c t i o n D e c o n s t r u c t i o D e c o n s t r u c t i i o n D e c o n s t r in o n D ioioctn o e n c o n s t r u c t i o n D e c o n s r u c D e c D o e n c s o t n r s u t c r t D e c o n s t r u c o n D s t e r c u o n t s i t o r n u c o n n cnoiD toni eo n D c D e o e c n c o s o n t r n s u t s r t c r u t u i c o c t n D e D c o e c n o s t n r s u t r c D e c o n s t r u c t i D e c o n s t r u nnnnen c o n s t r u c t i o n D e c o e c o n s t r u c t i cDD tD i o n e c o n s t r u c t i o D e c o n s t r u c t i D e c o n s t r u c t D e c o n s t r u c t e c o n D s e t c r o u n c s t i c t i o n D e c o n s t r u t i o n D e c o n s t r u c t i i o n D e c o n s t r u c t i D e c o D n e s c t o r u n c s t r i o u niD e c o n s t r u c t i o c t i o n D e c o n s r u o n D e c D o e n c s o t n r s u t c r D e c o n s t r u eiotn c o n D s t e r c u o n t s i t o r n u c i o n o n n D e D c D e o e c n c o s o n t r n s u t s r t c r u t u i c o D e D c o e c n o s t n r s u t r c o i o n n cnoisteon itD o n D e c o n s t r u c t D e c o n s t r u D c o n s t r u c t i o n D e c n r u c t i o n e c o n s cctctcitti nn DDD eDeceecocconoonsnnststsrttrtrururucuu oc no sntsrtur cutci toi no n e c o n s t r u c t i o r u c t i o n csot n s t r u c t i o n ru tcrst uti o c t cDoenDcseot cn r ous n n e cD o ne sc tornusct triuo coD n setcrouncstti rounc o n s t r u c t DD e ceDocD s t r u c t i en c e o c n o s n t s r t u r D e c o n s t r u c t i Jes s
i c
a
Hosk i n s
David Carson L e g i b i l i t y
i i
9 9
D e c o 1n s t r u c0t i o n
D e s i g n e r ’s
Remarks...............................................
2
Histor y............................................................ 4 Designer s......................................................... 12
F o n t s.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
16
Bib l i o g r a phy.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
g
D e s i g n e r ’ s
R e m akr k s
Going through the eras in our book, I came across the 1980’s and
1990’s
Then
I noticed the era right above the Grunge design: Deconstruction. I
look
at the example and I say to myself “ooooooooo, I like that...I could
eras: Rave, Deconstruction, and Grunge design. Rave design is what caught my eye. If anyone knows me at all, they’ll know I love the 80’s. Never grew
really have fun with something like that.” So... Here it is, my view on the the Deconstructive design era from the year 1990 all laid out in this book. imagery, graphics, movies, TV, clothing, all sorts of stuff from that time I was able to get my hands on a few different books that helped with my period. Everything was very colorful and made loud statements about each inspiration. “The Graphic Language of Neville Brody” by Jon Wozencroft person as an individual. It was an amazing period of time. gave me a look on simple deconstruction. Many of the images in there Well... I started looking at the Grunge era, knowing that I like to have fun helped me get a simple view on what exactly I am looking for when I go to arranging things on top of each other. I knew that would be a fun design set up this book. It helped with the fonts and typefaces and how Mr. Brody for me to work with. Layers, layers, layers. That’s what I see when I look liked to set up his work.
up in that time period (born in 1992), but I have come to love all of
at Grunge typography (of course along with typefaces that are distorted). 2
I
was able to get a look at another book, one that I fell in love with and
I am going to get myself a copy for more inspiration. “David
Carson
2ndsight: Grafik Design after the End of Print” by Lewis Blackwell is
the
name. This book is amazing. I really started to give me a whole idea on what deconstruction really can be and how crazy and out of this world it is. There
of closure to make us see what the letter is.
are many quotes and photos and so much more in there that really gave me an insight of what Deconstruction truly is.
