typical ofpostmodernism, with the difference thateach of the modernist movements wascommitted to the belief that it hadsomehow grasped the "essence" of art ordesign.Parallel to Harvey's (1990: 28)perception of postmodernity as thecondition of the world after the collapseof the Enlightenment Project, Lyotard(1984: xxiv) describes the postmodernera as a time of "incredulity towardsmetanarratives". Modernism placesstrong emphasis on the search foruniversal truth in various spheres,especially in the areas of science, whichLyotard gives special attention to, andpolitics. Lyotard indicates that the statusof knowledge in Western societies is incrisis and that this is an important factorin the emergence of postmodernity.Following Lyotard, John Storeydescribes the postmodern condition as:

... the supposed contemporary rejection of alltotalising thoughts: Marxism, liberalism,Christianity, for example, that tell universaliststories (metanarratives), which organize andjustify the everyday practices of a plurality ofdifferent stories (narratives).

Hardt and Negri (2001: 69) in thebook Empire provide an enlightening,paradigmatic historical sequenceregarding the birth of modernity. Thebirth of modernity historically took placeduring the fifteenth century, at the timeof the Renaissance. Hardt and Negriidentify three moments in this

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constitution of European Modernity(2001: 70):

... first, the revolutionary plane of immanence;second the reaction against these immanentforces and the crisis in the form of authority;and third the partial and temporary resolutionof this crisis in the formation of the modernstate as a locus of sovereignty that transcendsand mediates the plane of immanent forces.The "revolutionary plane ofimmanence", that Hardt and Negri referto as the first stage in the development ofmodernity, became apparent in the

Renaissance and stands in opposition tothe medieval reliance on a transcendentauthority. Simplifying somewhat, the"revolutionary plane of immanence" canbe explained as the "creative forces" thatwork within people to bring about arealization and acknowledgement ofhuman power to "generate" and in thisway destine life, independent of a highertranscendent force such as God, or thechurch. To summarize, "In those originsof modernity, then, knowledge shiftedfrom the transcendent plane to theimmanent" (inherent, intrinsic) (Hardtand Negri, 2001: 72). Consequently it isthis birth and celebration of individualhuman power, which destroys any ties tothe unifying and mediating influence ofan external power, that brought about adiverse creativity in the form of arevolution. The second phase ofmodernity emerges in the form of crisis,as a counterrevolution (against therevolutionary plane of immanence),which seeks to "dominate andexpropriate the force of the emergingmovements and dynamics". Hardt andNegri (2001: 74) elucidate:

This new emergence, however, created a war.... This is the second mode of modernity,constructed to wage war against the newforces and establish an overarching power todominate them. It arose within theRenaissance revolution to divert its direction,transplant the new image of humanity to a



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transcendent plane, relativize the capacities ofscience to transform the world, and above alloppose the reappropriation of power on thepart of the multitude. The second mode ofmodernity poses a transcendent constitutedpower against an immanent constituent power,order against desire. The Renaissance thusended in war - religious, social, and civil war.

It is this second mode of modernity -in other words, "the modern" - thatemerges as "victor" in the struggle andwhich directs the development ofmodernity throughout history, adevelopment characterized by crisis onthe one hand, and on the other, itscounterpart - the attempt to resolve thecrisis. In a political framework Hardt andNegri identify the formation of themodern state as a temporary solution tothe cnSlS of modernity. Moreimportantlyhowever, is that it is the firstmode in the development of modernity,the revolutionary plane of immanence,with its emphasis on the power of theindividual (within a community) and itsspawn of diversification, whichcorresponds with the moment of thepostmodern. In addition, this historicalframework for the origin of modernityprovided by Hardt and Negri, accuratelyconfirms Lyotard's (1984: 79)poststructuralist observations that thepostmodern is always present in themodern and that the modern isconstantly "pregnant with its ownpostmodernity" (1991: 25). This servesas a reminder, as we take a step back,away from the detail, of the cyclicalnature of history - the inherent actionreaction .mode that is so patent in thedevelopment of the modern out of thepostmodern and of the postmodern inturn, again, out of the modern.Metanarratives, the EnlightenmentProject and other modernist expressionsall have unifying, integrating, stabilisingendeavours in common. A conveyor beltprocess can be visualized where theinclusion or exclusion into ordered

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rational realms of modernity is weighedagainst universal appeal, a process thatdoes not make room for difference,particularity, distinctiveness, or theindividual. Postmodernism, as a criticalpractice or activity, is seen as a backlashagainst the dominance and perceivedmonotony and sterility of modernism.Graphic designers emerging inpostmodernity perceive styling based onthe modernist philosophy as limited andpredictable, and believe that modernismhas declined into a superficiality of style,with an inability to respond to consumerneeds (Alan and Isabella Livingston,1992: 136).

