Modernism for me is systems, process and indirection between artist/designer and the work, where the effort is more put into designing those systems and tools a

Modernism for me is systems, process and indirection between artist/designer and the work, where the effort is more put into designing those systems and tools and being able to control the consistency of the output by tweaking the parameters of the system, tool and process. A good and extreme example are fonts or vector/parametric design software. Before that, in the classical era it was more about raw skills through practice and reaching some kind of wonderkid level of excellence measured by popular standards that were tied to complexity, e.g. the most realistic painting or most beautiful form of an object. One example, to stay in the realm of type would be script calligraphy, where letterers learn script styles and try to reproduce them as best as possible. Postmodernism gets rid of the systems and indirection and is more about direct human expression and originality, without trying that hard to reach an ideal or make the most realistic like in the classical era. The example in type would be freestyle hand lettering or graffiti writing, or even normal handwriting, and accepting and embracing the imperfections that are generated by your own body which results in your own recognizable style.