Deconstruction

The essay Deconstruction and Graphic Design focuses on the use of deconstruction in typography and history of design and furthermore observing work by Jacques Derrida who created the theory of deconstruction. Derrida defined deconstruction as “a mode of questioning through and about the technologies, formal devices, social institutions, and central metaphors of representation.”

Derrida’s theory brings up questions on deconstruction and how representation inhabits reality, which continues into questions such as “how does the external image of things get inside their internal essence?” According to Derrida, Deconstruction focuses not on the themes and imagery of its objects but rather on the linguistic and institutional systems that frames their production. Deconstruction is found within the wider field recognized as post-structuralism. Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard are people who come to mind when you think or post-structuralism and have each looked at modes of representation. This includes the conventions of literature and photography to the design of schools and prisons. According to the essay, in the mid-90’s the term “deconstruction” is used casually to label any work that favors complexity over simplicity and dramatizes the formal possibilities of digital production.

The essay states, “Our view of deconstruction in graphic design is at once narrower and broader in its scope than the view evolving from the current discourse.” We should not look at deconstruction as a style from history but rather look at it as a critical development. This essay has taught me a lot about Deconstruction in Graphic Design and in my opinion I feel Deconstruction is the way type interacts with other type. This can be in the way the type connects together and forms different things. Additionally in the way type can be manipulated and parts of type removed that may lead to confusion or messiness.