No More Rules talks about close engagement with graphic design of the postmodern era that began in the early 1980s. It deals with recent events in design history, but it is not a history as such. It doesn't set out to argue that there shouldn't be any more rules in graphic design, only that during this period many designers, including some influential ones, have proceeded as though this were the case. Interesting book with lots of visual examples.
Postmodernism briefly explains the concept and ideas of postmodernism movement. Characterized variously as 'a crisis of cultural authority' and 'the shift from production to reproduction,' postmodernism seems to exist as a thing that can only be defined as the negation of something else. To a student of the subject, postmodernism may feel very much like Narcissus' reflection in the water, which disintegrates the moment one reaches out to grasp it.
The most postmodernist aspect of this book is its shameless self-plagiarism. The author has stolen most of the text from his own previous writings. However, it is a good read about different notions of a given subject, like histories, fallacies, subjects, contradictions, etc.
This book is a good guide to postmodernism, especially for those encountering theories of postmodernism for the first time: it places the subject in a wide context. Rather than give an account of the 'postmodern condition' from a single perspective, it offers an introduction to the most important theorists in a number of different disciplines, and links theoretical questions to an eclectic range of examples, from both 'high' and 'popular' culture.
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