The crux of the argument is that it is valuable
to reposition designers as “authors” instead of
simply “service providers.”
Authors
Service Providers
1
Late Modern
(int style)
Objectivity
Neutrality
Clarity
Postmodern
Subjectivity
Self-expression
Emotion
Individuality
2
“A text is not a line of words releasing a
single ... meaning but a multidimensional
space in which a variety of writings, none
of them original, blend and clash.”
—Roland Barthe, Death of the Author
3
The reader, in Barthes’s theory, is more
important than the writer because it is the
reader who actively interprets the text.
4
Rise of the reader
Death of the Author
5
“The reader ‘plays’ the text as a
musician plays an instrument....
Like an interpretation of a musical
score, reading is a performance of
the written word.”
—Ellen Lupton, Thinking with Type
6
Role of the designer
Late Modern
(int. Style)
Postmodern
(cranbrook)
designer as
neutral transmitter
of information
designer as
participant in
the delivery of
the mesage, not
just a transmitter.
7
In contrast to the literary world in which the
role of the author was diminished by poststructuralist ideas, wtihin the design world
the role of the author was actually elevated.
Graphic Design:
Rise of the author
literary world:
Death of the Author
8
New Wave designers:
Wolfgang Wiengart and April Greiman
—celebrated subjectivity and self-expression
in their work.
—emphasis on typographic experimentation,
intuition, visual appeal
— c hallenge to clarity and legibility
—design as a form of art, personal
expression
9
Wolfgang Weingart: Kunstkredit, 1977
10
April Greiman, Sci-Arc Poster, 1988
11
April Greiman, Snow White, 1986
12
David Carson, Ray Gun, Sept. 1994
13
Once designers started valuing their own
viewpoint, they realized that they could move
beyond coming up with visual solutions to other
people’s problems and seize full control of the
content/design themselves.
Designer takes off with content
14
Technology put the means of production
into the hands of the designer.
Printing
Computer
Press
15
“They are buying your happiness—
steal it back”
—Situationist maxim
16
By sidestepping traditional
means of production, designers can resist
corporate control, building an alternative to
mainstream consumption.
social responsibility:
designer as author
17
The content is always mediated by images/by
design. We engage with content/our society
through those images. Design authorship is a
way to take control of some of those images.
Designers as producers
of their own meaning
18
What does “designer as author” really mean?
Who are they?
19
Bruce Mau: Designer as Collaborator
20
Bruce Mau: S M L XL (1996)
21
Bruce Mau: S M L XL (1996)
22
Bruce Mau: S M L XL (1996)
23
Ellen Lupton: Designer as Writer
The ABCs of the Bauhaus and Design Theory
25
Ellen Lupton: The ABCs of the Bauhaus and Design Theory
26
Emigre: Publisher/Ediitor
29
Guerrilla Girls: Activists
30
Guerrilla Girls
31
Johanna Drucker: Artist (The Artist’s Book)
The History of the/my Wor(l)d. 1990
27
Johanna Drucker, The Word Made Flesh. 1989
32
Ryan McGinness: : Artist
GLORY HOLE, 2004
33
Ryan McGinness: “BILDERBERGERS BONES BRIGADE,” 2004
34
Ryan McGuinness
35
Tomato: Collaborative Authorship
Process: A Tomato Project
36
Tomato: Process: A Tomato Project
37
Tomato: Process: A Tomato Project
38
Designer as Producer
39
,
Designer as Producer
“There exist opportunities to seize control —
intellectually and economically — of the
means of production, and to share that
control with the reading public, empowering
them to become producers as well as
consumers of meaning.”
—Ellen Lupton, Designer as Producer
40
,
The Affect of “Designer as Authorship”
upon the graphic design profession:
—Combats anonymous nature of our profession
—Social Value
—Coping with technology
......
41
,
“Designer as Author” throws into
question what the role of a graphic
designer is in 2007.
?
42