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RESEARCH t l a c i r o t s i H H C R A E SHistorical ER l a c i t e r oTheoretical ehT
e r u t c e t i hArchitecture crA n o i t c u r t s n o c e D dGrid i r GDeconstruction Derrida a d i r r e D s e u qJacques caJ McCoy y o C c M e n i r e hKatherine taK
ists and Designers s r e n g i s e D d n a s t sAi trrt A S T N E M I R E P X E MYYM E X P E R I M E N T S
N G I S E D T E B A H PA LL AP H A B E T D E S I G N y h p a r g o i Bibliography lbiB n o h p oColophon loC
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Jacques Derida introduced the concept of ‘deconstruction’ in his book Of Grammatology, published in France in 1967 and
translated into English 1976.
Since the surfacing of the term ‘deconstruction’ in design journalism
in the mid-1980s, the word has served to label architecture, graphic
design, products, and fashion featuring chopped up, layered, and
fragmented forms imbued with ambiguous futuristic overtones.
(Lupton, 3)
Deconstruction is a philosophy applied to literary criticism, as well as to
criticism of the other arts, which began to gain popularity in the 1980s.
The field arose partially in reaction to the literary theories of structuralism,
which posited that, when words could be understood within the context of
a society of readers, then one could point to the specific meaning of a text.
(WiseGeek)
10 10
99
Deconstruction is
not a style or ‘attitude’ but
rather a mode of questioning through and about the technologies, formal devices, social institutions, and founding metaphors of representation. (Typotheque)
Deconstruction belongs to both history and theory. (Lupton, 3)
t h e o r e t i c a l
t h e o r e t i c a l
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11 11 ‘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 link certain contemporary architectural practices to Russian Constructivism, whose early years were marked by an imperfect vision of form and technology. The MoMA exhibition located a similarly skewed interpretation of motdernism 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 e r u t c e t i h c r A
form is interrogated’. In Wigley’s view, deconstruction in architecture asks questions about modernism by re-examining its own language, materials. and processes. (Lupton, 9)
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13 13 From the mentioning of grids, we come to the exploration of grid deconstruction in graphic design. By deconstructing a grid, we are breaking down a structure to discover new spatial or visual relationships. Breaking down or altering a structure can be done through methods such as “cutting” and shifting apart major areas, either horizontally or vertically.
(Padilla)
As the word
implies, the purpose of deconstructing is to deform a rationally structured space so that the elements within that space are forced into new relationships. There’s no real set of rules that can be applied to the process of deconstructing.
(Samara, 122)
In graphic design, there is also “linguistic deconstruction” which
involves treating the composition’s text in particular ways in order to
give a “voice” to visual language. To do so, certain phrases or words
could be broken apart to bring attention to certain sections. Text can also
louder” or “faster” if they are made larger or bolder.
appear “
(Padilla)
ationships” ce are force d into new rel the elements within that spa ce so that m a rationally structured spa for de to is ing uct str con “De
16 16
15 15 Jacques Derrida was one of the
most well known
twentieth century philosophers. Jacques Derrida introduced the concept of ‘deconstruction’ in his book Of Grammatology, published in France in 1967 and translated into English 1976. (Lupton, 3)
Derrida’s work focuses on language. He contends that the traditional, or metaphysical way of reading makes a number of false assumptions about the nature of texts. A traditional reader believes that language is capable of expressing ideas without changing them, that in the hierarchy of language writing is secondary to speech, and that the author of a text is the source of its meaning. Derrida’s deconstructive style of reading subverts these assumptions and challenges the idea that a text has an unchanging, unified meaning. (Design History)
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E
M C K C TA O H Y E R I N
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Katherine McCoy began her career a Unimark International in the 1980s and carried many of the company’s Bauhaus-derived assumptions with her when she became co-chair of the Cranbrook design department with her husband, Mike, in 1971. McCoy’s early work at Cranbrook betrayed a strong Swiss influence, favouring rigorous analysis and a commitment to the grid. Modernist principles continue to underpin McCoy’s approach, but the grids have become increasingly complex and contradictory and irrational elements are allowed to intrude on the rational. McCoy’s posters invariably function as commentaries on their subject matter. In the Cranbook Design Program poster examples of the students’ work are overlaid with a list of opposing values (“conceptual/ aesthetic” etc.) and the communications theory diagram. (Eye Magazine)
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19 19 Edward Fella is an artist and graphic designer whose work has had an important influence on contemporary typography here and in Europe. He practiced professionally as a commercial artist in Detroit for 30 years before receiving an MFA in Design from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1987. (Ed Fella)
Fella was one of the first
artists to break
the grid and influence the movement. His work had a distinctive look, and made him different than others.
(Edward Fella, Letters on America)
(Eye Magazine)
In Fella’s agitated hands, type is spun, tilted, stretched, sliced, fractured, drawn as if with a broken nib, and set loose among fields of ink-blotter doodles and networks of rules.
