OUGD601 - Context Of practice Practical - visual research

Punk

Rick Poyners book 'No More Rules' looks at graphic design within the post modern era. Poyner gives looks at the Punk subculture and explores the different creatives behind the movement. Notes taken 

- Punk is part of British cultural heritage, even now 40 years on 

- Punk is inseparable from out national identity as the long serving Queen it once dared to skewer with a safety pin - "That anti-establishment gesture looks almost lovably eccentric now. Like a warped kind of affection"

- Punk gave the UK a vigorous and necessary shaking. Its 'blast of DIY anarchy' allowed a whole new creativity to burst into the culture of the country. The creativity spread from music (though punk music was never only about the music) into the arts, fashion an media worlds of the 1980's and beyond.

- Modern culture sees punk differently than how it was seen during the height of its popularity in the late 70's and 80's. Today - a year long programme of events titled 'Punk London' - supported by the lord mayor's office - celebrating 'the supposedly catalytic influence of punk in all its ragged glory'. A house on Denmark Street where the Sex Pistols once lived has been awarded listed building status on the advice of Historic England. Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClarens son Joe Corre, was in the news recently threatening to burn his collection of punk memorabilia in protest against these signs that a movement that despised bloated convention had been stripped of its offensive barbs and repackaged as a cosy landmark moment in national pop culture.

- Looking at how the works of punk and anarchy design can be arranged and how to 'apply yardstick' is complicated, depending on the different status' of the items. Only a number of designers within the movement are known by name, notably: Jamie Reid, Barney Bubbles and Malcolm Garrett - all regarded as key figures in punk movement.

- Pieces created for record companies by non-punk designers with professional experience of all kinds of music packaging.
- Other industry designers are uncredited.

- Reid was the "ultimate punk auteur" and by far the most inventive British designer working in the punk idiom.

The design that came out of this movement was radical and unique, it saw a rejection of widely accepted techniques within design and a return to more primitive techniques of design, such as collage and photomontage. One thing that defines the punk movement is the DIY style fan zines, these would be hand made designs with hand written type and a cut and past technique which was then photocopied to produce more in a cheap way, these would often be made by teenagers and or fans of the movement who would have comeplete creative freedom making them, the design of the manifesto takes influence from the visual styles of the movement.