Context comes from all aspects of a piece of work, its material, its purpose, and its place. Devoid of supplementary information and a frame of reference, design loses much, if not all, of its impact. One can attempt to piece a work's context together after it's been dropped into a stark white gallery space or shuffled into a pile of other similar work, but the relationship is always different. Marshall McLuhan's 1964 book, "Understanding Media." touches on how human association is influenced by technique nd medium — which is one of the few ways a piece of work can hang on to its contextual identity regardless of where or how it's displayed. Peter Bil'ak explains, in his 2006 "Graphic Design in the White Cube," that there is a struggle when tasked with showcasing graphic design. Bil'ak explains that design is inherently a context-based solution to a problem and thrives in its original time and position and cannot in a gallery or showcase. Joseph Grigley's 2010 lecture, "Exhibition Prosthetics," asks "does it matter how museums narrative, describe, and otherwise footnote the objects they display?" Grigley goes on to show how a piece of work can derive context from its presentation and supplementary information, and how the act of presenting something in a new way, or narratively, can change its meaning.
C̶o̶n̶t̶e̶x̶t̶ attempts to capture the confusion and unconscious reinterpretation by modifying formal properties of the printed page. If things feel out of place we struggle to see how they belong.
