Graphic Design and the Non-Place: From Airports to Interfaces

Non-Place. AI image
 Introduction

When Marc Augé introduced the concept of the non-place in the early 1990s, he described a new type of space produced by contemporary modernity: airports, highways, supermarkets, hotel chains. These were environments designed for circulation rather than dwelling, for movement rather than memory. They did not cultivate identity or shared narratives; they coordinated flows.

What is often overlooked is how such spaces function at all. Non-places are not empty. They are saturated with instructions, symbols, labels, arrows, logos, pictograms, warnings, and interfaces. They are readable environments. Without this dense layer of visual coding, they would dissolve into confusion. That layer is graphic design.

The non-place is therefore not only a spatial phenomenon but also a semiotic one. Graphic design is what allows these spaces to operate.

The Non-Place as a Semiotic Environment

Augé defines the anthropological place as a space that produces identity, relation, and history. A town square, a neighborhood, or a village carries stories, social bonds, and temporal depth. A non-place lacks these inscriptions. It does not ask who you are, only what function you perform.

In Non-Places, Augé observes that such environments are governed by contracts, signs, and codes rather than by social memory. A traveler is not a citizen but a passenger. A shopper is not a neighbor but a consumer. Relations are mediated by instructions: boarding passes, credit cards, receipts, entry gates, schedules.

These objects are not merely practical tools. They form a system of signs that renders a world legible without endowing it with inherent meaning. The non-place functions through semiotic coordination rather than symbolic belonging.

Graphic Design as a Technology of Circulation

This is where graphic design appears as a structural force.

Often treated as a visual or aesthetic discipline, graphic design in non-places operates as spatial engineering. It tells bodies where to go, what to do, how to wait, what to buy, and how to proceed. Wayfinding systems, packaging, branding, ticketing, menus, and labels choreograph movement and decision-making.

A supermarket is not navigated through memory or conversation but through typography, color coding, shelf logic, and logos. An airport does not rely on dialogue; it relies on pictograms, screens, arrows, and standardized layouts. Graphic design does not decorate the non-place. It makes it operable.

Two Regimes of the Same Structure

There are two historical regimes of this relationship.

In the pre-digital regime, graphic design organizes physical circulation. Designers produce visual systems. Consumers move through them. The non-place emerges as the spatial result of this interaction:

Designer → signage → consumer → movement → non-place.

Supermarkets, highways, and terminals are all products of this loop.

In the digital regime, the structure persists, but its material changes. The interface replaces the corridor. The feed replaces the aisle. The button replaces the door:

Designer → interface → user → data → system → interface.

Graphic design no longer inhabits space. It becomes space.

The Interface as Non-Place

In later reflections, Augé explicitly included media such as the internet, television, and communication networks within the logic of non-places. These are not sites of shared memory but systems for circulating images, signs, and messages.

The digital interface functions as a non-place of communication. Users are co-present in the same feed, yet rarely embedded in shared histories. They encounter one another through profiles, metrics, and visual templates rather than through narrative continuity.

Graphic design structures this environment. It determines what becomes visible, clickable, desirable, or ignored. It establishes the conditions under which attention moves and meaning circulates. The result is co-presence without co-existence.

Conclusion

Graphic design is the visible infrastructure of the non-place. It allows spaces without memory or identity to function by making circulation efficient and behavior predictable. From airport signage to social-media interfaces, it organizes how bodies and minds move through contemporary environments.

Recognizing this role, places graphic design at the center of modern life. Designers are not merely shaping appearances; they are shaping the architecture of experience in a world increasingly composed of non-places.

References

Augé, M. (1995). Non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity (J. Howe, Trans.). Verso.

Augé, M. (n.d.). Identity and human rights. University lecture.

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. McGraw-Hill.

Manovich, L. (2001). The language of new media. MIT Press.

 

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