1.What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I have developed range of skills primarily researching skills. This module has shown me how to research properly and I have learnt how to reference using the correct references systems which was something that I initially struggled with and had to get my head around. I have opened my influences to different designers with different styles through the sessions with Jo and I have developed communication and group work skills through the timetabled sessions and crits. 

Throughout the module I have been fascinated by both modernism and postmodernism, I have developed and extended my knowledge of the two topics through extended research, research towards the essay component of the brief, the postmodernism exhibition in London, as well as research towards my final practical brief 'Theory into Practice'. 

I have developed my use of typography, something that I have wanted to include in one of my briefs throughout the year and never really had the opportunity. I took this open brief as an opportunity to explore and develop the skills I have and the new skills that I have picked up throughout the theory into practice brief. 

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process.

Production has really affected my final product as I produced a series of postcards that were linked together in order for my audience to interact with. This meant that my print needed to be double sided A1, however the printers in digital dungeon don't cater for this, and after speaking with Jams he explained that this kind of print would cost between £300 and £400 a sheet. This was clearly not reasonable and with only 8 days until hand-in I had to find a compromise. I decided to print the designs single sided and stick the two back to back. 

Unfortunately this means that my final designs are not quite to the quality I would have hoped for, and the interactive elements are not as successful as I may have desired. Despite this, I have learnt that I need to consider the final outcomes and how possible it is to produce the final product before beginning my designs. This is something I can take forward with me into second year and learn from my mistakes.

I think that within the Theory into Practice module I got too carried away with the designs themselves, distracting myself away from the theory aspect and focusing more heavily on typography, clearly this reflecting on the comments from my final crit and this is something for me to work on in the PPP brief I am currently working towards for a different module and also within briefs I will work towards in second year.

I am also gaining more confidence in my design process structure, working with initial design sheets, hand drawn design sheets, digital plan sheets and then digitalising my design sheets to create my final designs. As each brief passed I gain more confidence with tis process and am becoming better at planning out my initial idea's on paper before taking them straight to an Apple mac and producing a digital design.

I have used a variety of sources to help back up my designs, and I have referenced these within my publication emphasising my focus on 'theory into practice'.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

I have researched thoroughly throughout the module and feel I am gaining confidence with using sources and references books, and websites etc. I have become more efficient with producing work in this module and have managed to structure my time well by completing tasks when they are set in order to reduce the amount of work towards the end of a module, my time management skills are improving with each module and I am maturing in myself as a result from this. 

I have created a range of developmental work towards my Theory into Practice module and this has helped me to develop my designs effectively and work towards a final outcome with a certain style or identity that works between all my products.

I have really enjoyed the academic side of this module, writing up lecture notes after each lecture and researching artists etc. This has allowed me to take a break from more design based work in other modules and work towards gaining more background knowledge in topics studied throughout the lecture programme.

4.What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

A major weakness within my theory into practice brief was getting too carried away with the visual aspect and forgetting to focus on how the designs relate to my chosen topics of modernism and postmodernism, however I initially chose with style of my designs because I tried to combine both modernism and postmodernism, despot this, it became clear in the crit that this confused the audience and my designs became very unclear.

Another weakness was not using the designer book effectively, despite filling it with designers over the duration of the course, I don't feel as though I have used these artists to my benefit within my designs, I would like to look at these in more detail over the summer and inter second year, as many of them are very suited to my own style and i could strengthen my skills from using these artists as inspiration. 

Another weakness was not researching my essay thoroughly, although I visited an exhibition in London which I found so interesting that I didn't want to leave and was probably the key aspect in making me fall in love with modernism as a movement in design, I feel like I should I read more books and used more sources, however for a first essay in this style I am extremely pleased with the outcome and can work on further research in next years context of practice module. 

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

- Produce more background research and post it onto my blog ( general things that interest me, further research into lecture topics etc ). I really enjoy the theory behind design and so this is something that I feel quote strongly about. 

- Gain more confidence, I was incredible nervous for the Theory into Practice Research presentations that we completed on the 30th March in front of half of the course group, I am hoping to work on this before the PPP presentations in two weeks. All the information as there, I just get very nervous and rush through the presentation leaving no time for people to appreciate and absorb what I am saying.

- I need to concentrate on meeting the requirements of the brief and not get carried away with what I think looks good and concentrate on what suits the format, and content and combining the two together to create an effective outcome.

