The concept of mainstream vs. underground is relevant in contemporary design for Heller because although the style is very well-known, designers tend to copy or steal ideas. Think about it as recycling an idea. The only difference would be that people make these stolen ideas look brand new. For example, Heller said that, “Calkins commanded commercial artists to appropriate and smooth out the edges of modern art, add an ornament here and there to make it palatable for the consumer class, and—voila!—instant allure and immediate sales.” Even though this idea works in terms of marketing, there’s no original idea, and it gets very repetitive. 

For my final project, I was going to talk about Michael Bierut, and how his work impacted the design world. The designs that I’ll be addressing fits in this dichotomy because for the pieces that I’ll mention, it almost seems as if what Heller has been saying is true. To add on, “designers can implement these same techniques to make unexpected use of both images and words. In writing, figures of speech often express ideas by evoking a mental picture. Such images help readers remember the message by casting a new light on familiar elements.” (1)

The sort of underground designs that influenced the work would be the pieces of work that the underground have produced. “Underground denizens attack the mainstream for two reasons: To alter or to join, sometimes both. Few designers choose to be outsiders forever.” In this text, they talk about how they always choose a side when designing. This shaped the mainstream by how designers always copy or renew a used idea. What’s important is that “the first function is the informative function. The role of graphics here is to impart (by definition new) knowledge, or intelligence.” (2) In terms of the future though, I feel like there will only be even more designers who copy and reuse the same idea, just as Heller explained. With that being said, many people during the 1970s were beginning a new design path, “By the 1970s many believed the modern era was drawing to a close in art, design, politics, and literature. The cultural norms of Western society were being scrutinized, and the authority of traditional institutions was being questioned.” (3)

(1)  Graphic Design Thinking : Beyond Brainstorming, edited by Ellen Lupton, Princeton Architectural Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/citytech-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3387597.

(2) Barnard, Malcolm. Graphic Design As Communication, Taylor & Francis Group, 2005. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/citytech-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1273176.

(3) Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/citytech-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4505417.