Introduction

Special introduction, Reading I: Discourse and Authorship in Design Practice by Ossi Kannosto, 24 Oct 2021.

Chapter 2: Authority, ownership, originality (p. 29–54) (25 pages) from Bennett, Andrew (2005). The Author. Routledge. Rock, Michael (1996): Designer as Author

What follows is a special introduction for meeting one. In this introduction I will bring forward my ideas of authorship that arose from the texts by Andrew Benett and Michael Rock. Additionally I will comment on the existing introductions and summaries written by my group members Jen, Aleksandra and Kai and participate in dialogue between our writings to make up for absence at the first group meeting.

I will start my writing by defining who is an author and how I personally view authorship in general and what does the discussion bring to mind? So who indeed is an author? Kai describes in their text their idea of authorship in design as follows: “I see a graphic author as anyone who creates their own content with some sort of originality in it, even though the content could consist of references and there wouldn’t be anything actually written or created for this piece by the designer. But it is still curated by the designer, so therefore they are the authors of their work.” Kai talks about graphic authors in their introduction but I think their view of authorship applies to authorship as a common term as well. You are the author of your story even if it is just your version of another. All stories have been told already, creativity is in how we arrange the existing components together. As Michael Rock wrote in his text “a movie is not about the story it is about how the story is told”.

In his text Andrew Benett begins by telling about the history of authorship. When it comes to old written relics of the past such as Homeros Ilias and Odyssey or the bible, the authors names have had mostly a symbolic meaning representing an authority which legitimizes the written word in the eyes of the reader especially when the author has been as high of an authority as “god themselves”. Also the name of the author ensures that they can be held accountable for their creation. The existence of an author was and is therefore important to the public as a way to identify continuation and the person behind the text.

The way how people view authorship today differs... or rather the term has more meanings to it than just proof of quality, responsibility and legitimacy. The meaning that I'm talking about is ownership as well as identity. An author has created their work for a reason whether that reason was self-expression or client based demand. As an author you have rights for your own creation and a relationship with it and to it. The piece of original content has its Intrinsic value but it also represents the person that created it. A book or a novel for example tells a story that the author has written for the audience to interpret but at the same time the parts of the writer is revealed to the assumed reader. What i'm trying to get to is that the relationship between the product and its author goes both ways. When talking about whether a designer is an author we could at the same time think about the relationship between the work and the creator to better understand the nature of authorship. The author cares about their title of authorship because it brings them publicity in the eyes of the so-called masses. The author wants that they are seen as the creator of their work to gain recognition and credit for their work. At the same time authorship is a proof of rights to one's creation. Authorship is given, earned and chosen. Chosen because usually the author chooses to present their real identity as the author if they qualify for it. This is not always the case. For an individual designer, authorship could be viewed as a self-brand that gets them work and makes it possible to make a living. The need to be seen as an author is then not just based on ego. Being an author matters, but it is mostly seen as a title for individual creators which promotes an idea of single geniuses. A piece from Jens introduction: “This brings with it the question; how much does authorship have to do with the individual? And, in a culture that is increasingly collaborative, is authorship in the sense of ownership still relevant?”

To give an answer to Jens question I personally think by the definition of authorship that as a term it refers strongly to an individual as a standard, but it is equally a term that applies to a collective as well. One way to interpret Authorship is that it means an originator or a creator whose authorship determines responsibility for the creation. By this definition a single author fits in the picture as well as a group for if something controversial slips through a design agency's filters then everyone involved must be held accountable not just the one who suggested it first. Authorship and ownership still exist in a collaborative environment but then those qualities have been lifted from the shoulders of an individual to the name of a collective.

Jen wrote in her introduction that the idea of individual authorship seems a bit outdated to her. She also made a point about the internet and social media diluting the existing concept of individual authorship. This led her to the following question: “Perhaps authorship is now something which can be attributed to the many?” The Internet and social media have certainly given voice to most people in the world. It has made it possible for people to share knowledge and experience in both good and bad. Recent discussions on the features and impact of social media to our society have brought up mainly the negative sides of the story. Spreading of fake news and allowing hate speech and racism. Authorship is a concept that is often associated with legitimacy; parties such as publishing houses or news regulate and filter published material and authors to ensure that the material shared represents common values. I believe that it is good that not everyone participates in discussions or decision making at least with a system like social media. My answer and version of Jens question would be “Should authorship be attributed to the many?” Then again social media and common accessibility to authorship brings out quite a good view of the world and the human experience as a whole which I think is a valuable thing in itself to understand the complexity of views and ideals and where they come from. As Darth Sidious, the dark lord of the sith ones said: “ If one is to understand the great mystery one must study all its aspects”.

In her summary Jen said that in the meeting they discussed the relationship of truth and authorship. Kai made a point in their summary that history is full of inaccurate information by authors who altered or manipulated information to their benefit or interest. A good example from their summary is that of Kalevala and Elias Lönroot. Lönroot claimed that Kalevala was tied to finnish tradition and heritage  when in fact it is purely part of Carelian culture origin. Earlier I said that the word “author” is often associated with the word legitimacy but this is just a delusion that comes with the branding of the term of an author. In reality authority is not a guarantee of anything, which is why when claims are made they must be backed with reliable sources and the person behind authority must be evaluated.

