I'm really interested in quotes from the designers of the types or well known comentators giving their opnion of post-modern types. What influences them and why do they reject parts of the Modern movement?

Post-modern type is ill defined, and usually an abused term. On the other hand, the valuable core of the movement does contain a lot of promise - but people are not letting it grow beyond childhood.

The me that core is the truism that a system can never understand itself. It rejects the naive control-mania of Modernism, and moves to the East, for fuzzier -but much more human- communication.

hhp

>>It's just that I immediately associate post-modernism with the eighties post-modernism which I grew up with

One of the problems with post-modernism is that it means different things in different contexts (which could itself be a very post-modern thing)
In most cases it is a reaction against modernism, but modernism as a movement in the arts, for example, might be a well defined and relatively recent thing, whereas social and political historians talk of modernism as the whole shift towards rationalism following the enlightenment.
Someone might say, for example, that Marx's attempt to uncover patterns in historical development was a typically modernist activity, part of the modernist project to understand the world from a rationalist perspective and to set all knowledge into a grand scheme of life, the universe and everything.
A post-modernist might criticise this percieved approach, arguing that reality can't be shoe-horned into neat theoretical patterns. A post-modernist approach might be to argue that the world is (as hhp says) too fuzzy to fit into the modernist perspective.
One of the problems with post-modernism is its natural position hiding behind the coat-tails of the king's new clothes. I'm sure it would be possible to say worthwhile things from a post-modern perspective, but too often its a cover for lazy thinking, which is immune to criticism because any complaints are obviously from a rationalist, modernist angle, which is just incapable of understanding the post-modern view.

> too often its a cover for lazy thinking

Exactly. Or even hooliganism.

PoMo will mature only when it starts trying to understand the boundaries between the knowable and the unknowable. The problem with Modernism is that it's as mature as it can get (as a philosophy, although inherently never in application), but in terms of humanity it's only half the picture. Obviously, I'm a post-modernist! :-) Modernism is for kids.

hhp

Does anyoneone know of any good websites or books which may help me to find the types their creators and analysis as to why they were created? For example the political situation at that time or ofther typographers working at the same time.

Hey, I'm surprised nobody mentioned Emigre yet. Wasn't it the icon of postmodernist typography (as least in North America)? Stuff like Dogma, Triplex, Base, etc.? They were still trendy when I was in art school just a few years ago. But things are completely different now

Robert Bringhurst discusses postmodernism in "The Elements of Typographic Style".

He classifies such faces as ITC Esprit (http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/itc-esprit/) and Nofret (http://www.bertholdtypes.com/bq_library/90082.html) as "Elegiac Postmodern", and he classifies such faces as Emigre's Triplex (http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/emigre/packages/144211/) and ITC's Officina (http://www.myfonts.com/Search?searchtext=Officina) as "Geometric Postmodern".

He also lists Photina (http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/photina/) and ITC Veljovic (http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/itc-veljovic/) as examples of postmodernist faces.

He also discusses such faces as Electra (http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/electra/), Fairfield (http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/fairfield/) and Caledonia (http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/caledonia/, http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/new-caledonia/) as being precursors to (and, in the case of the digitization of Fairfield specifically, a transition to) postmodern type design.

As a sort of definition or list of qualifying characteristics, he offers this:

"POSTMODERNIST (late 20th century): frequent parody of Neoclassical and Romantic form: rationalist axis; sharply modelled serifs and terminals; moderate aperture; italic subjugated to roman. (There are many kinds of Postmodernist letter....)"

I might also suggest the books, "A History of Graphic Design", "Typology", "Typography Now", Typography Now Two", "Twentieth Century Type Designers" and "Twentieth Century Type", as possibly helpful resources.

Good luck!

David

Hmm... I would never have thought to turn to Bringhurst for Postmodernism... his type classifications might be a little too idiosyncratic and subtle, but he does have very good points. I guess I was thinking more radical responses to Postmodernism, rather than the subtle detailing of text faces.

Oops... sorry Yves, I missed it... :-P

> Emigre

Emigre -the old Emigre- is in fact the bastion of that laziness/hooliganism: countering the "rules" just for the hell of it, as a juvenile reaction, at most hoping there's something on the other side, sans real insight, sans real commitment. That's why it didn't really catch on - it refused to grow up, through critical introspection and objective analysis. A new movement can start chaotically, but can only sustain itself through discipline.

The good news is that there's a new Emigre now, and looking at some recent font releases, maybe, just maybe they're on the golden PoMo track now (although all I for one really see so far is faint signals). If that's the case, it sure would be nice for them to admit -and analyze- their confused past. What's scary of course is that intelligent PoMo wouldn't sell very well at the moment. Well, intelligent anything, really...

