Postmodernism is a rebellious design movement which from the 1970s to the beginning of the new millennia, challenged the rules of order and clarity advocated by Modernist groups like the International Typographic Style. Young designers wished not to abandon the ideals of modernism that promoted a sense of methodical rationale, but instead to play with these rules to create exciting and subversive outcomes. Leaders of the International Typographic Style favoured sans-serif typefaces like Helvetica and argued that types one purpose was to effectively deliver information. In contrast, Postmodernist innovators like Wolfgang Weingart wished to push typography to its limit; exploring when a letter stops becoming a communicative symbol and transform into something much more abstract.

The German typographer and designer has been credited as the “Father of New Wave Typography” as he began to experiment beyond the perimeters of the grid to create interesting imagery from lettering. He taught practices such as inconsistent letter spacing and weight within words, as well as placing words and letters on unconventional axis. As seen above, Weingart was particularly interested in experimenting with the letter M from the Univers typeface using techniques like photo-optically manipulating the form.

“Poster, NR.4” is a lithograph poster designed by Weingart in 1974. The design encapsulates his playful and subversive experiments with type. The monotone poster designed for the Basel School of Design is composed entirely of type and depicts no illustration or photography. The header of the poster contains information in a small font size organised into tidy paragraphs and lines. In the centre of the poster several letters have been merged like Tetris shapes to create illegible symbols and images. As an audience member, I can identify some of the shapes as letters such as a capitalised U and C (located on the bottom row, second to the left). Weingart has rotated the capital C by 90° before aligned it with the two parallel stems of the letter U. The two letters also differ in weight with the C being heavier. The composition creates an entirely new shape that looks like a capital T and arguably creates a new typeface within the poster reminiscent of the exaggerated, bubble lettering used on entertainment posters during the 1970s. Other elements within the poster are harder to decipher such as a geometric compound consisting of letter forms like E and an upside-down F legible by their arms or the arc of a J lying at a 90°. By connecting the letter forms, Weingart has eliminated their use as a tool to create legible words which communicate with the audience and provide information. Instead, the designer presents how we can manipulate letters which challenges the audience’s perception of the forms we are so familiar with as we try and fail to give the shapes vocabulary and meaning.

Weingart was also interested in collaging, a technique he used frequently in his work to create texture. The best example of this is featured in the designers most iconic work: “Das Schweizer Plakat” (or “The Swiss Poster”) (1984). The poster was commissioned for Bruno Margadant’s exhibition book by the same name with two conditions: it would use the typeface Times and that it would feature the Alpine mountain peak, the Matterhorn. Rather than simply photograph the mountain, Weingart decided to use his own techniques. Xeroxing a crumpled up handkerchief, Weingart created an abstracted form made up of an expressive landscape of angles and lines that are undistinguishable from the everyday object which created it. Weingart began to search for lines and edges that were reminiscent of the jagged Matterhorn peaks the audience would be familiar with. He created a film of the small, extracted section of the Xerox copy which he layered with film containing other elements like clouds to “build up the Matterhorn” within the collage. This process was really fascinating to learn about as Weingart shows how a designer can use an almost intuitive and organic approach to create unique and textured forms that cannot be achieved as effortlessly through digital medium.

A similar approach was utilised by the English artist, Jamie Reid. Reid identified with the ‘Punk scene’, a sub-culture which emerged in Britain during the 1970s. The Punk sub-culture was pioneered by British youth tired of the harsh, unfair living conditions imposed by the elitist Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher during the 70s and 80s . Along with its loud, subversive music and aesthetics, the movement is characterised by its anti-establishment, anti-capitalist beliefs – which Reid (a self-professed anarchist) connected with. Reid’s album art in collaboration with the British punk band: The Sex Pistols, is now synonymous with the term Punk. Many alternative, underground musicians at this time utilised cheap methods of design when creating album covers due to both lack of budget and disdain for mass production processes used by the capitalist, mainstream music industry. Reid was no different – utilising collaging to incorporate elements like photographs and different typefaces to create mock ransom letters and defacements of iconic cultural images. One of his most iconic designs is the album art created for the Sex Pistols single by the same title: “God Save the Queen” (1977). Reid’s single design depicts a partially covered black and white photograph of Queen Elizabeth layered on top of a Union Jack flag. The band’s name and the singles title are spelled out using torn newspaper clippings which cover the subject’s eyes and mouth. It appears as though, Reid has utilised a similar method to Weingart – photographing or xeroxing the Union Jack in a crumpled state to give the impression it is waving as it would in the wind, imagery it is typically associated with. This method gives the background an interesting, wrinkled texture that adds depth to the design. The flag, an emblem of the United Kingdom, and its distortion also suggests to the audience a sense of corruption that reflects onto the country’s institutions (including the royal family, featured in the design). Reid layers an iconic photograph of Elizabeth II typically used on bank notes and other official documents, on top of the patriotic flag imagery below. His exciting use of typography subverts the audiences expectations of what at first viewing appears to be a nationalistic celebration of the monarchy. Torn out newspaper clippings in varying bold, block fonts and casing are composed together to spell out the single’s title and the bands iconic logo which follows the same theme. The mismatched typefaces, disjointed placement and torn edge effect creates an abrupt sense of urgency and spontaneity that contrasts with the order enforced by the centuries old monarchist institution.