Aleksandra in her introduction text was pondering the topic of spoken cultures and traditions before. Aleksandra feels that it is “more natural and valuable that stories or texts would evolve over time, when passed on through generations”. She is then  introducing an idea of a different system of thought considering authorship that would “be something that would be flexible, facilitating change and evolution - and bringing multiple people’s voices together instead of singular “authors”.” I understood that Aleksandra means a system where past knowledge would be recognised and valued as a continuation that leads to the current version of the subject. Like a living piece of data that keeps on living and building itself. A system where the current layer of the “story” is not final but a product of the past that keeps evolving and the process is held in value and not so much the product. Creation would be the work of many voices instead of one which it always is. Mainly I think that this kind of thinking Is already very much recognised in modern society in the background at least. When it comes to evaluating a story by a single author we are always  evaluating the current version of a story that has been told many times before. In this discussion the concept of an author is a representation of this version of the story. The recognition of all past versions in relation to the newest would be quite demanding. The author oftentimes might not even know all the factors in life that inspired them to create the story. Of Course in the modern digital world we leave traces of data behind and information is stored more effectively too. It would be quite interesting to see a program for example that supports a system that Aleksandra was talking about where somebody says something and somebody continues to evolve it further and somebody takes on from there. This actually reminds me of a feature in tiktok where a person uploads a video and then another person uploads their video as a response or continuation of the first one. This way people have been able to produce quite impressive musical or narrative creations for tiktok for people to see. So Aleksandras idea is actually in use already in some form. Link below for an example.

https://youtu.be/lQr-MMn639Q

While reading through the texts I was wondering why is the discussion important whether a designer is an author or not? We as art and design students seem to view a designer as a creator If a designer is agreed to be a creator, wouldn't the word “designer” then be a synonym for the word author? I think the logical question in the design business would be how far do individual designers' rights as authors go? Authorship as a concept is pretty straight forward when it comes to an individual author but what then when a designer is a part of a group or a collective who gets to be the author? Kai said in their summary of meeting one that they gave the following example of a collective that he is currently a part of: “we want to make sure that everyone gets their opportunity to be seen and we want to portray everyone equally on our social media and so on.” I think that Kais example is a one of a healthy work environment where everyone is counted in and cared about in a professional sense. Usually in the case of design collectives or design houses I think the group as whole will be mentioned either as individuals with titles that resemble the area where they have contributed to or just as members of a collective effort. Sometimes projects use just a name of the collective or an organization. When it comes to the latter, the collective does not promote anyone as better than the other when it comes to published works. On the website of the collective there are usually descriptions of each member and their area of expertees. Job titles such as art director however might suggest a bigger role in projects but that is just based on one's knowledge of the field and our idea of the title. I think the best way to treat designers as authors in collective efforts is to separate areas of responsibility so that it is more clear what people have done and if it is harder to track the creative process everyone should be promoted as authors. Sometimes there are instances where the art director gets the credit of the project and a writer gets solely recognition of the children's picture books even though text is only half of the experience. All and all there should be respect and recognition for the efforts of all parties involved.

In this text I have been talking about reasons why a designer can be seen as an author, but Michael Rock in his text made some pretty solid points on why designer is close to an author but can't really be held as one. The discussion is really similar to me as the debate whether a designer is an artist or not and the points are more or less the same. Michael Rock said that the problem with authorship is that it gives too much control to the lone artist. and discourages interpretation. An artist is closer to the term author as they create their art for their own need and desire to do so for reasons known to them. Designer on the other hand is a professional who creates design to fill a need determined usually by the client or society. After all this talk about designer as author I feel as said in the text that authorship applies to a designer but a designer is not an author, designer is designer.

A really cool and important viewpoint that I got from the text was that even though a designer is not an author a designer should still consider themselves as one to be mindful of their voice, responsibility and the value of their work. Through thinking of design from different perspectives one can expand the meanings of these terms as a whole and find new ways on approaching their creativity and practise. The word designer might not be a synonym for author but in my mind they still mean the same thing.

Joke as an extra:

Designer an author and an artist walked into a bar. They arrived at the counter and ordered a bottle of wine. Designer looked at the bottle and said: “This bottle needs a label that better represents its taste.” Designer then left the bar to go work on their idea. Author picked up the bottle and thought: “I'm going to write a story based on the taste of this delicious drink”. Author then left the bar to go work on their story. Artist looked at the bottle, tasted it, drank it all and said: “a cow made of car doors”.

Summary

Summary, Reading III: The (New) Materiality of Design Ossi Kannosto 22/10

Morning in Rotterdam. It was raining when I woke up. Water droplets ran down the steamy window like long hair. I showered, brushed my teeth and fried two eggs for myself as usual. My friend was attending a lecture. I ate while listening to the YLE morning news broadcast about covid certificates and the public's opinion about them. Calm morning just how I like it. Damn good coffee! I felt inspired to draw something new with ink, maybe a comic even. It reminded me of a dream I had last night of two kids chasing me in the woods with knives on their hands. Dreadful yet I don't remember feeling any emotions while running in the midst of long trees with fear on my face and death in my mind.