> humanity is key

One thing I would elaborate on that though is this: humanity isn't just formal humanism. The heart of any merit PoMo has (or could have) is the acceptance that humans are only half conscious. A serious, selfless perspective on communication is severely limited by restricting "humanity" to chirography, base animal emotions, or anything else: as much as possible needs to be considered, although necessarily imperfectly. And that's where Modernism implodes: it suffers from the classic Western chimera of Total Control. Give it up, people - it'll never work.

> Bringhurst

Like most any other scheme, I find his classification useful, but imperfect. Two places it fails:
1) It treats type design as an Art, and that's less than half the picture.
2) Being based on existing culture, it cannot really cover anything new.

hhp

OK, I don't want to drag this back to politics again, but as postmodernism has been debated to death in that arena, some lessons from those debates might inform a discussion of postmodernism in typography, so here goes...

>>I'm definitely a post-modernist

When you say something like this in a philosophical context it can have 2 meanings:
1.'I believe in the principles I understand to be encompassed by the term post-modernism'
or
2.'I think we live in a post-modern age'

You can hold both of these beliefs at the same time, or neither, or agree with either one while refuting the other.

Would clarifying your position advance this discussion?
Has typography reached a post-modern stage?
If the world we live in is post-modern, what are the implications for typography and design in general?
(Perhaps the idea of a buch of plumped-up, self-serving graphic designers charging a fortune for their work is a thing of the modern era - you may scoff at bright yellow TNR on a royal blue background, accompanied by a selection of crappily cut-out clipart, or at arial and comic sans, but perhaps the democratisation of design and the stripping away of modern ideas of taste and composition are an inevitable feature of our post-modern future.
'Employ someone? To create a logo? Oh that's soooo [pre-post-]modern!')

1. I think Life is PoMo.
2. I try to harmonize by being PoMo myself.

Typography -like anything else- results from what the duality of material comfort and peer acceptance dictates. At the moment, those two are almost identical in the West, which is of course what facilitates all this destructive egocentricism.

hhp

Thank you David for your though post.

I am interested in what are the ideologies of post-modern type design. And what triggered this style. Are then any particular schools of thought within post-modernism?

If anyone finds any quotes justifying post modernism type design or attacking it I would be very greatfull.

Also, it would be fantastic to have a quote from Jean F Porchez on your views on Modern and post-modern type design. Perhaps referring to the work of others well as your own.

Thank you

I am interested in what are the ideologies of post-modern type design. And what triggered this style. Are then any particular schools of thought within post-modernism?

I would be more inclined to see Post-modernism as a way to look at type rather than to design it. To move away from rigid definitions and clasifications and towards something more open.

M.

Jonathan, the most public PoMo battles were certainly those in the pages of Emigre magazine. You will find quotes up the wazoo in there. In fact, if you buy their nice recent specimen (or get it free with a product purchase), you'll see it peppered with vintage bites.

hhp

The Eighties are back!

I'll have to think about that one, Jonathan. As
far as I understand it, basically Postmodernism
was a reaction against the overly clean and
neutral Modernist style with it's all-Helvetica
(or similar 'neutral' sans serif) typography and
subdued 'less-is-more' composition and graphic
design.

Postmodernism proclamed 'less-is-a-bore' and
reintroduced classicist elements with added
extravaganza: combining typefaces and distinctive
period-styles (Ahhh... Bodoni mixed with VERY
loosely tracked Futura all-caps ).

Typography-wise the most visible and well-known
examples might be the 'typefaces' Neville Brody
originally designed for The Face (and those of his
copycat David Quay) and stuff found in the first
issues of Emigre Magazine.

I hope I'm not making a fool of myself because
this is all at the top of my (bald) head, yaknow.
If you need other examples, I can do some research.

Hmmm :/ I didn't really answer your question, did I?
Here goes nothing:

As far as type design is concerned, I think a
post-modern typeface is one that borrows traits
of typical period faces and reconfigures them in a
contemporary way, for example Neville Brody's
Industria or Arcadia which refer to the 30s and
Quay's Bordeaux Roman which is a narrow redesign
of a Bodoni-style modern face.

I knew at some point I'd be exposed as an over-
simplifying fool, I just didn't suspect it would
only take one meager hour. It's just that I
immediately associate post-modernism with the
eighties post-modernism which I grew up with.

I'd better ditch the comic books and catch up on my
'serious' reading... D'oh!

> To me that core is the truism that a system can never
understand itself.

That's a very interesting take on the subject, Hrant.
Let me first look up 'truism' before I get back to you:
my knowledge of English is failing me in a major
way here. ;)

As for quotes: Brody's early designs were actually
political statements, directly inspired by the
disastrous Thatcherism of the Eighties, which he
considered being so detrimental to Great-Britain
that it reverted back into a state similar to the
depression-era Thirties, hence the 30s-style
geometrical lettering and the graphic deconstruction
of his lay-outs.

Now that's a long and clumsy sentence. I'd better
sign off now. :/

Uh... I did mention Emigre. Second post in this thread.

I do that all the time... glad it's someone else for once!

=D