- As we've seen, graphic design responds to
cultural, technological or aesthetic changes.
By the mid-1990s, a new generation of designers
looked back at the complexity of postmodernism and the
Digital Revolution and turned toward a simpler approach.
Rather than following the idea of
high-theory deconstruction, many of these designers
were interested in creating work
that spoke to a wider audience.
They wanted to find a way of creating
meaning with fewer forms.
Many designers looked to return to
singular ideas and minimal layouts.
Referencing the work of the New York School in the 1950s,
much of this had an era of optimism.
Minimal work of the mid-1990s embraced
simple geometry and clear color palettes.
The idea of three-dimensional complexity
in typography was abandoned in favor
of easy to understand symbols and images.
Legibility was a priority.
But the concepts of postmodernism
would not allow for retreat to a
purely minimal Bauhaus approach.
Now every image, symbol and word
was examined for its multiple meanings.
Even the reference to a fused metaphor approach
was filtered through the postmodern analysis.
This cover for a conference catalog by Bill Grant
appears to be a simple image of
shopping carts and the word gain.
The meaning, however, was far more complex.
The shopping carts are at a Target store.
The conference was in Minneapolis,
home to Target's headquarters,
and the conference was about commerce and society.
A simple red typographic cover
could not be just a simple cover.
It was a reference to 1950s textbooks,
vernacular design and appropriation.
The roots of minimalism were clearly based
on the simple iconography of designers
such as Paul Rand and James Massey.
The complexity of the world layered with
massive amount of communication
on a daily basis created the need for a simpler way.
Minimalism also escaped the trap of being dull.
The explorations of expressive typography,
Fillmore posters and New Wave design
extended the freedom to play with
scale and negative space radically.
The strongest solutions appeared playful and light.
The reality, as in on this poster by Michael Vanderbyl,
was a tight control over every element.
With less on the page, everything mattered.
The difference between a cover for a newsletter
from the Bauhaus in 1928 and a minimalist poster
from 1996 is a sense of self-knowledge.
The 1928 cover is fresh and clear,
and at the same time naive.
The minimalist solution from the 1990s
has the same fresh and clear dynamic,
but is self aware with understanding
of 100 years of design history.