Context of Practice: Making Connections

Deconstruction - Derrida created deconstruction as a mean of questioning these binary oppositions. He challenges the reality of the modes it is not just black and white. Deconstruction is just a mode of thinking.


'Design, Writing, Research' - Lupton and Miller, 1996:

Ellen Lupton explores aspects and methods of deconstruction and how it had an impact on Graphic Design Practice.

She discussing reality and representation. The reality of the real world is more important that the world of images etc...

'Derrida asserted that an intellectual system(or episteme) built on the opposition between reality and representation has, in fact, depended on representation to build itself.'

One of the oppositions that factors significantly in Derrida's discussion is that of speech/writing where speech is privileged over writing - "speech draws on interior consciousness, but writing is dead and abstract."
 - Greek Philosophers didn't write anything down as it was seen as inferior to word.

"If writing is but a copy of spoken language, typography is a mode of representation ever farther removed from primal source of meaning in the mind of the author."

Speech/writing - writing/typography - seeing/reading

"Design and typography work at the edges of writing, determining the shape and style of letters, the spaces between them and their placement on the page. Typography, from its position at the margins of communication, has moved away from speech."

Allen Hori, typography challenges the traditional opposition between seeing and reading by treating the surface as both theoretical content and sensual form, as both text and texture. Rather than deliver information directly, Hori's poster expects the reader to work to uncover its message."

He argues there is no hierarchy or opposites but everything is balanced. This is what she argues with Typography that it allows us to appreciate different types.

House of leaves By Mark Danielewsky the book is layout is a mix of the story from two different people it encourages a dual way of reading.

Pastiche by Fredric Jameson - is appropriating styles from the past. A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, or music that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. He is a marxist so everything he writes has a Marxist tint. We become detached from history because the designs are regurgitated and then are known as designs today.

What are other examples of 'Pastiche' In graphic design can you think of?

Soap and Glory

Supreme

The Great Gatsby

Kath Kidston

Forming a Research Question:

What is the general theme? (editiorial, branding, typography, advertising, new media, print making)
Branding - Packaging

What are the current/contextual/historical issues of the general theme? 
Placement, material, shops - supermarkets compared to high end shops. Is it on offer? etc...

What do I want to know or be able to do in regard to this theme? From this into a question that implies a conclusion.. what, how , to what extent?
I want to be able to create packaging that stands out and sells.

How does this relate to my (increasingly specialist) Practice?
I have an interest in package design, and knowing the theory behind it would help my practice.

To what extent does package design and package placement affect sales?