essay

The meaning behind the word “author” has changed greatly in recent times, in particular during the poststructuralist period. In this essay, I will examine the ideas put forward by Barthes; “must the author be dead to make way for the birth of the reader?” (“The Death of the Author”, 1967, Roland Barthes). In his essay, Barthes argues that the author is dead because he no longer forms part of the integral arrangement in a particular text and for him it is the text that speaks to the reader. Barthes states that we should treat the text not as something coming from a particular individual, but according to how the reader understands the writing. “A text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into relations of dialogue, parody and contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author”. (“The Death of the Author,”1967). Barthes states that the change in writing and the idea of the author, was something that was introduced from print culture, and that the author is controlling the text, he is turning the text into a product that was fixed and has the name of that person. “To give a text an author is to pose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing”. (“The Death of the Author,”1967). According to Barthes text is open and flowing and is made up from different parts of society. The author doesn’t initiate it, he may put his name to it, but in the end all literature comes from all different sources. Therefore, Barthes declared the death of the author and the birth of the reader, and so graphic designers became authors as well as readers.

To examine the idea of authorship further, I will look at the distinction between Structuralism and Post Structuralism. Taking this into account and to help to illustrate this concept further, I will consider other writers, such as Michel Foucault in his essay “What is an Author?”(1969), Rick Poynor’s article “Designer as Author” (1991), as well as Michael Rock’s essay “The Designer as Author” (1996). In addition, to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of this concept, I will investigate the design ideas of designer Bruce Mau and book writer and designer Ellen Lupton. I believe by looking at a range of graphic designers and their ideas, it will allow me to understand their views on authorship.

Barthes was a structuralist and argued that one of the first people to recognise the fascination with authorship was French critic Stéphane Mallarmé. By examining the structure of literary work, structuralists were able to think of language as a type of science. In his essay “Death of the Author” Barthes wrote: “Text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author–God) but multi-dimensional space.” By this statement Barthes is trying to give the feeling that within the text, the reader can discover hidden meanings, because the text is an open space. Post structuralism ideas were founded on the notion that human science was unstable, because humans themselves were so complex. Post structuralists believed that originators of designs should put greater emotion into their designs, which would persuade the audience to participate more in the design.

Foucault was a post structuralist and in his essay "What is an Author?" (1969), he argued that all authors are writers, but not all writers are authors. This can be seen as a response and criticism of Barthes’ ideas and can be illustrated by the following statement in the essay: “A certain number of notions that are intended to replace the privileged position of the author actually seem to preserve that privilege and suppress the real meaning of his disappearance”. (Michel Foucault “What is an Author?” p.339). In his essay Foucault examines the roles of the author and the problems associated with usual ideas of authorship in modern society. Whereas Barthes argued there was a necessity to shift our attention from the author to the reader, Foucalt argues the notion of supporting the death of an author has actually only changed the concept of authorship. Foucault attempts to demonstrate that over many years the relationship between the author and the text has changed. Both Foucault and Barthes agree that the author is a strange historical development that has obtained an elevated status. However, the ways they approach these ideas are different. It can be seen that Foucault is trying to complicate the idea of what it means to be an author, through the description of “author” alongside its many historical developments, as opposed to Barthes, who is trying to find a generic “author” to criticise. Foucault went further than Barthes in clarifying the dynamics supporting the author, but he also agrees with Barthes that one day the author will be dead. Both Barthes and Foucault suggest that readers should not try to find an all inclusive opinion, and that readers should allow a text to be understood in terms of the language as "author”.

Rick Poyner was the person that first used the term ‘designer as author’. He was a design writer, critic, and an author in the real sense and wrote an article in Blueprint magazine “The Designer as Author” (1991). He was also the editor of Eye Magazine and commissioned Michael Rock to write “The Designer as Author” for the magazine. Poyner was an author and in his article he uses the term not talking about designers as writers, but talking about the designer as someone who was emerging with his own signature style. He argued the way of creating design was to create an own kind of text that would sit on top of the client’s message. This was a postmodernist approach to the idea that design was the disruption of the communication chain and not a window onto it. This is what Poynor meant by the designer as the author when he used it.

In his essay “The Designer as Author” (1996) Michael Rock argues that designers aspire to be authors, because they are insecure about the value of their work. Designers often feel that if their work was more significant, they would gain more respect. His essay was a groundbreaking piece within the design field and inspired a lot of people to call themselves authors. However in this essay, he was discouraging about that idea of the author, and was trying to persuade people not to bother with the idea, because the poststructuralist writers in the seventies had already discovered the author was dead. He argued that if no one else wanted to be an author, then the graphic designer could be. He discusses the conflicts brought about by the topic of authorship and he asks the question “What does it really mean to call for a graphic designer to be an Author?” (“The Designer as Author” 1996 Michael Rock, Eye Magazine). Michael Rock was not interested in the Mau kind of authorship, but in the stylistic kind of authorship that Poynor had been writing about. In the essay he uses the term designer as “auteur” which was used in film technology theory where film critics were trying to look at how films can be an art form and why are so many people involved in the process. The same can be said of graphic designers; how can this be art, when there is no editor, client, printer, professional reader involved in this process. The graphic designer cannot control the whole process; it requires collaboration. The idea of the auteur theory comes from great filmmakers who could put their signature on everything; simply through the way they made the film. Michael Rock states how we become auteurs/authors is not through context. It is how you make the design and the visual style.