The
Deconstruction era really wasn’t about what you read on a page, but
more
With those books, I was finally able to get a clear view on what I was looking
It
at when looking at something deconstructive. I learned that with this type
of what you see on a page. It’s about how a piece can make you feel.
uses type as an image and gives you a feeling what it’s supposed to say,
not what it actually says. You could have paragraphs typed over one another
era, the rulebook was thrown out. Text is broken up and placed on paper
rendering
with no real intent. There is no grid. Everything is just thrown on the paper in different fonts, sizes, weights, color, you name it, and it’s different.
You
it unreadable. You could have letters that have pieces taken out.
could have words with weird spacing or even no spacing at all. They
could be upside-down or even sideways, making you have to turn your head that’s to the side in order to even think of reading it. A whole story could even be different sizes and weights, or it can be a rugged and destroyed display font. in symbols, making it unreadable all together! Either way it works. The fonts also could have pieces missing, using the law Deconstruction is crazy, wild, and completely out of this world. This era
Depending on the piece, the fonts can be either a simple serif font
really took ahold of me and made me see type as a visual instead of something to read. I barely read anything anymore without looking at it as an image. It’s an amazing era, and it feels right to me. I am different, crazy, untamable, and unique. Deconstruction is just that. And it’s wonderful.
3
t
y
H i s t o r y
Since the surfacing of the term ‘deconstruction’ in design journalism
in
history and theory. It is embedded in recent visual and academic culture, but
the mid-1980s, the word has served to label architecture, graphic design,
it describes a strategy of critical form-making which is performed across a fragmented range of artefacts and practices, both historical and contemporary. forms imbued with ambiguous futuristic overtones. This essay looks at the Jacques Derrida introduced the concept of ‘deconstruction’ in his book Of reception and use of deconstruction in the recent history of graphic design, Grammatology, published in France in 1967 and translated into English in where it has become the tag for yet another period style. 1976. ‘Deconstruction’ became a banner for the advance guard in American We then consider the place of graphics within the theory of deconstruction, literary studies in the 1970s and 80s, scandalising departments of English, initiated in the work of philosopher Jacques Derrida. We argue that French, and comparative literature. Deconstruction rejected the project of deconstruction is not a style or ‘attitude’ but rather a mode of questioning modern criticism: to uncover the meaning of a literary work by studying through and about the technologies, formal devices, social institutions, and the way its form and content communicate essential humanistic messages. founding metaphors of representation. Deconstruction belongs to both Deconstruction, like critical strategies based on Marxism, feminism,
products, and fashion featuring chopped up, layered, and
4
semiotics, and anthropology, focuses not on the themes and imagery of its objects but rather on
the
linguistic and institutional systems that frame the production of texts.
In Derrida’s theory, deconstruction asks how representation inhabits reality. How does the
external
image of things get inside their internal essence? How does the surface get under the skin?
Western
culture since Plato, Derrida argues, has been governed by such oppositions as reality/representation, inside/outside, original/copy, and mind/body. The intellectual achievements of the West – its science, art, philosophy, literature – have valued one side of these pairs over the other, allying one side with truth and the other with falsehood. For example, the Judeo-Christian
tradition
has conceived the body as an external
shell
for the inner soul, elevating the mind as the J o e y Wharton The Gift
sacred source of thought and spirit,
while
denigrating the body as mere mechanics. In
the realm of aesthetics, the original
work
of art traditionally has carried an aura
of
authenticity that its copy lacks, and the telling of a story or the taking of a photograph viewed as a passive record of events.
is
‘Deconstruction’ by
takes apart such oppositions
showing how the devalued, empty concept
lives
inside the valued, positive one. The inhabits the inside. Consider, for
outside
example,
the opposition between nature and
culture. The idea
idea of ‘nature’ depends on the
of ‘culture’, and yet culture is part of
nature.