Two hours after…

I opened my laptop and read through our introductions to our readings. Soon after our third and last meeting began in zoom. We warmed up by exchanging our experiences from the past few days and went on to discuss our readings. First we discussed standardization, its effects and meanings to society and our practise. Kai asked if we thought that standardization is a more capitalistic or socialistic phenomenon. We discussed standards in different fields of society and whether they were necessary or obsolete. We discussed standards in our design practise and how to break the system and find new methods of working beyond the standard norms. I asked a question related to this: “What types of methods, feel or energy would you want to involve in your design methods? How could you expand your thinking of methods of working beyond graphic design artefacts such as softwares?” In our discussion design softwares was the core of industry standards in design. We shared the appreciation for physical approaches to design combining and modifying it with digital tools. Kai told us about Glitch art and disrupting digital files by changing parts of the code resulting in new and unexpected results. I then sidetracked us into discussing modern architecture overall and how it reflects digital methods of creation. A few topics as questions that I added to our discussion were: “Could socialising be part of the mondaine design process?”, and “What do you want your working life to look like? How can you make it happen?”. We talked a bit about the pros and cons of stable working hours, stable salary and routine by contrast to freelance way of life. Overall I thought our discussions were quite engaging and interesting.

Thoughts on the course...

I was a bit sad that the course was over as I enjoyed our meeting discussions a lot. From the start of the course I felt stiff with approaching theory studies and I felt like I was just getting warmed up for reading and writing towards the end. I really appreciated this course to be the first one of our Masters studies as I think it united us as a group and encouraged us to get to know each other through conversations as well as introducing the theory side of studies after the more practise based bachelors. All and all a great start.

Summary

Summary, Reading III: The (New) Materiality of Design by Jen Sanderson 22/10

Our final reading group meeting was held on Zoom, it was sort of a feeling of a full circle as the first meeting was also held on Zoom. It was interesting to reflect on this and to think about how my thoughts and feelings around design discourse have changed over the course of this class. We began today’s meeting with a quick catch-up, as usual, before launching into our thoughts on the readings. The clear starting place and warm-up act was a lengthy discussion on standardisation in its many forms, both positive and negative. Points of note included the debate around standardisation as a capitalist tool and a socialist tool and the distinctions between standards as a means for monopoly and financial gain as opposed to standards for ‘helping people’, such as medical. It was clear that the origins of the standards are as important as looking into the standards themselves. A really engaging chat ensued about the idea of ‘industry standards’ and breaking free from these by way of ditching common software for a different approach; we each shared alternate methods of working. Kai’s talk about glitch art really captured my imagination. Our discussions traversed between specific ideas from the readings to anecdotes from our own practices; overall a very inspiring meeting.

Summary

Summary, Reading II: Design and Knowledge by Jen Sanderson 22/10

This week, we met at Kai’s workshop in Pasila, it was actually the first time that I have used the railway here and the excitement of a new place set my mind up for our reading group meeting. Whilst sipping on tea, discussions began with each of our initial impressions of the readings. Taking the idea of the designer as a craftsperson, it was interesting to share our designerly backgrounds and how/why we got to where we are. It was with agreement that we all regard ourselves as craftspeople and the notion of ‘purpose’ came into this frequently. Later on in the meeting, we talked about the idea of advertisement as a corporate/capitalist beast and the manipulation and power involved. We then, however, delved deeper into this sense of power. Ossi suggested that this manipulation may not always be a bad thing. What if we are persuading an audience to do something ‘good’? It really got me thinking about socially responsible design and how we could implement this into our practices, slightly reminiscent of the lecture in which we discussed discursive design. At this point, the readings are beginning to make more sense in relation to each other and to the main themes of authorship and knowledge.  

Introduction

Reading III: The (New) Materiality of Design

Kai Nordfors, 12.10.2021

In both readings the theme is practical design. Especially in Raff’s text all themes are concentrating around practical design theory and how to make more efficient design. In Vossoughian’s text we are introduced to a brief history of standardisation in design and the main themes are capitalism, utilitarianism, structure. After reading both texts I started to think that is it possible to design anything without standardisation and by own rules? Yes I could break the rules and make something look good and even work fine without obeying the standard rules of for example poster making. Or is it simply human nature that we need an explanation for everything and in that order we need common rules as much as we need them to keep everything together?

In Vossoughian’s text there is a depiction of the history of universal standards which are driven by capitalism. There is also an example about Nazi era standardisation in which the main concept was surveillence of the nation. That happend at the same time in the USSR where the idea to standardize everything was driven by socialism (which failed and became dictatorship). Could there be a world without standardisation if socialism without surveillance by dictatorship could work? Or is it simply impossible to avoid standardisation? Or would it be a total chaos if there would be no standards and do standards equal rules? In my opinion there would be total chaos if all of the sudden all standards would disappear and people would still try to create ones. But there are also a lot of harmful standards that are driven by capitalism and ableism and biases in general, like beauty standards, body image standards, standards for work performance, etc. These standards are implicitly or absolutely straight forward integrated indesign. There are standards that are making design practical and just easier to understand and create because there is some sort of a frame to it. And that kind of standardisation is much needed, but not always mandatory. But the harmful standards that I listed earlier are all depending on a designer themself and only them can make a difference. It’s once again a question of ethically responsible designing. Russel: “New technologies express and advance cultural and political values”. By the quote I want to stress that there is hope in getting rid of these harmful standards and moving forward.

