INTRODUCTION (600 Words)
Introduce Essay Subject
Signpost how the argument will be shape
Highlight Major Debates
Establish My position
MAIN TEXT (6000)
Introduce Graphic Authorship As A Theory (2000 Words)
Outline Viewpoints
‘Among design historians and critics the term ‘graphic authorship’ has been coined to describe the activities of designers who generate their own content and create work without the sponsorship of a client. It is also known as self initiated work.’ (Shaugnessy, 2009:127)
‘It might sound like ‘writing about graphic design’ but the term seems infinitely re-interpretable without one clear, agreed definition.’ (Newark, 2002:88)
‘Perhaps the graphic author is actually one who writes and publishes material about design.’ (Rock, 2013:52)
Outline Confusion
‘The slogan ‘designer as author’ has enlivened debates about the future of graphic design since the early 1990s. Behind this phrase is the will to help designers to initiate content, to work in an entrepreneurial way rather than simply reacting to problems and tasks placed before them by clients. The word author suggests agency, intention, and creation, as opposed to the more passive functions of consulting, styling, and formatting.’ (Lupton, 2004)
‘After years in the somewhat thankless position of the faceless facilitator, many designers were ready to speak out.’ (Rock, 2013:48)
‘The notion of self-initiated briefs - graphic authorship, as it is often called - currently occupies a prominent position in design discourse. In my view, self-initiated projects and the notion of ‘pure’ graphic authorship are well intentioned but flawed as concepts.’ (Shaugnessy, 2005:141)
‘The general authorship rhetoric seems to include any work by a designer that is self motivated, from artist books to political activism. But artist books easily fall within the realm and descriptive power of art criticism. Activist work may be neatly explicated using allusions to propaganda, graphic design, public relations and advertising.’ (Rock, 2013:52)
‘But how is this fundamentally different from the designer who designs the packaging for a pack of frozen burgers? For me, a graphic designer who creates a new visual entity where one didn’t previously exist is indulging in an act of authorship. Not only that, but working for a client doesn’t preclude the ability to have authorial intent.’ (Shaugnessy, 2009:127)
‘The term carries with it an air of stridency and rebellion - a wish that graphic design play its part in putting the world to rights and for designers to break away from their restrictive commercial clients.’ (Newark, 2002:28)
‘Designers who work from briefs are still authors, but it’s authorship in the sense that they have created some-thing in response to a set of defined requirements and taken into account a number of relevant conditions (purpose, commercial considerations, budget, time, media channels, etc.).’ (Shaugnessy, 2005:141)
Michael Rock Original Idea and Intention
Ellen Lupton Designer As Producer
‘As an alternative to ‘designer as author’, I propose ‘designer as producer’. Production is a concept embedded in the history of modernism.’ (Lupton, 2004)
‘In 1934, the German critic Walter Benjamin wrote ‘The Author as Producer’, a text that attacked the conventional view of authorship as a purely literary enterprise. He exclaimed that new forms of communication – film, radio, advertising, newspapers, the illustrated press – were melting down traditional artistic genres and corroding the borders between writing and reading, authoring and editing.’ (Lupton, 2004)
‘Benjamin attacked the model of the writer as an ‘expert’ in the field of literary form, equipped only to craft words into texts and not to question the physical life of the work. The producer must ask, Where will the work be read? Who will read it? How will it be manufactured? What other texts and pictures will surround it?’ (Lupton, 2004)
Conclusion
‘The power of the term ‘author’ – its cultural authority – lies in its connection to the written text. In order for designers to take charge of the content and social function of their work, they need not become fluent writers, no more than an art director must become a professional photographer or illustrator in order to use these media effectively. In the business of film, a ‘producer’ brings together a broad range of skills – writing, directing, acting, cinematography, editing, and so on – in a work whose authorship is shared. For the designer to become a producer, she must have the skills to begin directing content, by critically navigating the social, aesthetic, and technological systems across which communications flow.’ (Lupton, 2004)
