ABSTRACT
The punk subculture has been variously studied as a distinct historical moment, a countercultural shift, a subset of popular music and fashion, a set of aesthetic conventions, even a self-contained model of activism and philosophy, though some researchers—myself this author—have recommended caution to avoid stereotyping such a diverse group of participants as somehow united in opinions or actions (Bestley 2015; Ryde and Bestley 2016). This chapter explores a range of punk conventions in theory and practice: do-it-yourself, a rejection of authority, rhetorical strategies including parody, pastiche and détournement, and their potential value within graphic design education. The evolution of punk is contextualized in relation to contemporaneous social, historical and cultural shifts, in particular postmodernist theories of deconstruction and the “death of the author”. Changes within the graphic design profession in the 1970s and 1980s, largely driven by technological advances including desktop publishing and digital tools for design and reproduction, broadly coincided with the first wave of punk. The Further and Higher Education Act 1992 led to the academicization of some previously craft-based and vocational programmes as art colleges were incorporated into the new universities, and debates surrounding the theories, principles and ethics of design practice took hold. How might punk offer a model for critical reflection on the conventions of visual communication, and suggest practical strategies for graphic design educators, students and professionals?
