The last two decades of the 20th century saw profound changes in the field of graphic communication. One by one, the old certainties about the techniques and purposes of graphic design were questioned and torn apart. With the international take-up of the new technology in the 1990s, there was an explosion of creativity in graphic design, as designers and typographers reassessed their role, jettisoned existing rules and forged experimental new approaches. Graphic work became more self-expressive, idiosyncratic and sometimes extreme. No More Rules tells this story in detail, breaking down a broad and sometimes confusing field of graphic design activity into key developments and themes: the American new wave; punk and its aftermath; deconstructionist theory and design; the digital type revolution; typography grunge; graphic authorship and graphic agitation; retro and the vernacular; and recent new conceptual approaches to design. Each theme is illustrated by significant examples of work produced between 1980 and 2000 that changed the way in which designers and their audiences think about graphic communication.

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Rick Poynor founded Eye magazine in 1990. He is also a columnist for Print magazine in New York and has written about visual culture for Frieze, Domus, Blueprint, I.D., Metropolis, Adbusters and The Financial Times. His books include Typography Now (1991), Typographica (2001).