Collage, introduced in the early twentieth century by Picasso and Georges Braque, has long been recognized as a foundational technique in modern art for its ability to disrupt conventional boundaries between art and everyday life. Emerging from Cubism and later expanded by Dadaists and Surrealists, collage evolved into a critical artistic strategy that combined heterogeneous materials, juxtaposed contradictory elements, and generated multilayered meanings. This study situates collage within the broader trajectory of postmodernism, emphasizing its philosophical and aesthetic dimensions, and investigates how its structural features have been appropriated and transformed in Iranian postmodern graphic design, particularly in poster art from the 1990s onward.

The research adopts a qualitative, descriptive-analytical approach, drawing on library-based sources and a theoretical framework informed by postmodern discourse. The analytical model integrates two domains (1) aesthetic components of collage, displacement, layering, juxtaposition of opposites, narrative rupture, and openness of the artwork; and (2) postmodern features in graphic design eclecticism, simulacra, contradiction, typographic fragmentation, and critique of grand narratives. The corpus comprises ten Iranian posters produced between 2010 and 2025, selected through purposive sampling based on explicit use of collage, presence of at least three postmodern features, thematic diversity, generational variety among designers, and availability of high-quality reproductions.

Findings reveal that in Iranian poster design, collage enables the creation of polyphonic visual spaces that resist modernist ideals of unity, purity, and order. By layering disparate materials photographs, traditional motifs, digital fragments, and textual elements designers construct works that embody multiplicity and cultural hybridity. The juxtaposition of contradictory elements not only destabilizes conventional aesthetic expectations but also fosters critical engagement with socio-political realities, reflecting the postmodern emphasis on pluralism and resistance to dominant narratives.

Historically, Iranian graphic design after the 1979 Revolution underwent complex transformations, with the 1990s and 2000s marking a period of experimentation influenced by global postmodern currents. Collage, both in manual and digital forms, became a key strategy for negotiating tensions between tradition and modernity, local identity and global visual culture. Posters for cultural events, theater productions, and social campaigns exemplify how collage facilitated the articulation of critical discourses, enabling designers to challenge aesthetic norms and engage audiences in interpretive processes.

The study contributes to three levels of significance. Theoretically, it expands knowledge of how artistic techniques embody and reinforce cultural discourses, demonstrating collage as more than a formal device but as a philosophical method of questioning representation and meaning. Historically, it documents and analyzes contemporary Iranian visual heritage, preserving the role of collage in shaping the aesthetics of postmodern poster design. Practically, it offers insights for designers, educators, and students on how collage can be strategically employed to enrich visual communication and generate layered, critical messages.

In conclusion, the structural analysis underscores that collage, through its openness, heterogeneity, and capacity for contradiction, has become a vital instrument in Iranian postmodern graphic design. It not only reflects the global legacy of collage as a critical art form but also adapts it to local contexts, thereby reinforcing postmodernism’s pluralistic and critical ethos within Iran’s visual culture. This intellectual movement influenced all areas of art, including graphic design. Postmodern graphic designers were able to create a polyphonic, critical, and dynamic space using collage techniques that contradicted the modernist principles of order, unity, and purity of form. Graphic design in Iran has followed a complex path since the Islamic Revolution (1978). In the 1990s and 2000s, Iranian designers, influenced by global trends in postmodern art, experimented with new techniques, including digital collage and the combination of traditional and contemporary elements. Cultural and social posters from this period are prominent examples of the reflection of postmodern elements. This research seeks to answer the main question of how the structural features of the collage technique have been reflected in postmodern graphic design in Iran and have helped to strengthen the components of postmodernism. During the research, it will also answer the sub-questions: which structural features of collage can be identified in Iranian postmodern graphic works? And what is the relationship between collage techniques and postmodern components (eclecticism, pluralism, pretense, etc.)? And finally, how have Iranian graphic designers used collage to express critical and cultural discourses? Therefore, the main goal of the research is to conduct a structural and comparative analysis of collage techniques in Iranian postmodern graphic works and discover their common patterns and semantic functions. This article first examines the research background in detail, then explains the theoretical foundations of the collage technique and the components of postmodernism. In the methodology section, the analytical framework and research samples are introduced. The findings section deals with a detailed analysis of selected works, and finally, in the discussion and conclusion section, answers to the research questions are provided.The findings of this study can be useful for graphic designers, professors and students of art and design fields and provide guidance for the intelligent use of collage techniques in creating works