The Post-Structuralist Author

I also learned about post structuralist and the structuralist author and how they have dissimilar ideas.

Structuralism was an intellectual movement developed in Europe from the early to mid-20th century. It argued that human culture might be understood by means of a structure—modeled on language. Structuralism was a theory that wanted to identify the structure of the mind. Structuralists believed that the way to learn about the brain and its functions was to break it down into its most basic elements. They believed, the whole is equal to the sum of the parts.

THE STRUCTUALISTS

Ferdinand de Saussure was a linguist whose ideas set a foundation for many changes and developments both in linguistics and semiotics.

Vladimir Propp & Levi Strauss

MODERNISM & GRAPHIC DESIGN

Graphic design is really a product of Modernism.

Josef Muller Brockman's most recognised work was done for the Zurich Town Hall, as poster advertisements for its theatre productions. The work is graphic, rather than illustrative.

POST STRUCTURALISM

Post-structuralism is a description invented by American academics to describe the works of a series of mid-20th-century French and continental philosophers and critical theorists who came to internationally important in the 1960s and '70s. A major concept of post structuralism is that human science is unstable due to the complexity of humans themselves and the impossibility of fully escaping structures in order to study them. Post-structuralism is a response to structuralism. Post-structuralist authors all present different views of structuralism, but common themes include the rejection of the self-sufficiency of the structures that structuralism suggests.

Roland Barthes was a theorist, critic,semiotician and philosopher. Barthes focused on signs. He looked at signs created, used and generated in culture.

Michel Foucault was best know for his studies of social institutions. He looked at prisons and the study of madness/ people who break the law. The concept of being watched- a controlling space.

Michael Rock " The Designer as Author" 1996

Don’t forget to click on the links for further inspiration to explore one of the most contested subject areas within graphic design.

For further inspiration, don't forget to click on the images.