From Authentic Traces to Simulated Traces: The Material Reconstruction of Postmodern Collage in Contemporary Visual Design

This study examines the transmission of “authentic traces” in paper, such as texture, torn edges, halftone dots, ink smudges, and glue, in contemporary visual design based on the material tradition of postmodern collage. By building a three-dimensional analytical framework of “materiality—rhetoric—viewing,” this study compares historical handmade collages with contemporary digital visual samples and reveals the transmission logic of aesthetic changes from “authentic traces” to “simulated traces” and its impacts on layout hierarchy, readability of information, and visual ethics in a systematic way. Traces, as they are material evidences of creation processes, gradually become replicable stylistic symbols. The “trace translation” process weakens authenticity in design discourse and diffuses nostalgic rhetoric in a general way. The theoretical contribution of this study is to construct and explain the “trace translation” framework, which offers a new theoretical perspective to explore the material reconstruction logic of contemporary visual design in the digital age.