‘Perhaps, in the end, authorship is not a very convincing metaphor for the activity we understand as design. There are a few examples of work that is clearly the product of design authors and not designer/authors, and these tend to be exceptions to the rule.’ (Rock, 2013:54)
‘If we really need to coin a phrase to describe an activity encompassing imaging, editing, narration, chronicling, performing, translating, organizing and directing, I'll conclude with a suggestion:
designer = designer.’ (Rock, 2013:56)
Artist and Artisans (1500)
Self Initiated Projects blurring and challenging the definitions of Graphic Design
‘As we enter the 21st century it has never been more clear that the definition of what designers do and who they are has never been more ambiguous.’ (O’Reilly, 2002:8)
‘Over fifteen years ago a shockwave was sent through graphics as designers put two fingers up to the 'big idea'/'problem-solving’ tradition and turned to self-expression, writes Michael Johnson. They proclaimed the processes they used almost as important as the product itself, and, if they had the chance they’d be re-incarnated as conceptual artists.’ (Sinclair, 2009)
The Two Types Of Designer
‘Bunch A: Logical designers that use logic, utilise clarity and function, rationalise the communicative elements beyond any other means to present a formal and precise argument to their audience.’ (Oldham, 2012:70)
‘Bunch B: Emotional designers that use anything and everything available - intelligence, wit, humour, chance, etc - to create an emotional tie between the work and the audience. Get the idea and the design will come from that.’ (Oldham, 2012:70)
Design VS Art
‘Design has always been regarded as art’s cousin from the wrong side of the tracks. Tainted by commerce, it has to earn its way in the world in the way that aristocratic art doesn’t. The tradition of art is a cultural inheritance from which any artist can draw.’ (O’Reilly, 2002:128)
‘And then of course there’s the training and educational background of designers which sees them entering schools of ‘art and design’. This relationship with art is something that simmers away at the back of the minds of most designers.’ (O’Reilly, 2002:8)
‘Their sense of themselves is bound up with the idea of being ‘creative’, yet this existential imperative comes face to face, on a daily basis, with the demands of the client.’ (O’Reilly, 2002:8)
‘It is fatal to assume that graphic design is a medium for self-expression.’ (Oldham, 2012:71)
‘We are envious of the power, social position and cachet that artists and authors seem to command. By declaring ourselves “designer/authors” we hope to garner similar respect. Our deep-seated anxiety has motivated a movement in design that values origination of content over manipulation of content.’ (Rock, 2013:92)
‘…many great stylists don’t seem to make the cut, as it is difficult to discern a larger message in their work – a message that transcends stylistic elegance.’ (Rock, 2013:51)
‘Practising professionals took it elsewhere – Paula Scher began her typographic ‘map’ paintings at about this time, Stefan Sagmeister introduced his naked body as the canvas for a series of self-mutilation projects. Daniel Eatock has now taken it to new heights, coming the closest to tipping out of design and into conceptual art.’ (Sinclair, 2009)
‘Art is connotative, associative, implicative; it revels in ambiguity. Its function and its form are inseparable. Design is precise, denotative, explicit. It is a mediation, a structure, a method. It connects to its content like dance attaches to misc, or cooking to food.’ (Newark, 2002:28)
Design And Art
‘In any case, in very practical ways this crude distinction between art and design is increasingly untenable. Many contemporary artists actually rely on designers’ work as a crucial feature for their artworks.’ (O’Reilly, 2002:8)
‘Jeff Koons used to farm out work to craftsmen and recently Damien Hirst has relied heavily on input from Jonathan Barnbrook. Barnbrook described his role for Hirst’s pharmaceutical series The Last Supper as being that of an art director.’ (O’Reilly, 2002:8)
‘Often artists and designers play out the same topic.’ (O’Reilly, 2002:8)
‘Experimental Jetset, Peter Davenport and Tony Linkson have all created work relating to the nature of time.’ (O’Reilly, 2002:8)
‘“I’ve carved out this odd position where I’m still a graphic designer using graphic design but as an art practice…With these pieces I’m the subject it’s the opposite of graphic design, where the artist is never the subject. The designer is never the subject.”’ (Fella in Dougher, 2005:98)
‘Although he supported himself doing conventional graphic design for many years, Ed Fella’s work has been his most enjoyable, as well as his most successful and critically regarded.’ (Dougher, 2005:98)
The Conclusion
