In his analysis of the 1980s art scene, the critic Hal Foster describes at least two conditions that identify a state of pluralism: a proliferation of accepted styles in the marketplace and a profusion of educational programmes that together constitute a new academy. I believe that graphic design operates under similar conditions today. The problem with pluralism is that styles become relative options, not critical choices. Although pluralism ensures many styles from which to choose, we lose any sense of critical alternatives because, as Foster states,

"tolerance and
acceptance doesn't
threaten the status quo."

Instead we have incremental or, in the parlance of 1990s economics,"managed" change. Just as the last round of "radical" graphics entered the profession in the late 1980s, many critics predicted an immediate opposite reaction, not understanding perhaps the speed and depth of assimilation such work would engender.

The prevailing notion of what defines contemporary graphic design took hold early in the 1990s - variously and problematically referred to as Deconstructivism, grunge graphics, or simply, the "cult of the ugly". In antithetical fashion, some critics foresaw an inevitable reaction to the trend by predicting a return to more minimal or reductive approaches. Emigre magazine devoted an issue to the subject ("Starting from Zero") as early as 1991, in which the idea of reduction was taken to mean a return to the primal, and in 1995 Carel Kuitenbrouwer presciently saw the turn in contemporary Dutch design away from its baroque excesses and towards a "new sobriety" (Eye no. 17 vol. 5). The prophecies continue with the recent publication of Less Is More, by Steven Heller and Anne Fink, a collection of contemporary design defined by familiar yet retrograde notions of simplicity. In the wake of these predictions has the cult of complexity given way to an ethos of simplicity?

At the beginning of the decade it seemed as if there was an ever-expanding universe of graphic possibilities, yet now it feels as if we have reached the limit. Is there no way forward when everything seems possible? In this infinity of possibilities, we may arrive at zero. But to begin again does not mean returning to the "good old days" of Clarity, Legibility, Objectivity.

Starting from zero does not mean that contemporary design arrives free of the past.

There are signs of different forms of design taking hold, projects and solutions that embrace reductive not additive working methods, explicit rather than implicit structures of organisation, a preference for the literal over the ambiguous, and where the ordinary and the quotidian, not the exoticised subcultures of the vernacular, are sources of inspiration. At their best such projects are a critical encounter with problems of representation, both verbal and visual, rather than the next round of stylistic permutations. This shift away from the simply complex and towards a complex simplicity is a condition that I would like to read against many of the most celebrated

In the realm of the simply complex, fragmentation is preferred as the viewer assembles various bits of text and image to form an aggregate message. Such work tends to treat language as a free-floating talisman, isolated words drifting across the page in search of meaning. By contrast a complex simplicity relies on enumeration and explication, a series of digressions and elaborations linked in the flow of language. What seems trivial and tangential becomes essential – like so many bits and pieces of data in the detritus of the information age. This abundance of information is employed to dramatic and occasionally humorous effect. Structure becomes paramount in order to handle large quantities of texts and images: a penchant for charts, diagrams and maps prevails. But in the most interesting work what appears to be good old information design reveals, upon closer examination, something more subjective – a kind of over-rationalised explication – that undermines its historical associations of neutrality and objectivity.

The diagrammatic and the eccentric converge in Timothy McSweeney’s, a literary journal in which words reign supreme. This is confirmed by the admonishment on the cover of issue two:

“If words are to be used as design elements then let designers write them.”

Prone to confabulation, this small, book-like journal is set in only one typeface, Garamond, about which is provided a five-page pseudo-colophon. McSweeney’s is typically bereft of imagery, especially photography, preferring small line illustrations and the occasional diagram or dingbat. Its well crafted covers evoke Victorian typographic guises with elaborate extended prose and marginalia, while intricate charts structure the contents of each issue in much the way that nineteenth-century physiognomy charts tried to map human nature. McSweeney’s relies on verbal explication and finds a visual corollary in the diagram. The contents of issue two, for example, are represented by the number of words per article and approximate reading time, and by a pie chart that categorises the offerings by percentage, for example,

“Stories that want you to be happy: 19%.”

Carefully ordered, but abhorrent of white space, it leaves no place unused. Witness, from the third issue cover, messages such as

“This area was blank for the longest time” or “Nothing need happen here”.

or an article printed on the spine. For McSweeney’s the modernist principle of “activated” white space seems empty, both wasteful and useless, because every place is a seen as a potential space to hold meaning.

It is also possible for the form to structure itself. For example, various bits of data taken together form a powerful gestalt in Jeremy Coysten’s poster series on aeroplane crashes and traffic accidents. Coolly rendered as scatterplots, Coysten’s Civil Airline Disasters 1950-1998 fixes the location and death toll of 607 aviation tragedies, their resulting dispersal pattern forming an image of the world. Coysten’s poster was prompted by his own near-miss incident aboard a flight to Australia. A second poster in the series documents road accidents in the uk over one week. In both instances the rational forms of information design have been employed to register the seemingly irrational loss of life. The calculated nature of the statistics contrasts with random events or accidents. The posters are produced for sale and are not commissioned for public safety campaigns. In this way information becomes both a product and a surrogate form of experience.

With the reconsideration of the ordinary and everyday within graphic design, one may ask whether we are witnessing the end of what was once referred to as “the society of the spectacle”. It is more likely that with today’s campaigns for global branding – the process that transforms the ordinary into the memorable – we long for the less-mediated experiences found in the routines of daily life. Perhaps we can’t recognise the spectacle because it exists all around us.

After attending America: Cult and Culture, last year’s AIGA [American Institute of Graphic Arts] conference in Las Vegas (Reviews, Eye no. 34 vol. 9), it seemed all too easy to leave the spectacle behind as my plane departed. Watching television at home, a group of rather ordinary young men and women dressed casually but alike were singing along to an old Madonna tune. The minimal white stage set and the uninflected karaoke ushered in the autumn season of clothing for The Gap and I found myself transfixed: ordinary clothes worn by average people elevated to a new aesthetic. At that moment it was difficult, but not impossible, to remember that the truly ordinary lies in opposition to the brand. I was reminded of the architect Deborah Berke’s warning, in writing about the transformation of the landscape from banal to branded:

“To confuse ubiquitous logos with generic identity [is] to mistake successful marketing for ‘popular’ culture.”

At the eclipse of the society of the spectacle, the ordinary is made extraordinary and the trivial and mundane become memorable is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions and single issues.