Raff’s text is a theoretical explanation of standardised graphic design and how things “should” work. At first the text made me a little bit frustrated. Why should things work a certain way? Yes I have to know the rules before breaking them, but should I obey them? But then I understood that in order for my design to be accessible and readable I have to know the rules and have an understanding of how to make my work more accessible and readable. In that sense, yes I need those rules. I need to understand the structure of the poster Actor-Network theory in order to make potentially the best poster for every person to encounter it in the best possible way. Earlier I said that standards can be ableist and that is true, but they can also enable accessible design. “Designing a poster, then, means designing a cognitive system”.

Introduction

Introduction, Reading III: The (New) Materiality of Design by Jen Sanderson, 11 Oct 2021

When reading this week’s two texts, I began by trying to understand the concept of New Materiality, which I had been briefly introduced to during my bachelor’s degree. At the time, it completely baffled me, so I was apprehensive about reading the texts. Despite this, I found them both to be quite accessible and thought provoking.

Nader Vossoughian, Workers of the world, conform!

I found Vossoughian’s text interesting in its extensive discussion of Ostwald’s standardisation mission. Understanding further the story and reasoning behind the streamlining of such things as paper sizing (a fact I had overlooked before this moment) and building specifications/ shipping container dimensions opened my mind to a key part of the modern world’s development over the last few centuries. Though Vossoughian touches on the power that standardisation has brought to a select few large corporations, it was hard for me to ignore the fact that many of these measures brought design to the masses. For example, before print production and streamlined methods of book production, the book was an item of luxury and a symbol of class division. The industrial revolution, therefore, brought forth a certain degree of democratisation to design as a result. I suppose this got me pondering the idea that if there was no standardisation at all, would everything be a one-off? Surely that would not be efficient/there would be catastrophic effects in terms of distribution of goods?

It cannot be overlooked, however, that Ostwald’s goals left no room for different formats, methods, or styles. It is troubling to me that many aspects of culture have been lost to this ‘one size fits all’ approach. The first example that comes to mind for some reason is the dying craftsmanship of thatched roofing – the craft of layering tonnes of straw to create a completely watertight roof, most common in rural areas. The standardised building specifications have increased efficiency and therefore overtaken traditional and more labour-intensive methods such as thatching. The impact of tight design constrictions brought about by standardisation and more specifically mass production also made me think further about this idea of craftmanship. Standardisation favours the simple, and therefore disregards the ornate, does this leave any room for the value of craft and process?

Vossoughian also discusses the term ‘immaterial labour’ in response to Ostwald’s principles of standardisation and the blurring of the line between labour and life. I felt that the idea was extremely relevant to a lot of today’s working models and suggests that despite the guise of flexibility brought by these efficient methods, they largely benefit the agenda of industry rather than the worker. We may question how we value labour in the creative industry? What about costs that are not monetary, such as risk or emotional well-being? This is particularly relevant to designers’ practices as valuing the creative process can be very difficult as it is ever-changing.

Jan-Henning Raff, Theories to understand graphic design in use: the example of posters

Raff’s text was very theoretical, though quite easily digestible. I found particular interest in the explanation of Latour’s Actor-Network Theory in relation to graphic design. I think that this theory aligns very well with the notion of new materiality, firstly in the way that both human and non-human actors can act equally and secondly in reference to the fact that everything is part of an omnipresent network. A useful anecdote arose whilst watching a YouTube video on Actor Network Theory after reading Raff’s text in which about the mobile phone as a non-human actor. The narrator highlighted the importance of the mobile phone to our social lives and relationships, and how some connections we have would not exist without our phones. As a result, we are asked, ‘doesn’t that give the phone as much agency as us?’. The example really struck me, artefacts and ‘non-human actors’ really do have a great deal of influence and power over society.

A little information/context on thatching for reference:

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/master-craftsman-eddie-black-keeping-a-dying-art-of-thatching-alive-30524900.html

Introduction

Reading III: The (New) Materiality of Design

Ossi Kannosto 11.10.2021.

Vossoughian,  Nader  (2017). Workers of the World, Conform!  (6 pages)

By reading Nader's text “Workers of the world, conform!” I've come to realize again that objects, features and structures in society, culture and the world around us have a beginning and creator and that they are not just a part of some eternal order of things. Everything is man made and built by a person. Within every structure there is always a creator behind it. My “realization” is of course rather obvious, but it is not something you remember every day. Things that are have been made by someone for reasons clear to them. As arguably nothing is divine, hence everything can be questioned especially if it was designed for a certain era and for a certain generation. Does it have a place in this particular time that we now live in? Kai brought up a point in our last meeting that we are all educated by dead people and mostly by dead men. Heritage of knowledge is of course an important part of learning and development as the saying “standing on a giants shoulders” lets us understand but what if that giant stood for things that don't apply or should not be accepted by modern culture anymore. Point of my rambling! Stay aware and critical. Things that are and especially things that are shit don't have to be we can know how to make them better for our time and age.