- Ask more questions,I need to ask my peers more often what they think of my work, what could improve it etc. Kind of like a miniature crit session that will help me keep focused on the aspects that meet the requirements of the brief I am answering.

- Use my artists more effectively, base my designs on artists that I have research throughout the module, this will link my designs better to the context and the content of what I have previously been looking at, and make my outcomes stronger in relation to the brief.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

Attendance – 5

Punctuality – 5

Motivation – 4

Commitment – 4

Quantity of work produced – 4

Quality of work produced – 4

Contribution to the group – 4

Finally, here are the photographs of my second set of postcards based on Postmodernism. I was really pleased with the outcome and feel that I managed to express a postmodernist style using typography. I chose to keep a black and white colour theme, however after Friday's crit I realised that this wasn't a popular choice with my audience and it may have confused them. 

I have used an interactive approach to engage the reader by adding 'tear here' marks which will give a more 'postmodern' feel to the postcards.

The designs are inspired by typical postmodern movement styles that I have looked into and studied during my research following the lectures as well as visiting the exhibition in London and also research towards my essay component of the module.

However with the limited time frame after the crit session until hand in on Tuesday I decided to stick with my current designs and add to them with some posters that might help reduce confusion. I will hopefully get these printed tomorrow now that they are complete.

Here are photographs of the printed postcard designs that I produced for the Modernist series. Here I have tried to experiment with type as this was my main focus throughout this module, as I really enjoy working with type and haven't experimented with it as much as I may have liked over the course of the year. 

I would have liked the prints to have been printed on A1 Matt Stock, double sided print. However The computers in the digital dungeon are not capable of this and when James explained that this would cost around £300-£400 per sheet with a professional printer I decided to instead glue the two prints together and so obviously the completed photographed versions here to not have my original desired finish. 

However, I am pleased with the simplistic appearance of the postcards and the interactive element of cutting them to separate them into individual prints.

Here are some images of my final printed products for the booklet design, I would have liked this to have been printed onto slightly nice stock and if I had had the time I would have explored book binding and produced a series of booklets nicely bound to a professional finish. However, dispute this. 

Overall, I am pleased with the finished outcome of my designs, and despite it being brought up in the crit that colour should have been used, I do appreciate this fact, however I purposefully used black and white to reflect that modernist movement and create a contrast between the two and also to keep a minimalist and simple appearance so as to not detract attention away from the text.

Here are my designs for the posters that I decided to produce after my crit feedback on Friday. 




I have now decided that I will produce a series of posters to accompany these booklet designs and that would promote the lecture programme to give a clearer outline of the differences between the two movements to an audience of people who are unfamiliar with both modernism and postmodernism.

I will try to focus on presenting this information more clearly, although I understand why people think I should include colour to represent postmodernism my initial intention was that this could distract from the educational factor and it would become more about the colour and vibrancy than the content.

Because I will not be able to completely reproduce the designs from scratch and add in colour and redesign them I will use postmodern imagery inspired by my target artists 'Tadanori Yokoo', I will them turn this into a black and white colour palette which emphasises my focus on modernism.

Each poster will argue one case defining the difference between modernism and postmodernism and to help to audience gain more knowledge and therefore benefit more from the lecture programme.

