Postmodernism - Lecture 14 - 6-12-11

Postmodernism is often considered as the beginning of where we are today in the design world. Postmodernism believes that apparent realities are only social constructs and are therefore subject to change. It also underlines the role of language, power relations and motivations. The challenges Postmodernism faced were severe categorising, such as male v. female, straight v. gay and white v. black.


There are distinctive visual characteristics in Post-Modern style that blends history, new technology and decoration together. Postmodernists went on to question Modernism's purity and pristine demands, starting with throwing out the notion that form depends on function. A good example of this is a Duck building vs. a Decorated Shed. A Duck building, is a building formed in to portray what the activity held within the building. It is named after the "The Big Duck," in Long Island, New York, which originally sold ducks and duck eggs. Whereas a Decorated Shed is a very simple shed-like building (i.e. a basic rectangle building), which have large-scale text and symbols added to it, to inform the quickly moving passer-by what is in these buildings.

Above: The Big Duck, Flanders, Long Island, New York

Left: Duck v. Decorated Shed

Some good examples of Postmodernist artists, are: Tadanori Yokoo, Ettore Sottsass, Wolfgang Weingart, April Greiman, Ed Fella and Katherine McCoy.

Above: (Left) Tadanori Yokoo (Right) Ettore Sottsass

 Above: Ed Fella

Overall, I do believe that Postmodernism is the beginning of where we are today, design-wise. I believe that Postmodernism is also a major part of how we have gotten to be where we are today, and without it, I don't think that design would so significant in our society and wouldn't play such a huge role in our day-to-day lives. Like with every movement in the art and design world, there are some artists/designers in the Postmodernist movement that I really don't like, but there are some that that I do really like, particularly Ed Fella, and his hand-drawn type. I particularly like the quote in the above picture, because I feel that at the moment, I do concentrate a lot on what I think people want, and not what I want, so this is hopefully something that I take into future work; that being, you don't always have to follow the 'rules' so tightly, you can break some, but only if it works.