It was really interesting to learn about how the development of standardized paper sizes affected society and culture in different aspects. The text described that the commonly agreed paper sizes changed furniture, architecture, and working methods. Makes me think about the meme format that presents an invention that was developed in a certain year and how people lived before that time. A silly example would be “gravity was invented in 1687” and then an image shows people floating before 1687. Anyway a question that I want to ask in our upcoming meeting session is as follows: How is standardization reflected in today's society and how does it affect us as designers?

“While we recognize how the assembly line molded contemporary factories and those who labor in them, we hardly understand how A4 paper molded contemporary buildings and those who construct them. This is because standardization helped transform professions like architecture into endeavors of calculation and computation... Today, architectural drawing is effected through a series of algorithmic protocols, the drafting table having been supplanted by a computer interface that plugs into a programmable black box.”

Previous quote in Nader's text reminded me that lately I have been paying attention to modern architecture and new buildings that have been rising in different parts of Helsinki. Sometimes I feel that modern architecture represents and reflects the tools of design rather than a specific ism or genre. Many things are possible now that weren't possible before. Of Course most buildings that have caused me to think have had visual solutions in them that I personally don't like at all. One example is the new centre of Kivistö which I think is a good example of digitalized practise and methods presenting themselves in a building. Color palettes and hues don't try to cover their digital feel. Especially the use of bright colours mixed with concrete walls is a trend I can't stand. Everything looks calculated and cold and tasteless in their attempt to be interesting and different. My humble opinion as a hater.

The talk about the world brain and universally adopted standardization made me wonder what the world would be like if all nations and cultures abandoned their differences and characteristics within the realms of politics, bureaucracy, science and communications etc. To contribute efficiently to “fight” for humanity as a species. Whose interest would be served and how would it change our lives on a micro scale? Through unified agendas and effort great things could be achieved such as fighting against climate change and working together to find solutions to world hunger and energy crisis. On the flip side of the coin, rights of an individual would probably suffer a great deal when the bigger picture matters more than personal experience. The morality and  goal of that kind of unified world would be greatly determined by its power structure. Thinking of a world like this makes you either think about a dystopian world or a utopia. Would you like to live in a standardized world brain world?

Raff, Jan Henning (2019). Theories to understand graphic design in use: the example of posters. In Triggs, Teal & Atzmon, Leslie (eds.). Graphic Design Reader. (8 pages)

In the modern graphic design field softwares and digital tools dominate how design is being made in practise. Softwares such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are practical, fast and easy to learn tools for working. Regardless of variety within software engines and user experience, these artifacts of the age of digitalization determine a lot about how and what kind of design is and can be made with them. In the end of their text Henning suggests that their text can be an introduction and an invitation to research design. What are our methods of design work? How can we expand our view on what design work can be? In the VCD Bachelors program we experimented with different kinds of workshops that involved design with candy, ink, folio, potatoes and elements of nature. All of the previous examples were a little silly and I don't think any of them could actually be used in practise but they have made clear that design does not have to be usual or even practical. What types of methods, feel or energy would you want to involve in your design methods? How could you expand your thinking of methods of working beyond graphic design artefacts such as softwares?

One time in class when we were asked what design practise means to us I wrote that Design practise is walking, drinking coffee, sketching, going to the toilet, talking to people, socialising, and sometimes even designing. What I meant with this is that I think that the process of designing expands far beyond the actual sitting down and moving the pen. Social activity theory in Hennings text reminded me of this. Based on this I would like to delve deeper into how social activity contributes into design work and is it beneficial and something that us designers should take into consideration. Could socialising be part of the mondaine design process?

Extra.

Last summer I was part of a performative conversation tour with a character called Panda. Panda represented a person who was entangled in the complexities of modern work. Panda could not see any difference between work and free time. Talking with him was hectik and scattered experience even though Panda was very polite and frankly quite a funny person. He brought us as a  group to chat a little about “the old work” and “the new work” Old work meaning stable work hours, scheduled coffee breaks and sacred free time after. Work used to be sexy and a matter of pride. Today the terms work and free time dont have the same difference in meaning that they used to. People work more from home and they might be doing multiple jobs at the same time all remotely without brakes.

My moment with Panda made me think about my current working ethics and thoughts on what I personally want from work as an illustration oriented designer. How do I want my working life to be and how can I start building it so that it resembles and reflects my hopes and wishes. What do you want your working life to look like? How can you make it happen?

Summary

Reading II: Design and Knowledge

Ossi Kannosto, 5.10.2021

Heads up for readers! This text has two parts: the prology (Morning page) and the actual meeting summary. The summary is based on my fast and messy handwriting and morning memory.