Images: Barbara Kruger "The Postmodern" "Postmodernism" "Postmodernity" Approaches to Po-Mo Martin Irvine Communication, Culture & Technology Program Georgetown University [Revised 1.23.12] Postmodernity vs. the Postmodern vs. Postmodernism Primary Problem: Constructing Trajectories of History and Culture Talking about "the postmodern" or "postmodernism" presupposes there is/was something known as "modernism" from which, or against which, something can be "post". For philosophers, historians, artists, and theorists who have developed arguments about these historical moments or movements, "Modernism/Modernity" and "Postmodernism" are all caught up in a web of discourses with assumptions and ideologies that need a self-reflexive critique. Much of the debate presupposes the possibility of a critique of history, conceptualized as having a trajectory, goal, end (telos > teleology), which was, or was not, fulfilled in the modernist philosophies, hopes, and aspirations of the 1930s-1950s. And since around 2000, a new debate on the "post-postmodern" has opened up. There is a shared sense in many areas of cultural practice and university research that many of the issues in postmodernism are over or assumed, and the we are now in a different global moment, however that it to define. What was Modernism? As we know, each discourse concerned with history constructs its own historical objects. Postmodern theory constructs an image of modernism. Was there ever a pre-postmodern consensus about history, identity, core cultural values? Differentiations: the idea of the postmodern or postmodernity as anhistorical condition or position (political/ economic/ social), an era we're still supposedly inregardless of anyone's state of awareness. vs. an intentional movement in the arts, culture, philosophy, and politics that uses various strategies to subvert what is seen as dominant in modernism or modernity. Simplifying to the extreme, I define the postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives. --Lyotard Jean-François Lyotard: The postmodern as a historical/cultural "condition" based on a dissolution of master narratives or metanarratives (totalizing narrative paradigms like progress and national histories), a crisis in ideology when ideology no longer seems transparent but contingent and constructed (see The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge). Frederic Jameson:  Postmodernism as a movement in arts and culture corresponding to a new configuration of politics and economics, "late capitalism": transnational consumer economies based on global scope of capitalism (SeePostmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism). Post-Modern Artists' views: Postmodernity as a phase of knowing and practice, abandoning the assumptions, prejudices, and constraints of modernism to embrace the contradictions, irony, and profusion of pop and mass culture. "High" and "low" culture/art categories made useless and irrelevant, art from outsider and non-Western cultures embraced, consumer society turned inside out. The grand linear narrative of art history and Western cultural history is exposed as ideological and constructed for class interests. Ways of working with the term "postmodern" Uses of the term "postmodern" after modernismsubsumes, assumes, extends the modern or tendencies already present in modernism, not necessarily in strict chronological succession, or working out questions and problems implicit in modernism without a break from core assumptions contra modernismsubverting, resisting, opposing, or countering features of modernism equivalent to "late capitalism"culture dominated by post-industrial, consumerist, multi- and trans-national capitalism, beginnings of globalization the historical era following the modernan historical time-period marker, recognizing cultural, ideological, and economic shifts without a new trajectory (triumphalism) or privileging of values artistic and stylistic eclecticism (aesthetic postmodernism)hybridization of forms and genres, combining "high" and "low" cultural forms and sources, mixing styles of different cultures or time periods, dehistoricizing and re-contextualizing styles in architecture, visual arts, literature, film, photography "global village" phenomena: globalization of cultures, races, images, capital, products"information age" redefinition of nation-state identities, which were the foundation of the modern era; dissemination of images and information across national boundaries, a sense of erosion or breakdown of national, linguistic, ethnic, and cultural identities; a sense of a global mixing of cultures on a scale unknown to pre-information era societies. Postmodernity, History, Mediation, and Representation Crises in the Representation of History Postmodern historians and philosophers question the representation of history and cultural identities: history as "what 'really' happened" (external to representation or mediation) vs. history as a "narrative of what happened" a "mediated representation" with cultural/ideological interests. Art works are likewise caught up in the problem of representation and mediation--of what, for whom, from what ideological point of view? Jameson:  "history is only accessible to us in narrative form". History requires representation, mediation, in narrative, a story-form encoded as historical. Dissolution of the transparency of history and tradition: Can we get to the (unmediated) referents of history? Multiculturalism, competing views of history and tradition. Shift from universal histories, from the long durée (long time-span of historical periods), to local and explicitly contingent histories. History and identity politics: who can write or make art? for whom? from what standpoint? Walter Benjamin's recognition of the non-neutrality of history: "Where are the empathies [of traditional historicism?] The answer is inevitable: with the victor. Hence empathy with the victor invariably benefits the rulers. Historical materialists know what that means. Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. According to traditional practice, the spoils are carried along in the procession. They are called cultural treasures, and a historical materialist views them with cautious detachment... They owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great minds and talents who have created them, but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism... [A historical materialist] regards it as his task to brush history against the grain."  "For every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably."  (From "Theses on the Philosophy of History" in Illuminations,ed. Hannah Arendt)  Working with Frederic Jameson's categories (Postmodernism and Consumer Society) (1) "the transformation of reality into images" (cf. Debord and Baudrillard) (2) "the fragmentation of time into a series of perpetual presents" "the erosion of the older distinction between high culture and so-called mass or popular culture" (Jameson). Pastiche and parody of multiple styles: old forms of "content" become mere "styles" stylistic masks, image styles, without present content: the meaning is in the mimicry "in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum" (Jameson). No individualism or individual style, voice, expressive identity. All signifiers circulate and recirculate prior and existing images and styles. The postmodern in advertising: attempts to provide illusions of individualism (ads for jeans, cars, etc.) through images that define possible subject positions or create desired positions (being the one who's cool, hip, sexy, desirable, sophisticated...). "our advertising...is fed by postmodernism in all the arts and is inconceivable without it" (Jameson) Po-Mo as late capitalism: transnational capitalism without borders, only networks and info flows. Some features of postmodern styles: Nostalgia and retro styles, recycling earlier genres and styles in new contexts (film/TV genres, images, typography, colors, clothing and hair styles, advertising images) "History" represented through nostalgic images of pop culture, fantasies of the past. History has become one of the styles; historical representations blend with nostalgia. "the disappearance of a sense of history, the way in which our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in a perpetual present and in a perpetual change that obliterates traditions of the kind which all earlier social formations have had in one way or another to preserve... The information function of the media would thus be to help us to forget, to serve as the very agents and mechanisms of our historical amnesia" (Jameson). Jameson's own nostalgia? Did this ever exist? Culture on Fast Forward: Time and history replaced by speed, futureness, accelerated obsolescence. Critique: note the image of the past and origins presupposed in the view of history and the postmodern, the sense of Hegelian trajectories with no possible future in view to be argued for. The Modern and the Postmodern: Contrasting Tendencies The features in the table below are only often-discussed tendencies, not absolutes. In fact, the tendency to see things in seemingly obvious, binary, contrasting categories is usually associated with modernism. The tendency to dissolve binary categories and expose their arbitrary cultural co-dependency is associated with postmodernism. For heuristic purposes only. Modernism/Modernity Postmodern/Postmodernity  Master Narratives and metanarratives of history, culture and national identity as accepted before WWII (American-European myths of progress). Myths of cultural and ethnic origin accepted as received. Progress accepted as driving force behind history. Suspicion and rejection of Master Narratives for history and culture; local narratives, ironic deconstruction of master narratives: counter-myths of origin. "Progress" seen as a failed Master Narrative. Faith in "Grand Theory" (totalizing explanations in history, science and culture) to represent all knowledge and explain everything. Rejection of totalizing theories; pursuit of localizing and contingent theories. Faith in, and myths of, social and cultural unity, hierarchies of social-class and ethnic/national values, seemingly clear bases for unity. Social and cultural pluralism, disunity, unclear bases for social/national/ ethnic unity. Master narrative of progress through science and technology. Skepticism of idea of progress, anti-technology reactions, neo-Luddism; new age religions. Sense of unified, centered self; "individualism," unified identity. Sense of fragmentation and decentered self; multiple, conflicting identities. Idea of "the family" as central unit of social order: model of the middle-class, nuclear family. Heterosexual norms. Alternative family units, alternatives to middle-class marriage model, multiple identities for couplings and childraising. Polysexuality, exposure of repressed homosexual and homosocial realities in cultures. Hierarchy, order, centralized control. Subverted order, loss of centralized control, fragmentation. Faith and personal investment in big politics (Nation-State, party). Trust and investment in micropolitics, identity politics, local politics, institutional power struggles. Root/Depth tropes. Faith in "Depth" (meaning, value, content, the signified) over "Surface" (appearances, the superficial, the signifier). Rhizome/surface tropes.  Attention to play of surfaces, images, signifiers without concern for "Depth". Relational and horizontal differences, differentiations. Crisis in representation and status of the image after photography and mass media. Culture adapting to simulation, visual media becoming undifferentiated equivalent forms, simulation and real-time media substituting for the real. Faith in the "real" beyond media, language, symbols, and representations; authenticity of "originals." Hyper-reality, image saturation, simulacra seem more powerful than the "real"; images and texts with no prior "original".  "As seen on TV" and "as seen on MTV" are more powerful than unmediated experience. Dichotomy of high and low culture (official vs. popular culture). Imposed consensus that high or official culture is normative and authoritative, the ground of value and discrimination. Disruption of the dominance of high culture by popular culture. Mixing of popular and high cultures, new valuation of pop culture, hybrid cultural forms cancel "high"/"low" categories. Mass culture, mass consumption, mass marketing. Demassified culture; niche products and marketing, smaller group identities. Art as unique object and finished work authenticated by artist and validated by agreed upon standards. Art as process, performance, production, intertextuality.  