‘One way of looking at design is to see it not as finished pieces, but the process itself.’ (Newark, 2002:14)
‘“Consider the two radical positions in the arts today. One recommends the breaking down of distinctions between genres; the arts would eventuate in one art, consisting of many different kinds of behaviour going on at the same time, a vast behavioural magma or synthesis. The other position recommends the maintaining and clarifying of barriers between the arts, by the intensification of what each art distinctively is…” says Susan Sontag.’ (Sontag in Newark, 2002:28)
‘Design is a deeply contradictory act,: the personal and public are inextricably intertwined. Designers make things and make systems that make things. But most of all they perform a narrow, yet essential function in the increasingly complex economy that is public speech.’ (Rock, 2013:34)
‘Perhaps it’s an absence or presence of an overriding philosophy or individual spirit that diminishes some designed works and elevates others.’ (Rock, 2013:51)
‘This rewrites the question: ‘Can design be as powerful, complex, emotive and enduring as the best art can be?’ The answer to this question is an unequivocal yes.’ (Newark, 2002:28)
The Brief (1500)
‘A chance to create work unfettered by client constraints, to push boundaries, or just to feed that creative compulsion, the appeal of personal projects to designers is obvious.’ (Montegomery, 2013)
‘Graphic designers need briefs.’ (Shaugnessy, 2005:141)
‘The commonly held view is that designers need briefs because designers are problem solvers. I don’t like the term ‘problem solvers’; it seems to play into the hands of those who see design as a purely mechanistic process - although it must be said that many of the best designers consider themselves to be ‘problem solvers’, and produce resonant and lasting work accordingly.’ (Shaugnessy, 2005:141)
‘It’s a little recognised fact, but designers are only happy when they are battling with restraints Of course, many designers like to erect their own barriers and live by their own rules, and a natural offshoot of this is the desire for self authored briefs. But this shouldn’t be confused with pure authorship: all it means is that designers are combining the role of client and designer.’(Shaugnessy, 2005:141)
‘There is a minute amour of design work where the designer herself is the client, a kind of ‘acts gratuit’. But this self-publishing does not alter design’s recognisable conventions’ (Newark, 2002:28)
‘Designers who work from briefs are still authors, but it’s authorship in the sense that they have created some-thing in response to a set of defined requirements and taken into account a number of relevant conditions (purpose, commercial considerations, budget, time, media channels, etc.).’ (Shaugnessy, 2005:141)
‘When designers aren't creating their own limits, they're often looking for problems to solve. And you don't need a client or a brief to find a problem – they're everywhere.’ (Asbury, 2013)
‘But they are undeniably there, and it gives the exhibition an extra appeal that you don't always find with art shows. There are ideas to ‘get', messages to ponder, things to smile at, hooks that draw you into the work.’ (Asbury, 2013)
‘…there are inevitably some common themes that come up when you look at the work, and which arguably keep it closer to ‘design' than ‘art', or at least give a clue that the people behind it come from a design background. Perhaps the main one is this sense that, in the absence of a prescriptive brief, many designers tend to create their own.’ (Asbury, 2013)
‘This instinctive aversion to "prettification" and tendency to gravitate towards rules and structure is arguably a classic designer trait. According to Johnson, "We're so used to limitations that we build them in when they're not there.”’ (Asbury, 2013)
‘I’m not decrying the notion of self-initiated projects. I am saying, however, that the graphic designer’s mentality is suited, thanks to education, temperament and tradition, to responding to a brief. Perhaps there will emerge a new superstrain of mutant designers who have evolved beyond the point of needing a brief; but I doubt it.’ (Shaugnessy, 2005:141)
‘…about designers reflecting on what they do and on how they imagine themselves. It’s about how the conflict of commerce and creativity is played out. An ultimately it’s about the existential brief they set themselves.’ (O’Reilly, 2002:9)
After Hours Designers (500)
Stefan Sagmeister (500)
Ji Lee (500)
CONCLUSION (600)
Discuss the standpoint on Graphic Authorship and Self Set Projects
Summarise how they can be useful
Pose a question and solution about where Self Set Projects could lead in future
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