80s Design is Alive, Well, and Living in 2019” by Nadja Sayej, published in PRINT, March 6, 2019

  • Find 1 example of work from a postmodern graphic designer from the 1980s and 1 example of work from a contemporary graphic designer from the last five years.
  • Deconstruct the works and explain which visual and/or ideological elements are associated with the Postmodernism of the 1980s and why.

This is a Wet magazine cover designed by April Greiman in 1979. There is no doubt that this is an artwork with a strong postmodernism style. What is the postmodernist style? Bright colors, unconstrained and unorganized are tags to postmodernism. They have super active visual activities, a sharp contrast in color, and various conflicting patterns, which subvert some of the previous conservative design principles or concepts. Postmodernism actually contains some rebellious aesthetics, because it is more retro and diversified. It does not care about functions, likes to play with language, does not care whether there is logic, and randomly plays with various design elements. For example, the design of this cover uses vibrant colors, a large number of angular figures, and the human photo in the middle is blocked by a black rectangle. It makes people feel that it is an energetic, mischievous, and rebellious person covered with thorns.

This is an advertising poster from MAC Cosmetics made by Chris Chang in 2016. Some visual and ideological elements of this poster are related to post-modernism in the 1980s. The first and most obvious reason is color. Although its overall hue is not as bright as that of the Wet magazine cover, they all have one thing in common: the hue of the color palette is a mix of natural and retro shades. The second reason is also the characteristics of this poster, which combines the elements of various Asian regions. Another characteristic of postmodernism is that it doesn’t care whether there is logic or not, and plays with various design elements. The makeup and modeling in this poster refer to Kunqu Opera (one of the oldest extreme forms of Chinese opera.), but many colors are not used in the normal makeup and modeling of Kunqu Opera. There will be no chameleon or architectural decoration. That is to say, the makeup of the poster is the makeup that subverts the traditional Kunqu Opera, which is a kind of rebellious aesthetics.