Strong Island Project | 06 — Research: Deconstruction in Graphic Design
Following on from the Strong Island exhibition, I want to build on the work by exploring my personal style and notable artists and movements that have served, and continue to serve to inspire me.
Today, design trends lean towards minimalism and structured layouts, but this has not always been the case. From the early 80s to the end of the millennium was the era of Deconstruction, associated with a style of design that was very much the opposite. (Huw Williams, 2014)
Jacques Derrida
Derrida’s work titled Of Grammatology (1967) critically analysed the relationship between spoken and written language. At the time it was widely considered that speech was privileged over writing as a means to communicate ideas, a viewpoint founded by linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in his influential work Course in General Linguistics (1916). Writing, thus, was considered not much more than a visual representation of speech, rather than itself a method by which to communicate ideas. This method of analysis would become to be known as Deconstruction, and was used as an approach to read language that was distrustful of a single, authoritarian message and which explored how words can have many different meanings at once (Jim Powell, 2007). This was initially used in an anti-establishment context by linguistic revolutionaries at the time, who began to view the reading and writing of literature as a politically subversive act. Outside of this context, Deconstruction entered use as a means to undermine assumptions of a particular text by having its deeper substance oppose its more superficial form.
Derrida states that deconstruction is an antistructuralist gesture because ‘Structures were to be undone, decomposed, desedimented.’ (1988:2)
Katheyrn McCoy / Cranbrook
The Cranbrook Academy of Art, under the direction of Michael and Katherine McCoy, was a centre of post-modernist discussion. In the late 1970s, a special issue of the Visible Language magazine on French literary aesthetics was published. The layout of this magazine was highly experimental, containing essays that were highly fragmented and so far removed from any linear structure as to make conventional reading impossible. (Ellen Lupton, 2009)
The style of deconstruction dismissed the notion that designs had to be literal, neat, clear or even legible at all. It questioned the set-in-stone nature of these rules and provoked discussion of the very nature of visual communication. The key philosophy behind this being that a work should be “felt”, as opposed to simply being read.
This style is the antithesis of type of design seen by modernist artists such as Josef Muller-Brockmann, a pioneer of the Swiss style and advocate of grid systems in graphics. It’s interesting to me because of how self-aware it is — it acknowledges that the rules are there, but breaks them anyway. Where ordinarily a mistake on a design is unwanted and often stands out, deconstructive graphics deliberately include them.
David Carson
David Carson is one of the most widely recognised designers of the deconstruction movement. He experimented with designs that were messy, chaotic and which appear to neglect any semblance of structure in favour of glitches, blemishes and typographic misalignment in expressive compositions.
In the above example, Carson has used similar typographic overlapping and chaotic composition that defined Katheyrn McCoy’s style, but without the clean colour gradients and illustration that suggest the use of desktop publishing. The result is something that feels much more raw, as if each individual layer were hurriedly slapped onto a photocopier with no concern for arrangement.
Compared to the previous example, where only the layout and composition were attacked, Carson has gone into much more depth. Despite tearing apart virtually every rule about good page design, I do not feel the result has suffered whatsoever. The main difference being that the page is communicating less literally, using the visual style itself to give the reader a feeling of what it is about.
Neville Brody
Neville Brody experimented with typographic design in his magazine Fuse. He invited designers to address social issues his magazine through the application of experimental typefaces, thereby encouraging and inspiring them to push the limits of the definition of typography.
Where Carson’s work often has the appearance of older, manual processes such as letter stamps or photocopies, Brody embraced the possibilities of desktop publishing to produce abstract illustrations and typography of the like the world had never seen.
The above example, an advert for Nike, deconstructs graphics in a much different way to Caron or McCoy, whom were both known for chaotic compositions and overlapping typography. Brody takes a much more subtle approach — as can be seen in the first three letters of the word ‘bounce’, which have been shifted vertically to represent the word through its visual style.
One of the issues with the work of Carson is that he takes deconstruction to such a level that it makes his work inaccessible to an audience not accustomed to the style, who might perceive his work as lazy or outright degenerate. Brody’s work, by comparison, is not so intimidating.
