Reading: Deconstruction and Graphic Design

Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller. Published in special issue of Visible Language on graphic design history, edited by Andrew Blauvelt (1994)

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Post-structuralism’s emphasis on the openness of meaning has been incorporated by many designers into a romantic theory of self-expression: as the argument goes, because signification is not fixed in material forms, 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 by external technologies of representation. According to the writings of Barthes and Foucault, for example, the citizen/artist/producer is not the imperious master of systems of language, media, education, custom, and so forth; instead, the individual operates within the limited grid of possibilities these codes make available. Rather than view meaning as 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.

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