In conclusion, if one compares theformal features of contemporary culture,which incorporates the modern and thepostmodern "moments", with thestylistic diversity evident incontemporary graphic design,similarities are apparent. These"moments" in contemporary culture findtheir counterparts in this creative culturalpractice, as designers seem to movebetween extremes of exclusiveminimalist approaches (the modern) andmore inclusive eclectic and elaborateapproaches (the postmodern) and attimes find the means to "balance" them.Furthermore Hardt and Negri's analysisof the generative nature of the historicalrelation between modernism andpostmodernism, along with Lyotard'scritical explanation that positions thisrelation at the origin of creative practice,points to a future in graphic designpractice where the dynamism of themodern/postmodern relationship willcontinue producing new design stylesand approaches. So, instead of aresolution in the direction of anew,"ordered" modernist design, or apostmodernist design dominating, wecan expect to see more of the dynamicthat is already occurring in themovement between these poles. The



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"new simplicity", as discussed earlier inthe document, that emerged relativelyrecently in graphic design, is anapproach which favours modernism, yetironically this approach adds to themultitude of diverse approaches and

Notes1 These captions refer to the closing decades of thetwentieth century.2 Although there certainly are formal differencesbetween the graphic designs from the eighties, thenineties and that of today, there still is evidence of thesame diversity and pluralism that marked theemergence of 'postmodernist' graphic design, albeit ina different guise. Design from the eighties is perhapsmore expressive of a designer's newfound personalvision (in contrast to working under the overarchingmodern tenets of earlier), whereas design from thenineties and later is marked by a more consumerdriven approach, which in itself (ironically) requires'the look' of diversification and individuality.3 The term 'ethical' is used here in a broad sense, inorder to convey the idea that the position held by adesigner as mediator between society (the audience toa message as embodied in the design) and the client(provider of the brief for the message), brings with it acertain amount of responsibility. This role should notonly be considered as a source of economicenrichment, but also take into account the interests ofsociety at large, including their economic, moral,aesthetic, and social interests.4 The word postmodern is used here to suggestpostmodernism and postmodernity, even though thesetwo words have slightly different meanings, whichwill be pointed out later in the document.S Some theorists such as Lyotard for example tend touse the terms 'modern' and 'postmodern' as 'nouns'.6 The concept 'premodernity' is here used to refer to acultural period preceding the historical appearance ofmodernity. More attention will be given to itscharacteristics later in this article.7 I elaborate on this in the next paragraph, as it isnoticeable that Lyotard (who is a poststructuralist)does not apply the terms 'modern' and 'postmodern'in a historical sense, but critically.8 Unfortunately this line of thinking cannot bedeveloped further here, as it would move too far awayfrom the current topic. For a thorough discussion ofthis see Hardt and Negri, 2001: 138-143.9 Some of the insights arrived at in this article flowedout of discussions with Bert Olivier.Sources cited

Anderson, W. T. 1996. Introduction:

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styles which can be described as the"postmodern condition" of graphicdesign (following Harvey and Lyotard).And this condition is undoubtedly one ofplurality and difference9

what's going on here? In: Anderson,W. T. (ed.) The Fontana Post-modernism reader. London: FontanaPress, pp.1-11.

Aynsley, J. 2001. A century ofgraphicdesign: graphic design pioneers of he20th century. London, Great Britain:Mitchell Beazley.

Blauvelt, A. 2000. Towards a complexsimplicity. In: Eye 9(35), pp. 38-47.

Foster, H. 1985. Postmodernism: apreface. In: Foster, H. (ed.) The anti-aesthetic: essays on postmodernculture.Washington: Bay Press, pp. ix-xvi.

Hardt, M. & Negri A. 2001. Empire.Cambridge, M a ~ s a c h u s e t t s : HarvardUniversity Press.

Harvey, D. 1990. The condition ofpostmodernity. Oxford: BasilBlackwell.Helfand, J. 2000. Describe/draw a

favourite memory. In: Eye 9(35), pp. 6-7.

Heller, S, 2000. In: Graphic style: fromVictorian to digital (New edition). NewYork: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.Heller, S. & Chwast, S. 2000. Graphicstyle: from Victorian to digital (New

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Hollis, R. 1994. Graphic design: Aconcise history. London: Thames andHudson.

Howard, A. 2000. Design beyondcommodification. In: Eye 10(38), pp.lO-l l .

Jameson, F. 1985. Postmodernism andconsumer society. In: Foster, H. (ed.)The anti-aesthetic: essays onpostmodern culture. Washington: BayPress, pp. 111-121.

Livingston, A. & I. 1992. The Thamesand Hudson encyclopaedia ofgraphicdesign and designers. London: Thamesand Hudson.

Lyotard, J-F. 1984. The postmoderncondition: a report on knowledge. Tr.Massumi, B. & Bennington, G.Manchester: Manchester UniversityPress.

Lyotard, J-F. 1984a. Answering thequestion: What is postmodernism? Tr.

Durand, R. In: The postmoderncondition: a report on knowledge. Tr.Massumi, B. & Bennington, G.

Manchester: Manchester UniversityPress, pp. 71-82.

Lyotard, J-F. 1991. The inhuman:reflections on time. Cambridge: PolityPress.Meggs, P. B. 1998.A history ofgraphicdesign (Third edition). New York: JohnWiley & Sons, Inc.

Parrinder, M. 2000. Just say no ...quietly. In: Eye 9(35), pp. 8-9.

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Storey, J. 1998. An introduction tocultural theory and popular culture.Athens: The University of GeorgiaPress.

Thrift, J. 2000. 8vo:type and structure.In: Eye 10(37), pp. 66-74.

Wild, L. 2000. Reputations: LorraineWild. In: Eye 9(36), pp. 10-16.

Inge Economou - Cultural context of contemporary graphic design

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