Michael Rock became upset that designers were calling themselves authors and argued they had misinterpreted the message in his article “The Designer as Author” (1996). He wrote a piece in 2005 called “Fuck Content”, where he said this obsession with authorship has to end; to stop worrying about authors and concentrate their efforts upon style.

Bruce Mau was one of the first designers to examine the concept of 'designer as author' and his work with Rem Koolhaas on the gigantic S,M,L,XL (Book published by Monacelli Press in 1995 in New York), Mau himself needed projects like S,M,L,XL to develop as a designer and to fulfill his urge for authorship. Bruce Mau was featured in Michael Rock’s “The Designer as Author” essay. Nigel Smith, Mau’s longtime associate and now a rival, states that the designer cannot be construed as an author. However, Jennifer Sigler, a project co-ordinator of S,M,L,XL, disagrees and believes that the manner in which the book is structured, in a cinematic way, is down to Mau and that therefore makes him an author (see fig 1). Mau was an author and wanted his name on the cover of the book. Getting Koolhaas to put a graphic designer name on the cover was probably not easy. Mau did a lot for the graphic design profession by getting his name on the cover of this book. That’s what designers were looking for, more of this type of authority, that signature, that stamp, that mark of authority.

There are other graphic designers who do not share the same views as Michael Rock. These include Ellen Lupton who is an author and designer. She argues that the graphic author is one that writes and publishes material about design. In her book “Thinking with Type” (2004) this idea can be demonstrated by the distinctive design of her book, which clearly reflects her immense passion for typography, writing and art (see fig 2). Ellen Lupton states that graphic designers should be encouraged to produce their own texts, as well as changing and developing the meaning of the text. She argues that what we do in typography and page layout is basically to manipulate the author’s text. Ellen Lupton shared similar views on authorship with graphic designer Steven McCarthy, about the idea that being authors and initiating work not just stylistically, but also being good at style. The idea of authorship became prevalent in the1990’s, has continued until today and is associated with the notion of self-initiated projects. The idea was not so much about style, but about designers creating products, books and exhibitions and starting up the project. Ellen Lupton disagrees with a lot of the ideas within the Michael Rock’s “ Fuck Content” article, but also looks at the brilliance of the article, and about the fact that graphic designers do have this anxiety about not being good enough, and try to fill that gap, by saying if they could create the content they would feel better. Graphic designers would not just create finishing touches. Michael Rock on the contrary argues that creating the finishing touches is tremendous and designing fantastic work, is a graphic designer’s role. However, some designers are great at that and others are not so good. A debate that’s been discussed for a century in the design arena is form versus content. The form is always going to influence the content. They are opposites, but you also can’t separate them. Michael Rock wants people to stay on the form side, but Lupton wants to favour the content side or work with both. In her essay “The Designer as Producer” (2004), Lupton examines an alternative approach to “designer as author’”. She proposes the idea “designer as producer”. She argues that the author may be the instigator of content, but the producer brings together all the team.

The idea “designer as author” has been discussed and debated for many years about its effects on graphic design, and has brought about new views and aspirations in the practice of graphic design. The term the author as a writer first started being used in the 1990’s. Previously graphic design was not part of the mainstream and many people did not understand what graphic design was all about. Therefore, the idea of the author was introduced so that graphic designers could be called authors, therefore making them more accessible to most people, because people did not understand what graphic designers did. The alternative models on Authorship developed by various theorists have led to a drastic change on the role of the graphic designer and have developed from the idea that the writer is the originator of the text. There will be graphic designers who will express their ideas based on their personal knowledge, but without the aim of delivering a particular message, or others like Barthes, who will deliver a message, which will have multiple meanings. Other designers like Ellen Lupton will produce distinctive and structured design in their work, or like Mau, who will promote the ideas of working closely with a client. The introduction of data and media technology has changed the role of the graphic author and designer and allows them to adapt, reuse and manipulate existing material, to allow for greater creativity and to produce better designs more than ever. Therefore Barthes’ theories of authorship can be assessed in relation to new media practice, because it is dependent on the reader. Previously graphic designers were seen as an interface with other disciplines and were associated with adding the finishing touches on the various media projects. However, this is not the case for many graphic designers nowadays, as they are not only writing the books, but designing them as well. They are involved in the creation of films, magazines, and other graphic media, being involved more now than ever before.

Word count: 2138 By Tonia Osiowy