Key Takeaway

After two decades, modernism and the international style had reached a point where everything was constrained by grids, Helvetica was everywhere and design had become a science. A new wave of designers came along, frustrated by what they saw as a lack of creativity and personal expression. They endeavoured to break all the rules modernism had created, and push the boundaries of design to breaking point. Starting with architecture, but quickly moving across design fields, postmodernism was a movement designed to bring the human element back into design.

Introduction

Charles Jencks says that modernism transitioned to postmodernism on the 15th of July 1972, when the Pruitt-Igoe housing development in St. Louis Missouri was demolished. It was described as uninhabitable for humans, and for some this marked the failing of modernism. They believed modernism had failed and become too interested in stripping away the humanity from design, and therefore was no longer fit for purpose.

In truth, postmodernism had began in the late sixties as designers had started to reject the scientific and logical style of design, which had become the International Typographic Style. Postmodernism became the umbrella term for rethinking in design, the world was changing. The joy and hope of the post-war fifties and the love and peace of the sixties had passed. With a long, bloody war in Vietnam, the world was ready to embrace change and postmodernism was the vehicle of this climate of cultural change.

New Wave Typography — Wolfgang Weingart

One of the most interesting designers in the early days of Postmodernism, is Wolfgang Weingart, a German graphic designer. He studied at the Metz Academy in Stuttgart before beginning an apprenticeship with Ruwe Printing. It was during this apprenticeship, he was encouraged to go and study in Switzerland and after meeting Emil Ruder and Armin Hofmann, he enrolled in the Basel School of Design as an independent student. He then applied to teach typography at the Basel School of Design, this was the start of a teaching career that lasted many decades, giving classes and lectures worldwide and inspiring many other designers.

For me one of Weingart’s most interesting pieces, is his typographical experiment with the letter “m”. He really looked at letter and their shapes and really challenged when was a letter, just a letter and when did it become a shape and how this could be used in design.

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Source (https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/museum-of-design-zurich-unveils-the-weingart-archive/) Last Accessed 01/12/2022

This reminds me of a similar task, I completed as part of my other module this semester. It was a really fun exercise to simply take one letter and see what shapes and designs you could make with it. I found it really got me thinking more deeply about typography and its potential and importance within design. And while I can not compare myself to someone with the talent of Weingart, I was inspired by the exercise and his work. To think more outside the box and not to limit myself, too much with standard forms and constraints. It is incredible to think the work above was all created with one uppercase “M”, all the different shapes and forms, that can be created with one letter. It really shows the capability of typography when looked at from a postmodern perspective. Below is my own attempts at a more basic version of typographic experimentation with the letter “k”.

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British Postmodernism

Postmodernism in Britain, was heavily linked with youth culture and popular music. In 1975, The Sex Pistols launched Punk Music, loud, musically simple and disrespectful of the work of the past. Punk Music quickly became massively popular amongst the disenchanted youth of the mid-seventies. The seventies in Britain was not the swinging sixties, the hope and optimism of that decade had quickly disappeared and with high unemployment and lack of prospects, the time seemed right for change and Punk was the sound of this change. The art that came along with that sound was to provide the visuals.

Jamie Reid

The man that provided the art work for The Sex Pistols albums was artist Jamie Reid. Jamie Reid had a particular style, using newspaper print in the style of ransom notes (to avoid identification via handwriting analysis) for his typography.

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Source (https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/db657b16011ca28578b55b3782f2f53901224fed/0_244_4280_2568/master/4280.jpg?width=1200&height=900&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&s=68988b6d07aa3a45cd0cdf33b531b689) Last Accessed 01/12/2022