Deconstruction and Pastiche - My Thoughts

Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a pretty interesting concept. When you take it apply it to the field of graphic design as an entity, the result is that good graphic design is more important than bad graphic design (or no graphic design at all for that matter). I think this is somewhat untrue, as both good and bad graphic design are equally important. Without bad design, you'd have nothing to compare good design too, and so good design wouldn't stand out at all or have any particular importance. 

I also think that bad design (or a total lack of it) has it's place in the world. Design communicates things about an organisation, good design tends to signify a higher quality product or service and a higher price for that. Logically, bad design signifies a lower quality product/service for a lower price. Think about the instances when you're staggering around drunk at 4am on a Saturday morning looking for something to eat. In that instance, design is not important, and so takeaways tend to have bad design. I'd go as far as to say that I wouldn't want to go into a takeaway with good design, purely because I'd fear that it'd be more expensive than the place next door who don't care about design. 

In this scenarioI suppose you could say that the bad design was good because it served it's purpose, which suggests that good design can sit within bad design. But according to Derrida's theory, that means that western thinking suggests bad design is more important than good design, which clearly isn't the case. 

Pastiche

What pastiche boils down too is the idea that taking something out of it's original context devalues it. I disagree with this. I think that if anything, it gives the thing extra value, because if you're taking something out if it's context to use in a different context, it's because you want to use that thing to draw links to it's original context. The fact that this thing can now be used in two contexts surely gives it more value rather than devaluing it.

Relationship Between Deconstruction and Pastiche

My thoughts on Pastiche can be applied in Deconstruction. Western thinking values the original over the copy, so the idea of pastiche suggests that using something in a new context makes it less important, because it has been copied. My argument against this would be that whatever you're re-using, you're not removing it's links with it's previous contexts, you're just adding a different set of links to something in a different context.

Finding room for the new within the old seems like a logical way to think about anything as it allows for steady progress, as apposed making the old and new fight against each other, which could have consequences based on the context is. I think because of this, blindly going along with the idea of Pastiche as a theory can be pretty stupid, because it might make you immediately write something off that could be perfect for what you need.