It’s a fantasy to conceive of the non-
human
environment as a pristine, innocent
setting
fenced off and protected from the
products
of human endeavour—cities, roads,
farms, landfills. The fact that we have produced a concept of ‘nature’ in opposition to ‘culture’ is
a symptom of our alienation from the
ecological
systems that civilisation depletes
and transforms.
5
David Carson Ray Gun Magazine 1 9 9 4
A crucial opposition for deconstruction is speech/writing. The
Western
philosophical tradition has denigrated writing as an inferior copy of
the
spoken word. Speech draws on interior consciousness, but writing
is
dead and abstract. The written word loses its connection to the inner self. Language is set adrift, untethered from the speaking subject. In the process of embodying language, writing steals its soul. Deconstruction views writing as an active rather than passive form of representation.Writing is not merely
Derrida’s
a bad copy, a faulty transcription, of the spoken word; writing, in fact, invades
critique of the speech/writing opposition locates the concerns of
deconstruction in the field of graphic design.
thought and speech, transforming the sacred realms of memory, knowledge, and spirit. Any memory system, in fact, is a form of writing, since it records thought for the purpose of future transmissions.
The Design History of Deconstruction
The speech/writing opposition can be mapped onto a series of ideologically loaded pairs that are constitutive of modern Western culture:
Deconstruction
belongs to the broader critical field known as ‘post-
structuralism’, whose key figures include Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Original/ Jean Baudrillard, and others. Each of these writers has looked at modes copy, interior to the mind/exterior to the mind, requires no equipment/requires of representation-from literature and photography to the design of schools equipment, intuitive/learned, present subject/absent subject and prisons-as powerful technologies which build and remake the social
Speech/Writing,
Natural/artificial,
Spontaneous/constructed,
world.
6
Deconstruction’s attack on the neutrality of signs is also at work in
the consumer mythologies of Barthes, the institutional archaeologies of Foucault, and the simulationist aesthetics of Baudrillard.
The idea that cultural forms help to fabricate such seemingly ‘natural’ categories as race, sexuality, poetic genius, and aesthetic value had profound relevance to visual artists
in
the 1980s. Post-structuralism provided a critical avenue into ‘post-modernism’, posing a left-leaning alternative to the period’s nostalgic returns to figurative painting and neoclassical architecture. While Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, and Victor Burgin attacked media myths through their visual work, books such as Hal Foster’s The Anti-Aesthetic and Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory delivered post-structuralist theory to students in an accessible form.
Graphic designers in many U. S. art programs were exposed to critical theory through the fields of photography, performance and installation art during the early 1980s. The most widely publicised intersection of post-structuralism and graphic design occurred at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, under the leadership of co-chair Katherine McCoy. Designers at Cranbrook had first confronted literary criticism when they designed a special issue of Tyler Gradhill Design B a s k e r v i l e Deconstruction Poster
7
D a v i d Carson Ray Gun 1 9 9 2
Visible Language on contemporary French literary aesthetics, published in the summer of 1978. Daniel Libeskind, head of Cranbrook’s
architecture
text.
French Currents of the Letter, which outraged designers committed
to the established ideologies of problem-solving and direct communication,
program, provided the graphic designers with a seminar in literary theory,
remains a controversial landmark in experimental graphic design.
which prepared them to develop their strategy: to systematically disintegrate
Post-structuralism’s emphasis on the openness of meaning has been words incorporated by many designers into a romantic theory of self-expression: the main as the argument goes, because signification is not fixed in material forms,
the the series of essays by expanding the spaces between lines and and pushing the footnotes into the space normally reserved for
designers
and readers share in the spontaneous creation of meaning. This
approach
represents a rather cheerful response to the post-structuralist
theme
of the ‘death of the author’ and the assertion that the interior self is
constructed writings is
of Barthes and Foucault, for example, the citizen/artist/producer
not the imperious master of systems of language, media, education,
custom, grid as
by external technologies of representation. According to the
and so forth; instead, the individual operates within the limited
of possibilities these codes make available. Rather than view meaning
a matter of private interpretation, post-structuralist theory tends to see
the
realm of the ‘personal’ as structured by external signs. Invention and
revolution come from tactical aggressions against this grid of possibilities.
