Post Structualism

A Philosophy Movement of the 1960's

Post Structuralism was a direct responce to Structuralist ideas. They critised the concept of pure communication. They believed that language is created, used and generated through culture. That you can't look back at ideas in history without the eyes of now. Everything is set in CONTEXT... Everything, ideas, actions, are related to theory. Everything has multi layered meanings.

Roland Barthes wrote an essay called 'The Death of the Author' in 1968 in which he planted the concept of readers holding all the power. He believed, its the audience (the masses) who translate the message and therefore create the meaning.

The Post Structuralist thinkers; Rock, Bathes, Focault and Derrida question the role of the author. They question the power of the author, is it right to have one voice?

Many designers responede to Post Structuralism graphically; Wolfgang Weigart pushed and stretched typographic rules. The audience needed to work it out- deconstruct the work in order to understand the work and create meaning. Lupton and Miller used the language of the Bauhaus to make the audience interact with their work. The audience needed to use their knowledge of modernism and history of graphic design to decode and enable understanding therefore creating meaning.

Alan Hori's Typography as Discourse