(Poyn or, 12)
l e t t e r s p a c i n g
i s
e x t e n d e d ,
linespacing collapsed; doodles spill across gridless layouts and type is brushed on with the freedom of paint. (Eye Magazine)
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CARSON d
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Since the early nineties, the best-known practitioner of innovative visual and graphic design-- whose work is often described as the new typography, deconstructive typography, or digital typography -- has been David Carson. A former surf-celebrity with little formal design training, Carson has attracted an international following for the layouts and experimental fonts which first appeared in the six-issue run of a magazine called Beach Culture; in 1992 Carson became the art director at the music magazine Ray Gun, founded by publisher Marvin Jarrett as an underground competitor to Rolling Stone, Creem, and Spin. Today Carson commutes to art-school workshops and seminars around the globe, whilte designing dissonance for the likes of Coca-Cola, Swatch, and Hardees. Carson, as the most closely watched designer of the decade, has done as much as Template Gothic to consolidate the look of the nineties. (Kirschenbaum)
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a do cum en t typ og rap hy, firs t I ha d to cre ate my for ect eff l nci ste the t ge To ng ed my alp ha be ts tog eth er. Th en , I cha my all t pu to r ato str Illu e ob in Ad alp ha be ts. d the las er cut ter to cut ou t my use I d an e tlin ou an o int t tex an d I ha ve ha ve use d a bla ck spr ay pa int I , ect eff l nci ste my e iev ach To ha be ts. spr aye d ins ide the cut ou t alp to pu t e r I ha ve use d Ph oto sho p h t r u f a ide s thi op vel de To de d er. To som e of the lay ers I ad eth tog l nci ste a’ rrid De es cqu ‘Ja ad jus tm en ts suc h as
inv er t an d lev el.
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http://mdpratt.deviantart.com/art/Concrete-Wall-1-88665023
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Fella designs that I found in his I was inspired by one of Edward’s p this inspiration idea further I book, Letters of America. To develo image of a wall and added in have used Photoshop to import an cropped typography I have my cropped typography. With my ng mode. I like how the used the overlay tool from the blendi wall. typography looks like it is part of the (Edward Fella, Letters on America)
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I n k
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B l e a c h
To get this ink and bleach effect on my typography, first I had to
type out all of the alphabets on Adobe Illustrator, using a bold Helvetica font. Then I have changed my text into an outline in preparation for the laser cutter machine. When my letters had been cut out, I then usd the quink ink to paint in my alphabets. I used the opposite side of my paintbrush to dip into the bleach before I start scratching it on my ink typography.
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Stencil
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Ink
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Ink and Bleach
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Cropped
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Cut Edge
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FontStruct
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Lupton, E . a n d Miller,J.A. 1996.Design, writing, research. New York: Kiosk. Lupton, E. 2014. Typotheque: Deconstruction and Graphic Design: History Meets Theory by Ellen Lupton. [online] Available at: https://www.typotheque.com/articles/deconstruction_ and_graphic_design_history_meets_theory [A c c e s s e d : 1 1 M a r 2 0 1 4 ] . wiseGEEK. What is Deconstruction? (with picture). [online] Available at: http://www. wisegeek.org/what-is-deconstruction.htm WW[ A c c e s s e d : 5 M a r 2 0 1 4 ] . Padilla, A. 2014. Deconstructivism. [online] Available at: http://public.csusm.edu/padil035/history-paper.html [Accessed: 5 Mar 2014]. Samara, T. 2005. Making and breaking the grid. Gloucester, MA: Rockport Publishers. Designhistory.org. Deconstruction. [online] Available at: http://www.designhistory.org/PostModern_pages/Deconstruction.html [Accessed: 18 Feb 2014]. Eyemagazine.com. 2014. Eye Magazine | Feature | Cranbrook in close-up. [online] Available at: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/ cranbrook-in-close-up [ A c c e s s e d : 7 M a r 2 0 1 4 ] Edfella.com. edfella.com. [online] Available at: http://www.edfella.com/ [ A c c e s s e d : 1 1 F e b 2 0 1 4 ] . Fella, E. 2000. Letters on America. Mainz: Schmidt. Poynor, R. and Booth-Clibborn, E. 1991. Typography now--the next wave. London, England: Internos Books. Kirschenbaum, M. 2014. The Other End of Print: David Carson, Graphic Design, and the Aesthetics of Media. [online] Available at: http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/kirsch.html [Accessed: 7 Mar 2014]. Carson, D. 2001. beach culture magazine | david carson design. [online] Available at: http://www.davidcarsondesign.com/t/2001/06/24/beach-culture-magazine/ [ A c c e s s e d : 7 M a r 2 0 1 4 ] . gemwelsherblog. 2012. David Carson. [online] Available at: http://gemwelsherblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/david-carson/#jp-carousel-902 [ A c c e s s e d : 7 M a r 2 0 1 4 ] .
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V i c t o r i a M a k e p e a c e ,1 0 8 8 2 2 5 3 8 3 U N I T D M G 2 0 1 Beyond Desktop Publishing PERSONAL TYPOGRAPHIC JOURNAL BA (Hons) Graphic Communication