Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a movement which reacted against the sterility of Modernism, reestablished interest in ornament, symbolism, visually, challenging the idea of 'form following the function''.
Rick Poynor in his book ''No more rules'' (2003) is saying that if modernism sought to create a better world, postmodernism- to the horror of many observers- appear to accept the world as it is. In modernism they claimed that they know what is the best for people but postmodernism is all about a coplicitous relationship with the dominant culture. The work from these two movements are maybe similar but their functionality and purpose are totally different.
In this movement designers had the opportunity to do things with type that would have been to difficult to experiment in past. Without any boundaries. David Carson said that when he ignored the rules he produced designers that seemed to resemble nothing ever encountered before in commercial print media. There was no grid, no format. It makes piece of art more interesting than paying by rules.

There is one aspect of Postmodernism which is known maybe as the most interesting one, concept of deconstruction. As an approach was first explored by Jacques Derrida. For him it was ''the breaking down of something (an idea, a precept, a word, a value) in order to decode its parts in such a way that these act as informers on thing, or on any assumptions or convictions we have reading it''.

The term postmodernism was first used to describe architectural designs which were distorting established code. It was meant to criticize the ''glass box'' structures of the Swiss/International period.

Embracing art, architecture, fashion, graphic design, furniture, it reestablished interest in ornamentation, symbolism and visual wit.

The Sydney Opera House, which is inspired by Frank Lloyd, became the Australia's most famous building. Designers of this movement challenged the modernists' obsession with progress and violated Bauhaus tenet that form must follow function. Some of theme were inspired by the torn paper collage, by loose arbitrary collage from punk, from arbitrary placement of geometric shapes from constructivism, by pure geometry of rectangles, by absolute order and cleanliness of the Swiss movement. The most used type-face was Helvetica.

References:

Graphic Design History | Postmodern. 2014. Graphic Design History | Postmodern. [ONLINE] Available at:http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/1975/postmodern.html. [Accessed 18 January 2014].

Postmodern Graphic Design | AG's ARTIN Design Blog. 2014. Postmodern Graphic Design | AG's ARTIN Design Blog. [ONLINE] Available at:http://ha065.wordpress.com/gamswen/postmodern-graphic-design/. [Accessed 18 January 2014].