Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: How Punk Is Still Impacting Graphic Design
Of all subcultures, it’s not a stretch to say that punk boasts the most recognizable aesthetic: snarling, unashamedly DIY, and above all, urgent — the sort of
By Emily Gosling
Of all subcultures, it’s not a stretch to say that punk boasts the most recognizable aesthetic: snarling, unashamedly DIY, and above all, urgent — the sort of thing typified by Jamie Reid’s, ransom-note typography and blustering cut-and-paste newsprint. More than 40 years since what many see as the birth of punk, the word has taken on connotations reaching far beyond three chord wonders like The Ramones or clothing held together with nothing but safety pins and a flagrant disregard for “the man.”
The punk look of the 1970s has never really gone away in the design world — the most obvious flag-bearer being the world of zines. The devil-may-care collaging of various typographic styles, handwritten additions, and conflation of disparate pieces of found imagery is still rife across poster design and even in more commercially minded publications (it could be argued, for instance, that the likes of Mushpit — with its scattergun approach to layout and so on — takes the baton from punk.)
