Defining Significance in Information for Design
Graphic design has taken many forms of communication that effectively combine the many forms of art and social science, leaving traces in history as a reflection of social events that occurred throughout history. In order to accurately coincide with the elements of current society, the aspect of design itself had to change and take advantage of the increasing access to global information. This created a shift to design today as a prevalent form of storytelling that finds meaning in our world of insignificant meaning. To start, I will discuss the importance of power and knowledge to current society, showcasing the relation with insignificance in mass information and how that is communicated to people, and finally a reflection of how these aspects influence social function in the context of design today.
The fascination of change in social and political communication reflecting the shift of power is the movement from modernity into postmodernity. Modernity’s romanticism and purposeful design differs greatly from postmodernity’s chaotic destruction (David Harvey, 1990, p. 43) in a way that showcases the revolt against ‘high modernism’ and its reconstruction of capitalist society. The main aspect that comes with this change is the shift in power dynamic for design. Not only is design meant for its enjoyment as a finished mastery, but also as a continuum of deconstruction and growth showcased within postmodernism. What I find to be important in that regard is design being able to adapt and change with people’s needs rather than for an artist’s personal accomplishment. The power has shifted to the people, and so has the idea of power in knowledge and information.
The importance of information stems from within Harvey’s reading on postmodernism. Foucault brings relation to power and knowledge in saying that we should be analyzing the different forms of power in order to gain an understanding of success (Harvey, 1990, p. 45). I would agree that there is significance in that, but more than just learning from people in a position of power, there is meaning from the everyday person and therefore, meaning in social information. This relates back to the aspects of deconstruction and growth in postmodern design in that graphic design today comes to find significance in taking information of the masses. In our current capitalist society, design has benefited from understanding the needs set for who they were designing for and for that to be effective, there is power in knowledge and intellect of your demographic.
What is portrayed as important aspects of graphic design and postmodern thinkers alike, is the fascination of change in social and political communication in regards to information and knowledge of an endless world (Harvey, 1990, p. 49). The new available possibilities from the growing technology industry features greater potential for how information will improve our current way of life as both the producer and the consumer play an important aspect of creation. But through the eyes of an opposing perspective, how can too much information end up creating a loss of effective communication?
Based on Jean Baudrillard’s premise of living in a world of more information yet less meaning, there is significance in his third hypothesis stating that ‘information devours itself in its own content’ (1994, p. 80). From that ideology, Baudrillard exclaims that the effect of information abundance comes with two major byproducts, “staged communication” and the “dissolve of socialization” (1994, pp. 80–81). The first stems from the idea that we believe that information has a sense of meaning when it has a form of relativity to ourselves in the effect that Baudrillard calls “phantom content” when in reality, it is a staged act of importance (1994, p. 80). The second effect of information abundance being the dissolve of socialization due to the explosion of mass media as a part of our hyperreal society and its place as an indistinguishable medium from reality, causing a great discrepancy in how information is consumed (Baudrillard, 1994, pp. 81). So from Baudrillard’s ideology, there is a negative by-product of how information is portrayed from our current mediums, but what does that mean for graphic design today? From the perspective of a current designer, the effects of information abundance has not made design obsolete, only shifting the way designers created meaning through information.
Baudrillard’s perspective for his first argument illustrates “staged communication” as having social repercussions by taking advantage of personal emotion, typically for capitalistic gain. This idea of having faith and trust in information can be utilized in an advantageous way for designers. In a similar context, designers need to be able to communicate meaning to their audience, and one of the strongest forms of that is to connect your work back to the audience through relational storytelling. Using personal relativity as a communication tool is effective in building interest to your point of argument. Designers can use information to their advantage and better communicate their ideas to their audience.
The increase of global information and communication has provided exponential societal growth that greatly outweighs the effects its had on how we socialize, either it be ‘staged’ or ‘dissolved’. In fact, the lack of information significance we find in social media has made designers interested in finding new ways people can communicate that takes us further into a new era of socialization and social media. This can especially be seen on the online dating community, with new ways of building intimate connections between strangers that almost feels natural. Happn is an application that follows this concept of creating natural connections by linking together people that have crossed paths, bringing back romanticism into the online dating scene.
In relation to designers, the explosion of accessible information has changed the dynamic of how designers create meaning, and because of our increasing access to global information, graphic design will be able to convey meaning in completely newfound ways.
As was previously stated, a major factor in successful graphic design is being able to effectively convey your message to your audience, which means understanding your demographic and their way of thinking. In Ann C. Tyler’s reading on the role of audience communication, she discusses the four pillars of visual communication to an audience which directly coincides with how information is conveyed in graphic design today. The fourth form of audience interaction is labeled as a dialogue between the audience and the designer as the viewer becomes a dynamic participant (Audrey, 2006, p. 38). Designers take into account and use existing knowledge to communicate a point of view and try to persuade and educate certain values to the viewer (Audrey, 2006, p. 38). The audience now plays a part in information analysis and being able to accurately convey information.
Information abundance has both a positive and negative affect when trying to convey meaning in graphic design. As information becomes more accessible and mass media causes global phenomenon, everyone is able to have a voice and become a dynamic participant, leaving everything to become a point of interpretation. Graphic design now needs to take political and social aspects into consideration more than ever as negative backlash causes greater disruption in this age of information explosion. This can be seen in advertisement decisions such as the No Name brand advertisement campaign as creative director, David Wotherspoon made the conscious decision to eliminate all elements of social or political discourse while staying true to the No Name brand (Ng, 2019, pp. 1–3). This does not contribute to large limitations in the graphic design field as infinite possibilities appear with the increasing accessibility of information.
Designers benefit from the advantage of global information becoming an accessible tool. The result of mass media and global communication has brought greater awareness of social, political, and world events to the everyday person that can be advantageous to designers. Large social platforms have created a constant flow of relational information to be easily accessed and enjoyable to consume by the masses. With these large platforms creating easily accessible content, designers are able to form stronger relation with a larger audience and communicate their values effectively.
Visual communication today takes on the challenge of turning information into a valuable and marketable asset in our capitalist postmodern society. Based on Harvey’s reading on postmodernism, there is a great focus on daily life culture and the constant flow of content through widespread mediums such as the television (1990, p. 61). The development of the internet brings into play large scale data that influences aspects of graphic design on a global level. Many aspects of postmodern culture in marketable consumerist goods have affected aspects of visual communication in obvious ways such as graphics in marketing advertisement, but also from influencing the culture of daily life and how the design of people filters through information.
The many aspects of postmodern society has shifted the many forms of graphic design into something no one could have expected. The growing significance in knowledge and power has shown how the negative aspects of information abundance provides new perspectives on graphic design and causing a great shift in how we visually communicate to our intended audience. Visual design today has extended the many cultural changes within our society and has proven to reflect the many aspects of our capitalist society today. How we live our lives within our society of constant information availability, reflects how we make graphic design out to be for us right now and for the future.
References
Baudrillard, Jean (1994). Simulacra and simulation (S.F. Glaser, Trans., pp. 79–86). Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Bennett, Audrey (2006). Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design (pp. 36–50). Princeton Architectural Press.
Harvey, David (1990). The condition of postmodernity: An enquiry into the origins of cultural change (pp. 11–65). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Ng, Katherine (2019). Image Analysis: no name. Unpublished manuscript, Sheridan College.