Art as recycling of culture authenticated by audience and validated in subcultures sharing identity with the artist.   Knowledge mastery, attempts to embrace a totality. Quest for interdisciplinary harmony. Paradigms: The Library and The Encyclopedia. Navigation through information overload, information management; fragmented, partial knowledge; just-in-time knowledge.  Paradigms: The Web. Broadcast media, centralized one-to-many communications. Paradigms: broadcast networks and TV. Digital, interactive, client-server, distributed, user-motivated, individualized, many-to-many media. Paradigms: Internet file sharing, the Web and Web 2.0. Centering/centeredness, centralized knowledge and authority. Dispersal, dissemination, networked, distributed knowledge. Determinacy, dependence, hierarchy. Indeterminacy, contingency, polycentric power sources. Seriousness of intention and purpose, middle-class earnestness. Play, irony, challenge to official seriousness, subversion of earnestness. Sense of clear generic boundaries and wholeness (art, music, and literature). Hybridity, promiscuous genres, recombinant culture, intertextuality, pastiche. Design and architecture of New York and Berlin. Design and architecture of LA and Las Vegas Clear dichotomy between organic and inorganic, human and machine. Cyborgian mixing of organic and inorganic, human and machine and electronic. Phallic ordering of sexual difference, unified sexualities, exclusion/bracketing of pornography. Androgyny, queer sexual identities, polymorphous sexuality, mass marketing of pornography, porn style mixing with mainstream images. The book as sufficient bearer of the word. The library as complete and total system for printed knowledge. Hypermedia as transcendence of the physical limits of print media. The Web as infinitely expandable, centerless, inter-connected information system. Bibliography The literature in all fields on the questions of modernism/modernity, postmodernism/postmodernity, and the more recent questions about the post-postmodern is vast. The following works (spanning philosophy, art theory, architecture, and cultural theory) have played a major role in defining the discourse and arguments of this field of study, or are useful syntheses for orientation and overviews. Anderson, Perry. The Origins of Postmodernity. London, UK: Verso, 1998. Aylesworth, Gary. “Postmodernism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media. Edited by Michael W. Jennings and et al. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. ———. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt, translated by Harry Zohn, 217-252. New York: Schocken Books, 1969. [Older version in English.] Bertens, Hans. The Idea of the Postmodern: A History. 1st ed. New York, NY and London, UK: Routledge, 1995. Best, Steven, and Douglas Kellner. Postmodern Theory. 1st ed. New York, NY: The Guilford Press, 1991. ———. The Postmodern Turn. New York, NY: The Guilford Press, 1997. Bourriaud, Nicolas. Altermodern: Tate Triennial. London; New York: Tate Publications and Harry Abrams, 2009. ———. Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World. 2nd ed. New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2005. Buskirk, Martha. The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. Crimp, Douglas. On the Museum’s Ruins. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1988. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Corrected ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Drolet, Michael, ed. The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts. New York, NY and London, UK: Routledge, 2003. Foster, Hal. The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. New York: New Press, 2002. Foster, Hal, Rosalind Krauss, Yves-Alain Bois, and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh. Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004. Foucault, Michel. Language, Counter Memory, Practice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980. ———. The Archaeology of Knowledge & The Discourse on Language. New York,  NY: Pantheon, 1982. ———. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Vintage, 1990. Habermas, Juergen. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures. Translated by Frederick Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987. Haraway, Donna J. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. 1st ed. Routledge, 1990. Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York, NY and London, UK: Routledge, 1988. ———. Politics of Postmodernism. 2nd ed. New York, NY and London, UK: Routledge, 2002. Huyssen, Andreas. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991. ———. The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983-1998. London, UK; New York, NY: Verso, 1998. Jencks, Charles. Language of Post-Modern Architecture. 5th ed. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1988. Letham, Jonathan. “The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism.” Harper’s Magazine, 2007. http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. McCaffery, Larry. Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk & Postmodern Science Fiction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press Books, 1991. Natoli, Joseph P. A Postmodern Reader. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993. Pieterse, Jan Nederveen. Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange. Second Edition. Lanham, MD; Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. 2nd ed. Princeton  N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980.  ———. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Sandler, Irving. Art Of The Postmodern Era: From The Late 1960s To The Early 1990s. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1996. Smith, Terry, Okwui Enwezor, and Nancy Condee, eds. Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. Venturi, Robert, Steven Izenour, and Denise Scott Brown. Learning from Las Vegas - Revised Edition: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form. Revised. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1977.