B
oth the Modern and Post Modern artists have been very influential towards todays current Graphic Design industry, with recent artists capturing a series of elements from these methods of design and applying them in to their own work. However, the question still remains as to which form of art is ‘better’, with each style capturing several different approaches to design. In history there is a great amount of artists focusing on either Modern or Post Modern styles who are both famous and very influential towards todays design. For example, from the Modernist era, artists such as El Lissitzky, Josef MüllerBrockmann, Pablo Picasso etc. as well as the German Bauhaus School all producing designs which reflect greatly on modern designers work. However, this could also be said by the Post Modern designers such as David Carson, Neville Brody and Jamie Reid, a long with certain fashion designers such as Vivienne Westwood all producing designs and products that are still currently being used in the current time. However, with society changing dramatically day by day it is difficult to argue that either Post Modern or Modern work is more effective or maybe ‘better’ as they both serve different purposes in different areas of design. For example, in terms of music based design, it is much more common to feature Post Modern design elements, in particularly in Rock music as this has been a continuous trend since the Punk and the Mod era, with designers such as Jamie Reid producing the album artwork for the Sex Pistols. It is with these artists that cause the argument of which style is better as such, as they each have such influential designers historically as well as some very fascinating attributes to themselves, such as the actual design style itself.
This on going discussion will never settle to a definitive answer as it is too opiniated and the use for each style is very different. Therefore, the question of which is better is not the correct question, instead I think this should be an opportunity to reflect on the positive attributes of the two styles, and the ways in which these periods have created some influence on todays design. Starting with the Modernist design, the steady level of simplicity in this style is what allows it to be so successful, with the use of very easy to read type, simple photography and the use of shape and block colour in order to create a design. Different to this, the Post Modern designers take up a much different style, with their approach using interesting colour variations as well as tearing parts of images away and reconstructing them into different designs. With the Post Modernist designers taking up a Punk fashion in their work, there are elements such as tears in paper and reconstructions of words using newspaper cuttings, bringing out an almost grungy effect in the work. With this being said, it is clear that both Modern and Post Modern art and design is very interesting in their very own personal ways with each of them carrying their own attributes which allow them both to stand out amongst one another. It can also be said that designers of the current era take elements from each style of design, however this does depend on what the designer is actually producing as, like previously noted, it is justified by the actual production itself and the underlying purposes, for example what the products function is a long with the target audience, and the general area of market in which the design is trying to target or enter into, leaving the question of which is better not answered but understood. april 2013