There is Such a Thing as Society
The major artistic movements of this century—the futurists, constructivists, dadaists, surrealists—all had a theory of society that guided their explorations. The exploration of the formal structure of language—its signs, symbols, and how these construct and carry meaning—should be the staple diet of designers. Language is a means through which we express our consciousness of ourselves and our relationship to the world; it is our attempts to describe our situation and to think about the future that lead us to search for appropriate vocabularies. Language changes when it is no longer able to express what its users require of it, so unless it is to be of academic interest only, an exploration of language must also take into account the changing consciousness of human beings. It is difficult to comprehend the point of exploring form if it is not related to contemporary problems of vocabulary and the search for meaning. The study of visual form and language is limited if it does not consider the forces of cultural production, which involve a set of social relations between producer and audience.
­— Andrew Howard, 1994.