It was a rainy Tuesday morning. I woke up to the melodic sound of my phone's alarming sound. Not yet, I thought and set a new alarm time to my phone. I dreamed of a big cottage house on the mountains where snow was covering everything the eye could see. My friends were there with me all dressed in thick winter clothings. We stood our knees deep in snow and… I heard the alarm ringing, this time even louder, I thought. I went back to sleep. My friends were now holding guns and they were walking towards a big house where we were supposed to sleep. I knew that guns and a lonely cabin meant a struggle for survival. Were we hiding from something? Then I was inside the building. Only now the warm wooden walls had changed into wet brick walls with moss covering some parts of it. I could see the streets from the cracked window glass. Someone was walking in tall grass… I woke up again. Okay now I will begin to start to plan my day, I thought. I'm going to get up and go brush my teeth and then… I was standing on a field of snow. suddenly I felt the ground trembling as I watched a huge snow cloud descending from the mountains towards me. I needed to warn my… I looked at my phone and realised I had forgotten to put the alarm back on. Typical I thought. I got up, ate, got dressed and walked out of my appartement. The driver yelled at me when I got up from the seat to leave the tram without pressing the button. I was confused, don't trams always stop at every stop? I was a bit offended that I had been yelled at but I thought it was also kind of funny. Sometimes people are weird and difficult. I arrived soon after to Kai´s workshop in pasila near the mall of Tripla. I was glad to meet people in the morning. Kai gave us tea before the talk. I chose a tea bag with the name zebra printed on it. We discussed a little about teas and tea bag labels and we thought it was absurd that Rooibos tea that was branded broadly with an african theme was represented by names of stereotypical animals that dont even represent all the countries in africa such as zebra, giraffe, elephant and a crocodile. I bet there could have been some better and more creative themes in the whole continent than just…

We started our conversation with a question: Is all visual knowledge? We thought that everything visual has its own meanings and that they transmit different ideas to everyone. Visuality relies heavily on the interpretation of an individual as mentioned in the text by Drucker. Some things have solid, simple and universal meanings too. Is visual knowledge overrated? Is visuality and perception and their importance partly creations of the capitalistic society in which we live in? We were also briefly talking about the part of the Druckers text that mentioned profiles of people drawn which took me into a brief trip of thinking about racism and race theory that was enforced by differences in people's appearances. It is a good example of a very flawed and horrible interpretation of visual information. The trip got me thinking about the bad sides of visual interpretations. That got me thinking whether there are some subconscious darksides appearing  in the commercial world of today and what things should or should not be conveyed visually? There are obvious answers and some more complicated either way i for some reason didn't bring this up in the conversation it was a brief thought and i think I forgot to mention it. Next we discussed whether or not design has to be capitalistick or commercial focused. Kai brought up Ellun kanat graphic studio who have created interesting and out of the box designs in different fields and contexts that are available for minority groups or make you think things differently. Through the conversation I remembered my experiences with Todellisuuden tutkimuskeskus (reality research center) who arrange all kinds of interesting performances and events that make you think differently about the reality we live in. Link under the text. After this a question was raised. Do you think that visual language has rules and are patterns necessary? Could visual interpretation and perception be more fluid and free? Like in psychedelics when ideas are overlapping and old meanings and information are evolving and developing new perspectives and meanings. We thought that visual information indeed has patterns and rules that are universal. The previous example brought up the way how dreams work. In dreams, ideas, memories, emotions and themes find new connections to each other in a very chaotic way. In a sense dreams are a place of hyper creativity. The patterns of visual information are a natural way for people to adapt and survive in new environments and thus patterns are important. At the end I asked what we think about design and our way of practise? Do we think of ourselves as craftsmen? An answer that united us all was the idea that we all wanted to find a way to do our art with a purpose. We thought that the creation process and practise were the centre of our trade and that we dont use design as a tool for something else; the design itself is what is important to us and thus we think of ourselves as craftsmen.

https://todellisuus.fi

Notes

-question visual knowledge

-everything visual everything written

subject interpretive

visual communication does not count as scientific information

is visual sense overrated

questioning the text

information is what we see

that's not true?

Visual information can be deceiving

Responsible design social

keep responsibility in mind design social

critical sense

useful design for specific people

ellun kanat ethical different ways of design

todellisuuden tutkimuskeskus

Do you think visual languages have rules?

hallucinating gets you rid of patterns

Flow of information

same as in dreams

patterns are crusial for survival and adaptations

patterns are images and ideas that we recycle

what does design mean as apractise craftsmanship

I want to do my art with a purpose

Final assignment discussion.

Introduction

Reading II: Design and Knowledge

Ossi Kannosto, 5.10.2021

Part I Johanna Drucker Graphesis Visual Forms of Knowledge Production

Visual information is probably the oldest form of non spoken communication that humanity has used. Cave paintings, hieroglyphs and handcrafted symbols of practise and power tell the story of a culture of visually stored knowledge that has developed in the earliest of days. When talking about senses and perception in the western society most people would pick sight as the first and most important sense to them and rightfully so. Everything in modern society has been designed to the service of sight. But this isn't necessarily the absolute state of the human experience in different countries, societies or communities. Even though visual communication is the most common way of transmitting knowledge it isn't the best way for everyone. An interesting question for a visual communication student is to ask: what is non-visual communication? And even better: what is non visual design? How can a designer contribute in the development of design communication that is directed to non visual people? These are some questions that I would like to explore later on in our reading group meeting.

