“Authorship has become a popular term in graphic design circles, especially in those at the edges of the profession: the design academies and the murky territory between design and art. The word has an important ring to it, with seductive connotations of origination and agency. But the question of how designers become authors is a difficult one. And exactly who qualifies and what authored design might look like depends on how you define the term and determine admission into the pantheon.” Michael Rock: The Designer As Author
What is the role of a Graphic Designers role in relation to the authorship of an industry? Andrew’s lecture focused on this in particular, and answered the question of whether or not a Graphic designer is purely just a designer or the author of work as well. In the modern sphere of how the industry works, the designer doesn’t just make things look aesthetically pleasing, yet it required to write the content and have the knowledge and facts that the brief or client asks for. A one man wolf pack, if you will, a man of all traits, a single mother who washes and dries! We have to do it all! So do they get the recognition or do they focus on one or the other?
Andrew showed us an example of Graff found in one of the LCC toilet cubicles that was done by a student. It said: ‘They wipe the walls to clean our pen, but creative students wlil strike again’. This image and line struck me deep. To me it implied how authority and law will always try restrain e from creative expression, yet we will continue to be free as we please.
Artists and photographers have to mood the divide between groups. They are required to eliminate ownership and authorship, whilst simultaneously trying to bridge the divide. They are the ones who connect literature and art.
Andrew proceeds to discuss the ‘author as a producer theory’. This is what changed the industry of design within the last 50 years. He explains the theory by stating that the designer is a thinker and not just a visualizer. Your reader is also involved in the construction of meaning.
*’Indexhibit’ – Daniel Eatock, Jeffery Vaska, 2006 (Big brother artist)
*’Tree of codes’ – jonathan saffron foer, publisher: visual editions.
Q: After all this, do you see yourself as an author or designer? Aren’t they often the same?
A: I see myself as someone who makes things. Definitions have never done anything but constrain.
Safron cut out words from an original book to change it into a work of art. This instantly involves the designer with the technical part of visualizing the text and writing in a different way, thus being the brains and thinker behind this piece.
* ‘The life and opinions of Tristam Shandry’ – Gentleman Laurence Stern, Designed by a practice for everyday life, publisher: visual editions.
‘I wrote not to be fed, but to be famous’
This is an excellent form of ‘visual writing’, yet wasn’t always perceived this way. It was previously called a folly in 1760 as the audience and societies then didn’t understand it. It contains many visual tricks and illusions that the normal eye wasn’t used to. It broke the rules and norms, thus being immensely praised up until today, and especially now.
* ‘white painting (seven panel) , Robert Rauschenberg, 1951, oil on canvas .
The piece that I was most intrigued with that Andrew showed us was this. This piece is all about ‘silence’ and white space. Can silence be a sound? Rauschenberg, in my opinion most certainly proves that it can be here. I am very much compelled to this piece as white space is noise to me. You don’t necessarily need many things and colours to convey an emotion. In this case, I believe that the saying ‘less is more’ is very much accurate and connected to this piece. ‘His intention was to have a non-intention’, quotes John Cage who was a musician and composer. He was so inspired by this piece that he composed a 4 minute and 33 second piece to accompany Rauschenberg’s ‘white painting’ piece. Cage was inspired to pursue the correlating sound of silence. He says Buddhism and the idealizations and practice of Zen inspired it. White can project meaning and he masters it here.
This evolved to become more than a painting. It proved to be psychological on many levels; it was a ‘non-intentional’ collaboration and piece by these artists. Andrew reminded us that this was all at a time when abstract expression was ascending in New York, yet was still very daring and controversial. It was most certainly a revolutionary moment in the movement of art and design. The White painting shocked the audience: The art world thought it was almost a scandal.
Overall, I enjoyed this lecture very much. It made me connect to it on a personal level and reflect these ideas to where I stand as a thriving (and very much amateur) graphic designer. We aren’t here to visualize our thoughts through images and type. It is far more technical and deeper than that. We are the thinkers at the same time. Every brief is a challenge, and the most important thing is to keep pushing your boundaries and to have fun with it.
makissasmeeton 