Page 29 - Graphic Design and Print Production Fundamentals

1.8 Post Modern

Alex Hass

By the early 1970s, the idealistic principles of Modernism were fading and felt flat and lifeless. Pluralism
was again emerging as people craved variety as a reaction to the reductivist qualities that modernism
espoused.

Punk

In the late 1970s in Britain, Australia, and parts of the United States, a youthful rebellious culture of
anger and distain arose against the establishment. In many ways, the design language of Punk echoed
the Dadaist style, though Punk was anchored with a pointed, political message against the tyranny of
society and the disenfranchisement of youth. A use of aggressive collages, colours, and experimental
photography were its hallmarks. These free-form, spontaneous design works incorporated pithy tag lines
and seethed with anger in a way that Dada work never attempted to achieve. Punk actively moved away
from the conformities of design, and was anti-patriotic and anti-establishment. Punk established the do-
it-yourself (DIY) ethos and stylized it with the angry anti-establishment mood of the mid 1970s, a time
of political and social turbulence. DIY style was considered shocking and uncontrolled. However, the
influence on design has been far reaching and subsequently widely emulated.

Jamie Reid, a pioneer of the Punk style, developed the visual signature look for the Sex Pistols and many
other punk bands. His personal signature style was known for a collaged ‘ransom note’ typography that
became a typographic style of its own. Reid cut letters out of newspapers and magazines, and collaged
them together to be photographed. By doing this, he could see what he was creating as he went along,
trying out different font styles and sizes and seeing the results instantly. Treating type as if it were a
photograph also freed him from the restrictions of typesetting within a structured grid and allowed him
to develop his ideas and concepts as he created. This unguided, process-free approach to design became
a part of the Post Modern experimentation that was to come.

When Punk first exploded in the 1970s, it was deemed a youthful rebellion. In actuality, it was one of
the many forms of visual expression that manifested as part of the Postmodernist movement that began
as a reaction to the rigid restrictions of Modernism.

Early Post Modernism

Early Swiss Post Modern design was driven by the experimentations and teachings of Wolfgang
Weingart who taught at the Basel School of design in Basel, Switzerland. Weingart was taught ITS by
the masters of the style, Emil Ruder and Armin Hofmann at the Basel School. But once he became an
instructor there, he questioned the “value of the absolute cleanliness and order” (Meggs & Purvis, 2011,
p. 465) of the style. He experimented vigorously with breaking all typographic and organizational rules
to see what the effect on the audience would be. He invigorated typography with energy and in turn

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