What does my design transmit to the world? That is a question that came to my mind when thinking about the impact of design and commercial fields to society that we live in. Advertisement has a deep effect on our mindset and view of the world whether it is about ethnic representation, body image, consumption ideals or political views. Sometimes design that does not intend to have an impact on these things still has it on the mind of a viewer. Of Course a designer should not be a hyper sensitive overthinker because of this. What I am saying is that it is good to be aware of the possible interpretations towards design in specific environments and contexts. In commercials especially and arguably all visual elements are a statement in one way or another. Who are the people in it, what do they say or do, where they are and how they are portrayed. Every shape and color has a symbolic meaning. Often when something has been portrayed in the same way for a long time people start to forget that somebody first came up with this idea and it does not necessarily work in modern society anymore. There is no such thing as a perfect structure that should not be renovated or dismantled in order for there to be a better version of that idea.

Part II The Politics of Truth, Selected Writings of C. Wright Mills.

Design without capitalistic consequences

The man in the middle by C. Wright Mills was quite a grimm view of the role of a designer in america. He of course said himself that in his text he presented the designerism at its worst, as a tool for distributors and companies to sell their products more and more efficiently. As I read the text some dystopian frames from the movie Metropolis flashed before my eyes. Is a designer just a piece of an eternal capitalistic mechanism? In many ways, especially in commercial world design aims to make products more appealing to consumers and to spread ideals. But design can also be so much more, or can it? Design is most commonly thought of as visual communication and the ethicality in it is based only on the ethicality of the product and its manufacturing. But must design always be about marketing even if it was created for the use of commercial corporations and brands. Could design be purely aesthetic, artistick, pleasurable, or function in some other domain than just the capitalistick reality for which it was created. Some suggested ideas of design without capitalistic consequences: Design created for nonprofit organisations, design for pleasure of creation, environmental design such as murals and graffiti, Design that communicates other ideals than commercial values or anti commercial values.

Mills seems to hold craftsmanship as a value in very high esteem. In his text Mills names a few defining features of craftsmanship that are as follows:

In craftsmanship there is no ulterior motive for work other than the product being made and the processes of its creation.

In craftsmanship, plan and performance are unified, and in both, the craftsman is master of the activity and of himself in the process.

Since he works freely, the craftsman is able to learn from his work, to develop as well as use his capacities. His work is thus a means of developing himself as a man as well as developing his skill.

The craftsman’s way of livelihood determines and infuses his entire mode of living. For him there is no split of work and play, of work and culture.

Such an independent stratum of craftsman cannot flourish unless there are publics who support individuals who may not turn out to be first-rate.

I was inspired to think about these presented values and think whether or not they apply in different ways of working in the design field such as a freelancer designer or an industry designer based on my existing knowledge of the subject.

If a designer were to apply all these values to their work what would their practise then look like? A designer would perhaps start their day thinking of what possible designs they would like to create or what they would want to present to the community. They make a few sketches whilst sipping coffee from a mug. Inspiration starts to kick in when the image of creation becomes clearer by each line of a pen. An idea and a plan has been formed and now the process may commence. The designer knows what and how to portray their idea in a way that they themselves want it to be seen. This time they decide to play around with some new features from which they find pleasure and learn a new way of looking at their work. Towards the evening the work begins to be ready and is then published for people to see. Somebody likes their design and wants to buy it for themselves.

My idea of work has been very craftsman-like for a long time. I have created images out of my own reasons and I have earned money by selling them. Recently I have been doing a lot of client based work too, but all of my commissions have had a previous work of my own as an inspiration. So what I'm trying to say is that I guess Mill's idea of craftsmanship sounds very familiar to me as a way of working. Is this an ideal way of thinking about the practise of a designer or can it even be compared to what being a designer is commonly seen and what it means?

Introduction

Introduction, Reading II: Design as Knowledge by Jen Sanderson, 4 Oct 2021

Mills text was an eye-opening reflection on 1950s America and the capitalist hold over communication and cultural experience. The picture that Mills paints is almost dystopian, especially with the epiphany that the only occurrence of someone experiencing “true fact” is “when we become insane”. I feel that this text sheds light upon the impact of wider economic and cultural contexts surrounding the designer. In everyday life we experience “stereotypes of meaning” rather than true fact – this is referred to by Mills as the “second-hand world” in which we live and relates to the fact that all our experiences are guided even subliminally. I guess it is true that, as Mills suggests, communications ‘limit’ our experiences - they are no longer ‘our own’. In the case of censorship and propaganda this is more overt but the same could be said for many commercial and non-commercial design outputs. Is anything we produce truly neutral? This encouraged me to think more about the power of advertising and advertising as the mouthpiece for capitalism – an idea echoed by Steven Heller, who expresses their thoughts on the matter in a very strong manner which I found interesting:

“Advertising is the tool of capitalism, a con that persuades an unwitting public to consume and consume again. Graphic design, by contrast, is an aesthetic and philosophical pursuit that communicates ideas. Advertising is cultural exploitation that transforms creative expression into crass propaganda. Graphic design is a cultural force that incorporates parallel world views. Advertising is hypnotically invasive. Graphic design makes no such claim.”