8
Erik S t
Marinovich o r m y
‘Deconstructivism’ catapulted into the mainstream design press with MoMA’s 1988 exhibition
Deconstructivist
Architecture, curated by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley. The curators used the term ‘deconstructivism’ to certain contemporary architectural practices to
link
Russian
Constructivism, whose early years were marked by imperfect vision of form and technology. The
an
MoMA
exhibition located a similarly skewed interpretation
of
modernism in the work of Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Peter Eisenman, and others. Wigley wrote in his catalogue essay: ‘A deconstructive architect is…not one
who
dismantles buildings, but one who locates the
inherent
dilemmas within buildings. The deconstructive
architect
puts the pure forms of the architectural tradition on
the
couch and identifies the symptoms of a repressed impurity. The impurity is drawn to the surface by a combination
of
gentle coaxing and violent torture: the form is interrogated’. In Wigley’s view, deconstruction in architecture
asks
questions about modernism by re-examining its
own
language, materials, and processes.
9
Lee Breaking In
the
Morton Grid
1990 Philip Meggs published a how-to guide for
would-be deconstructivists in the magazine Step-byStep Graphics. His essay, which includes a journalistic account the
of how the term ‘deconstruction’ entered
field of graphic design, focuses on style and
works
back to theory. Following the logic of the
MoMA project, his story begins with Constructivism and
ends with its ‘deconstruction’ in contemporary
design; unlikeWigley, however, Meggs’s story depicts early modernism as a purely rational enterprise. Chuck Byrne and Martha Witte’s more analytical the piece for Print (1990) describes deconstruction elements of a period style, marked by twisted geometries, centerless plans, and shards of glass and as a ‘zeitgeist’, a philosophical germ circulating metal. This cluster of stylistic features quickly emigrated from architecture to graphic design, just in contemporary culture that influences graphic as the icons and colours of neo-classical post-modernism had travelled there shortly before. While designers even though they might not know it. Their a more critical approach to deconstruction had been routed to graphic designers through the fields view corresponds roughly to McCoy’s sense of postof photography and the fine arts, architecture provided a ready-to-use formal vocabulary that could structuralism as a general ‘attitude’ or ‘filtration be broadly adopted. ‘Deconstruction’, ‘deconstructivism’, and just plain ‘decon’ became designprocess’ responding to the ‘intellectual culture’ world clichés, where they named existing tendencies and catalysed new ones in the fields of furniture of the time. Byrne and Witte’s article identifies and fashion as well as graphic design.
By framing their exhibition around a new ‘ism’, Wigley and Johnson helped to canonise
1 0
view
of deconstruction in graphic design is at once narrower and broader
in its scope than the view evolving from the current discourse. Rather than contemporary look at deconstruction as a historical style or period, we see deconstruction Doyle to Lucille as a critical activity-an act of questioning. The visual resources of typography
examples of deconstruction across the ideological map of design, ranging from the work of Paula Scher and Stephen Tenazas and Lorraine Wild.
help demarcate Derrida’s ideological map of the biases governing Western label art and philosophy. Having looked at deconstruction’s life in recent design any work that favours complexity over simplicity and dramatises the formal culture, we will now locate design within the theory of deconstruction. possibilities of digital production-the term is commonly used to invoke a
Today, in the mid-90s, the term ‘deconstruction’ is used casually to
generic allegiance with ‘Cranbrook’ or ‘CalArts’, a gesture which reduces both schools to flat symbols by blanketing a variety of distinct practices. Our
TheColor OfTheSky .deviantArt. c o m David Carson
1 1
q
J a c q u e s
D e r r ii d a Jacques
Derrida (1930-2004) was the founder of “deconstruction,” a way of criticizing not only both literary and
philosophical
texts but also political institutions. Although Derrida at times expressed regret concerning the fate of
the word “deconstruction,” its popularity indicates the wide-ranging influence of his thought, in philosophy, in literary criticism nearly and
and theory, in art and, in particular, architectural theory, and in political theory. Indeed, Derrida’s fame
reached the status of a media star, with hundreds of people filling auditoriums to hear him speak, with films
televisions programs devoted to him, with countless books and articles devoted to his thinking. Beside critique,
Derridean
deconstruction consists in an attempt to re-conceive the difference that divides self-reflection (or self-
consciousness).
