designer as author by Michael Rock 1 1996 What does it mean to call a graphic designer an author? What is an author? Authorship, in one form or an- That question has been an area of other, has been a popular term in intense scrutiny over the last forty graphic design circles, especially years. The meaning of the word those at the edge of the profes- itself has shifted significantly over sion, the design academies and time. The earliest definitions are the murky territories that exist not associated with writing; in fact between design and art. The word the most inclusive is a "person who authorship has a ring of impor- originates or gives clearly index tance: it connotes seductive ideas authoritarian — even patriarchal of origination and agency. But the — connotations: "father of all question of how designers become life," "any inventor, constructor or designer authors is a difficult one, and ex- founder," "one who begets," and a actly who the designer/authors are "director, commander, or ruler." and what authored design looks like depends entirely on how you All literary theory, from Aristotle as author define the term and the criteria you on, has in some form or another as author been theory of authorship. Since choose to grant entrance into the by Michael2 Rock pantheon. this is not a history of the author 3 1996 but a consideration of the author by Michael Rock Authorship may suggest new ap- as metaphor, I'll start with recent 1996 proaches to understanding design history. Wimsatt and Beardsley's, process in a profession tradition- seminal text, "The Intentional Fal- ally associated more with the com- lacy" (1946), drove an early wedge munication than the origination of between the author and the text, messages. But theories of author- dispelling the notion that a reader ship may also serve as legitimizing could ever really know an author strategies, and authorial aspira- through his writing. The so-called tions may actually end up reinforc- death of the author, proposed most ing certain conservative notions of succinctly by Roland Barthes in Published in Multiple Signatures: On Designers, Authors, Readers and Users (Spring 2013) design production and subjectivity 1968 in an essay of that title, is — ideas that run counter to recent closely linked to the birth of critical critical attempts to overthrow the theory, especially theory based in perception of design based on indi- reader response and interpretation vidual brilliance. The implications rather than intentionality. Michel deserve careful evaluation. What Foucault used the rhetorical ques- does it really mean to call for a tion "What is an author?" as the graphic designer to be an author? title of his influential essay of 1969 which, in response to Barthes, outlines the The meaning of the word itself has shifted significantly over time. Families..." The statute secures the right to benefit financially from a work and for the author to preserve basic taxonomy and functions of the author and the problems associated with its textual integrity. That authorial conventional ideas of authorship right was deemed irrevocable. Text and origination. came to be seen as a form of pri- Foucauldian theory holds that the vate property. A romantic criticism connection between author and arose that reinforced that relation- text has transformed and that there tist revealed extant phenomena, facts anyone ship, searching for critical keys in exist a number of author-func- faced with the same conditions the life and intention of the writer. tions that shape the way readers would discover. The scientist and By laying a legal ground for own- approach a text. These stubbornly the mathematician could claim ership, the Statute of Anne defines persistent functions are historically to have been first to discover a who is, and isn't, an author. It was determined and culturally specific paradigm, and lend their name to a thoroughly modern problem. No categories. the phenomenon, but could never claim authorship over it. (The as- one had owned the sacred texts. Foucault posits that the earliest tronomer who discovers a new star The very fact that the origins of sa- sacred texts were authorless, their may name it but does not conjure cred texts were lost in history, their origins lost in ancient history (the Vedas, the Gospels, etc.). The very The very anonymity of the text served as a certain kind of authentication. anonymity of the text served as a certain kind of authentication. The it.) Facts were universal and thus authors either composites or anon- author's name was symbolic, rarely eternally preexisiting. ymous, gave them their authority. 4 attributable to an individual. (The The gospels in their purest form 5 Gospel of Luke, for instance, is a By the 18th century, Foucault sug- were public domain. Any work diversity of texts gathered under gests, the situation had reversed: to be done, and any arguments the rubric of Luke, someone who literature was authored and science to have, were interpretive. The may indeed have lived and written became the product of anonymous authors referred to in the Statute parts, but not the totality, of what objectivity. When authors came to were living, breathing — and ap- we now think of as the complete be punished for their writing — i.e. parently highly litigious — beings. work.) when a text could be transgressive The law granted them authority — the link between author and text over the meaning and use of their Scientific texts, at least through was firmly established. own words. the Renaissance, demanded an author's name as validation. Far The codification of ownership Ownership of the text, and the au- from objective truth, science was over a text is often dated to the thority granted to authors at the ex- based in subjective invention and adoption of the Statute of Anne pense of the creative reader, fueled the authority of the scientist. This (1709) by the British Parliament, much of the 20th century's obses- changed with the rise of the scien- generally considered the first sion with authorship. Post-struc- tific method. Scientific discoveries real copyright act. The first line turalist reading of authorship tends and mathematical proofs were no of the law is revealing: "Whereas to critique the prestige attributed to longer in need of authors because Printers, Booksellers, and other the figure of the author and to suggest or they were perceived as discovered Persons, have of late frequently truths rather than authored ideas. The scien- taken the Liberty of Printing... Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors... to The meaning of the word itself has shifted significantly over time. their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their speculate about a time after his fall from grace. in the manner a scientist reveals a natural in principle they are irreducible. "truth." But what is most peculiar In other words, they establish a Postmodernity turns on what and revealing in Müller-Brock- principle." Fredric Jameson identified as a mann's writing is his reliance on "fragmented and schizophrenic tropes of submission: the designer The reaction to that drive for an decentering and dispersion" of the submits to the will of the system, irreducible theory of design is well subject. Decentered text — a text dark implications of Barthes' theory, forgoes personality and withholds documented. On the surface at that is skewed from the direct line note Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott interpretation. least, contemporary designers were of communication from sender to Miller, were refashioned into a "ro- moving from authorless, scientific receiver, severed from the author- mantic theory of self-expression." In his introduction to Compendi- text — in which inviolable visual ity of its origin, a free — floating um for Literates, which attempts a principles were carefully revealed element in a field of possible After years in the somewhat thank- highly formal dissection of writing, through extensive visual research significations — figures heavily in less position of the faceless facilita- Karl Gerstner claims about the — toward a more textual position constructions of a design based in tor, many designers were ready to organization of his book that "all in which the designer could claim reading and readers. But Kather- speak out. Some designers may be the components are atomic, i.e. some level of ownership over the ine McCoy's prescient image of eager to discard the internal affairs of formalism — to borrow Paul de The very anonymity of the text served as a certain kind of authentication. Man's metaphor — and branch out Theory is complicated, so my design is complicated. to the foreign affairs of external designers moving beyond problem politics and content. By the '70s, message. (This at the time literary solving and by "authoring addi- design began to discard some of theory was trying to move away 6 tional content and a self-conscious the scientistic approach that held from that very position.) But some 7 critique of the message, adopt- sway for several decades. (As early of the basic, institutional features ing roles associated with art and as the '20s, Trotsky was labeling of design practice have a way of literature," is often misconstrued. formalist artists the "chemists of getting tangled up in zealous at- Rather than working to incorpo- art.") That approach was evident in tempts at self-expression. The idea rate theory into their methods of the design ideology that preached of a decentered message does not production, many selfproclaimed strict adherence to an eternal grid necessarily sit well in a profession- deconstructivist designers literally and a kind of rational approach al relationship in which the client illustrated Barthes' image of a to design.