Deconstruction essay

Referencing ‘Thinking with type’ (Lupton, E, 2008), this essay will investigate how the role and effect of typography used within deconstructive literature, as apposed to normal literature.

Before Guttermann’s Printing press, hand written literacy was the main source for any form of what is classed as the spoken word, and with every individual having a different form of hand writing this gave each piece of literature character due to their individual features and imperfections making no piece of writing the same as another but since the invention of Guttermann’s Press we find that typography started to develop key standards and principles, thus giving typography rules but also the factor of the designer being able to manipulate easier what or how we read.

“Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of mark making. The typographer’s art concerns not only the positive grain of letter forms, but the negative gaps between and around them” – Ong, W (1981) - The Technologizing of the World

Not only did Printing press make designers feel the need to create standardized typefaces but with this came the obsession to have the text as neat as possible, with the kerning and spacing becoming a big factor, thus taking away all characteristics handwriting once had, which left the reader with no imagination for the text that was in front of them, also with the introduction of proper punctuation i.e. full stops and comma’s the text began being read for the reader, were we see the reader reading the text by how it is standardized, thus creating what is known as the death of the author.

Deconstruction becoming popular transformed the written word back to its original function, for the reader to truly understand the text in front of them, for them to absorb the information and really think about it and what message its delivering rather than just reading a block of standardized text.

“The history of typography is marked by the increasingly sophisticated use of space. In the digital age where characters are accessed by keystroke and mouse, not gathered from heavy drawers of manufactured units, space has become more liquid than concrete, and typography has evolved a stable body of objects to a flexible system of attributes” – Manovich, L, (2002) – The language of New Media

Designers began to create for the viewer a manipulated interpretation of the text by using new innovative structures and layouts to change the viewer’s mindset and thoughts.

The piece of design I have chosen to focus upon is one of Weingarts which I cannot find the full information for, it is a really nice example of how deconstruction can be used with typography so the reader may decide where to begin and also how they take in the information, this particular piece of design leaves the exploring completely up to the reader letting them discover their own start and finish to the text and letting them find their own interpretation for the text, there are some interesting uses of alignments and layouts in the poster also leaving it with a nice individual design.