But even more than the re-conception of difference, and perhaps more importantly, deconstruction
works towards preventing the worst violence. It attempts to render justice. Indeed, deconstruction is relentless in this pursuit since justice is impossible to achieve.
1 2
v
D a v i d
C a r s n o n
As one of the truly iconic figures of graphic design, David Carson has had a global influence for decades and is arguably the most influential designer of the 1990’s. Known best for his highly expressive yet very experimental treatment of design, Carson pioneered this aesthetic style into what would be known as “grunge typography”. A chaotic, rebellious expression of type, who through its years of exposure, influence, and imitation has made an obvious presence felt greatly till this day. In keeping with the values of similar grunge movements like those found in music, grunge typography came as a backlash to the conventional. When the so-called rules of typography became too stringent and restricting for designers to be creative, the style that Carson built served as an energetic solution to the mundane feeling
of
conformity and regulation. The rules needed to be broken, and while it wasn’t Carson’s intention to deliberately go against the established standards & doctrines of the art world, his grunge typography was essential in providing a new direction for innovative design.
1 3
r
N e ev i l l e
B r o d y
Neville
Brody had always pioneered the design industry with his works that daringly challenged the conventions of graphic
design. His experiments broke through the prefabricated designs that most designers would replicate. This has thus made him a figure students would find worth studying. His
inspiration from El Lissitzky and Alexander Rodchenko fuelled him to fuse typography and photography as an unified
design. Working
in Fetish Records & magazine companies like Per Lui, The Face & The Arena between the 1980s to 1990s
further allowed him to experiment on such designs which transformed the look of magazines and advertising worldwide. Brody also identified his role of a designer as one who is an advocate of society and his client. A designer should be aware that he/she is persuading someone to think in a certain way, and not design something that you think your client would buy. This school of thought he had made him produce work that is more than pleasing to the eye, it was work that could connect with its audience, work that audience can interpret beyond the surface. These strengths of his made him a very successful designer. Brody’s contribution doesnt end here as well. Apart from producing good works, he also tries to nurture designers in his field of experimental typography. He started FUSE project as a medium for
other designers to share their experimental typographic designs. FUSE also creates new fonts that are free for the public
so
that fellow designers could work on them and create new prodigies. FUSE has thus promoted experimental design and
allowed more designers to break through the barrier to venture out and take risks.
1 4
K a t ah e r i n e
c
M c C o y
Katherine McCoy was born in Decatur, Illinois, in 1945. She studied industrial design at Michigan State University before joining Unimark International in 1967. She went on to work at Chrysler Corporation and Omnigraphics, Inc. In 1971, McCoy became co-chair, with her husband Mike McCoy, of the design department at Cranbrook Academy of Art, which they continued to direct until 1995. By the 1980s, their sometimes controversial programme had established itself as one of the most innovative in American design education, producing a stream of graduates who have gone on to make their own mark in the profession. Their company, McCoy & McCoy, has worked in two- and three- dimensional projects for Formica, Xerox, Unisys, MIT Press, Philips, Tobu Stores Tokyo and other clients. McCoy is a past president and fellow of the Industrial Designers Society of America and an elected member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. She is president of the American Center for Design and recently completed a term as vice-president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. She served on the Design Arts Policy Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts and chaired the Design Arts Fellowships Grant Panel. In 1994, the McCoys were jointly awarded a Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design. “Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse,� an exhibition of work by McCoy, her students and graduates, travelled to New York and Tokyo in 1991. She has written widely about design and education, and her teaching methodology has featured in many international publications, including Eye (no. 3 vol. 1).