Tomato / Underworld
‘Mmm skyscraper I love you’ is a typographic journal of New York by design studio Tomato for the band Underworld. On first glance, it features many of the same stylistic choices that are characteristic of Carson’s work, including text that is nearly completely illegible and repetition and overlaying of typography. These elements combine to form visuals that tell a story, though vague enough to leave much up to the interpretation of the reader.
This approach to design is most interesting to me because of the scope of what it is trying to accomplish — to capture the essence, culture and experience of visiting New York and to represent and communicate it to an audience in a way that cannot possibly be an accurate representation, but feels authentic regardless. Perhaps the reason behind this is that Tomato did not consider any amount of writing capable of performing this task, with this publication being a statement about the fact.
Title Sequence: The Number 23
If Deconstruction is about questioning the established patterns of design, then the choice of medium is just as important to critique as any other element. Whilst magazines and other printed media are tried and tested methods of artistic expression and visual communication, motion picture adds a critical element to the mix — life.
The title sequence for the psychological horror film, titled The Number 23, is one example of deconstruction in typography applied to this medium. That it is not merely a static image, but a moving one, adds another dimension entirely. Elements appear and disappear as they distort and transform, telling a story through the evolution of time as much as it does through the composition of any single frame.
By far the most interesting aspect of this sequence is that it immerses the viewer in the mind of the film’s protagonist. Subtle adjustments in type are used throughout to point to a single conclusion regardless of the original data, suggesting some form of obsession is at work without explicitly stating it.
Conclusion
Although deconstruction has fallen out of favour in recent years, I believe it to be an incredibly interesting and valuable approach to graphics because it directly challenges many of the design concepts, such as Brockmann’s grid systems, that have long been thought to be infallible. This led to a great deal of experimentation in Graphic Design that ultimately resulted in new ways of thinking about how to communicate to an audience.
With the aim of bringing Deconstruction back into the spotlight, I want to create a short, typographic, educational film about the topic itself that includes appropriately themed visual styles and narration. This film will be aimed at younger artists, designers and other creatives who might not yet have heard about Deconstruction or be able to fully comprehend what it is. I have chosen video as a medium as it is fluid method of communication capable of showing a viewer an evolving series of images that explain the general gist of a topic, without requiring any reading on their part. This is likely to be supported by narration that forms a connection between imagery on the screen and audible dialogue to ultimately deliver a multi-layered communication product.
Bibliography
Websites:
Huw Williams. (2014). IS DECONSTRUCTION WITHIN TYPOGRAPHY RELEVANT IN THE 21ST CENTURY?. Available: http://salfordtypefoundry.co.uk/essay/is-deconstruction-within-typography-relevant-in-the-21st-century/. Last accessed 2015.
Rick Poynor. (1995). After Cranbrook: Katherine McCoy on the way ahead. Available: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/katherine-mccoy. Last accessed 2015.
Design History. (N.D). Deconstruction. Available: http://www.designhistory.org/PostModern_pages/Deconstruction.html. Last accessed 2015.
Ellen Lupton. (2009). Deconstruction and Graphic Design. Available: http://elupton.com/2009/10/deconstruction-and-graphic-design/. Last accessed 2015.
Elif Ayiter. (2015). The History of Visual Communication. Available: http://www.citrinitas.com/history_of_viscom/computer.html. Last accessed 2015.
Samir Kumar Dash. (2011). Structuralism, Post Structuralism, Deconstruction and Super Structuralism. Available: https://samirshomepage.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/structuralism-post-structuralism-deconstruction-and-super-structuralism/. Last accessed 2015.
Books:
Lewis Blackwell (2000). The End of Print: The Grafik Design of David Carson. New York: Laurence King Publishing.
John Warwicker and Karl Hyde (1994). Mmm…Skyscraper I Love You. New York: Booth-Clibborn Editions.
Jim Powell (2007). Derrida for Beginners. New York: For Beginners Books.
Ferdinand de Saussure (1916). Course in General Linguistics.
Jacques Derrida (1988). Derrida and Differance. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. 2.
Jacques Derrida (1967). Of Grammatology. France: Les Éditions de Minuit.