1 5
o
F o n t s Reclaim the Streets
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Overwork
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz Sequence Light
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Disenfranchide
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
1 6
Stampede
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ab c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q rs t u v w x y z
Crazy
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z FreekTure
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Acogessic
Crime Scene
Death to Smudgey
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
1 7
b
B i b l i o g r a p hpy “Argus.” Argus. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. <http://www.student.nvcc.edu/home/jdottin/ carson.html>. Carson,
David, and Lewis Blackwell. David Carson - 2nd Sight: Grafik Design after the End of
Print. New York, NY: Universe Publ., 1996. Print. Lawlor,
Leonard, Lawlor,. “Jacques Derrida.” Stanford University. Stanford University, 22 Nov.
2006. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/derrida/>. Lupton, Ellen. “Typotheque: Deconstruction and Graphic Design: History Meets Theory by Ellen Lupton.” Typotheque: Lupton.
Deconstruction and Graphic Design: History Meets Theory by Ellen
Typotheque, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. <https://www.typotheque.com/articles/
deconstruction_and_graphic_design_history_meets_theory>.
Justin Stubleski David Casron Poster
1 8
“Neville Brodian Analysis of His Works.” Neville Brodian Analysis of His Works. N.p., 06 Aug. 2006. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. <http://fumikasu.bizhat.com/assign3/analysis.html>.
Poynor, Rick. “Eye Magazine.” Eye Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. <http://www.eyemagazine. com/feature/article/katherine-mccoy>.
Wozencroft, Jon. The Graphic Language of Neville Brody. New York, NY: Rizzoli International Publications, 1991. Print.
All fonts are from dafont.com. Inspirational help from Tom Fillebrown, Alexa Dayn, Nicole Edwards, and many other friends and family. Neville Brody F u s e Propaganda
1 9
D e c o n s t r u c cD o n s t r u c t i o n D e c o n s r u c t i etecD ocu eon cnsno tisntrotrsurnu tcurctD utitecioD D e o c i n D s r c t s o c e c o n s t r u c t i o n D D e e c c o o n n s t s r t r u u c c t i t o i D e D c o e c n o s t n r s u t r c u t i c o Doeen c o n s t r u c t i o n D e c o n s t r u c t s t r u c t i o n c o n s t r u c t i o n D e c o n s t r u c t i o n D e c o n s t r u c t i o n D e c o n s t r u c t i o D e c o n s t r u c t i o D e c o nDsetcr ou nc st i ro unn D e c o n s t r u c eeecccD oD n e s c t o r u n c s t r i o u n c t e c o n s t r u c t i o n s t r u c t i o n o n s t r u c t i o n D D e c o n s t r u c cD o n s t r u c t i o n D e c o n s r u c t i D e eon cnsno tcurctcutitcioio etecD ocu tisntrotrsurnu D e o D c s n s r t D D e e c c o o n n s t s r t r u u c c t i t o i e c o n s t r u c t i o n D e D c o e c n o s t n r s u t r c u t i c o D Doeen c o n s t r u c t i o n D e c o n s t r u c t s t r u c t i o n D e c o n De ecccooonnnsssttrtrruuucccttitioioonnn D e cD o ne sc tornusct t DecoD n setcrouncstti r D e c o n s t r u c oDnesctor nuis conoen n s t r u c t cD s t r u c t i o i eo otDen D e c o n s t e c o D n e s c t o r u n c s t r i o D e c o n s t r u t i o n e c o n s t r u c t i D e c o n s t nD t i oDne c o n s t r u c t D e c o n s t r u c t i o n D e c o n s t r D e c o n s t r u o n ontcni toDi n e c o n s t r u c