In response to Mills’ text and the above quote, it may be interesting to pose the question – is all advertising capitalist? Is it all manipulative? And can there be a positive side to this manipulation?

In the case of Drucker’s text, they take an approach centred more on the workings of a visual knowledge or language. They explore the history, features and examples of visual literacy. At first, Drucker makes reference to the idea that “everything that is known can be seen”, which we can no longer accept as true, for many reasons including the very basic fact that not everything is visible. Though, Drucker raises the critical point that visual communication is able to make abstract concepts (power, hierarchy, ideology) visible. Which highlights the flaws in the argument of Thom (cited by Drucker), who states that graphic design is interpretive and “unreliable”. He disregards the long-standing centuries of systems by which visual communication has portrayed knowledge. It seems narrowminded to me that visual communication could be ‘untrue’ just because it is interpretive. See famous information designs, for example, such as Beck’s London Tube map redesign – certainly interpretive, yet miles more successful in communicating a system whilst taking into account accessibility.

In terms of design as knowledge or even as a school of thought, the two texts certainly highlighted the difficult nature of separating the design knowledge and the knowledge associated with the content. Perhaps we need to look at design as a different kind of knowledge, one associated with tangibility and process as well as content. Mills places heavy emphasis on the designer as ‘craftsman’ in direct contrast to the capitalist focus of the beginning of their text. To be a craftsperson gives another dimension to the knowledge associated with design – to regard the process as of the same importance as the end result is a principle I try to uphold in my own practice.

Introduction

Reading II: Design and Knowledge

Kai Nordfors, 3.10.2021

“Visual has served knowledge in many ways across the sciences, arts, and humanities in theoretical and applied domains”. This quote by Ducker got me thinking: how does visual and nonvisual knowledge differ from each other? How about for example people with vision disability? Does their understanding and perception of information differ significantly from those who don’t have a vision disability? Is visual knowledge praised upon other forms of information? On the other hand visual non written language, like pictograms can serve as an irreplaceable tool of communication for example for people with communication disabilities. Sensible layout and typography can serve as a tool for those with dyslexia and who have trouble with reading. And as Ducker explains in the text, visualised narrative has been used as a communication tool long before written language came into existence. It formed from day one, when a human was intelligent enough to record information. Frescoes in churches and facilities as such served as a visual narrative of teaching a story to those who cannot read or write. Once again making an example of christianity here, frescoes on church walls depicted the scenarios from the bible for those who cannot read or write. This kind of visual language has rules as a language itself has rules in it. As Ducker describes in the text, Wassily Kandinsky among other artists studied and depicted visual forms as information and applied own rules to them. 

So is visual knowledge anything without rules? Can visual information exist as a form of information without repedativity and rules? Kandinsky experienced a condition called synesthesia in which couple or more senses collide and a person experiences one sense while receiving information with another sense. For example, I have a type of synesthesia called chromesthesia which means, when I hear a sound (mostly music or ambience) it visualizes in my mind by creating a vivid picture, form, color, texture and movement. It is not a hallucination, the image is totally imaginative in my mind. People can experience other types of synesthesia in which they can taste or smell colors, forms, textures, etc. Or hear a color, form, texture. And so on. For me, my synesthesia has no rules. There is no repedativity in it. But as Kandinsky explains in his work Dot and Line to the Plain, he had some concrete rules to his synesthesia. The certain color always tasted the same and certain letter was always the same color. But this is super subjective and individual how does one experience synesthesia. This got me thinking about my psychedelic experiences on LSD and mushrooms. When I have experienced visuals while tripping on a substance there are obvious rules to my hallucinations. How things are constructed are really repetitive and have a visible pattern to it. But how the hallucination forms and evolves is absolutely random and the flow of the imagery in front of my eyes is so vividly fast I cannot recognize the image as one that I have ever seen before. 

Visual knowledge can be and have for centuries been distorted by colonialism, eugenics and whiteness. The whole world’s map is in distorted proportions and horrible depictions of human’s proportions that define one's ethnicity. Can we trust everything that we see? ARG-games (Alternate Reality Games) can mess with our heads really badly when we think that we have found a hidden message from some organization and then it’s an ARG-game. The wormhole in Interstellar is mathematically so well figured out and so beautifully and originally visualized we watch the scene with a thought that it could be true. The metaphysical visualizations are so possible that we want to believe in them, but yet we cannot prove it to be true. Voynich Manuscript feels so true but yet we cannot prove it to be true. C. Wright Mills says our worlds are second-hand. We believe what we have been taught from a titty sucking age and cannot decide for ourselves yet what to believe. Like in the movie Dogtooth, where in the narrative the family's father is holding his kids basically captive in their own home and misleadingly teaches one thing to be completely another thing. Like a definition of the ocean to be a sofa. In Mills' text is a fragment of capitalism and how merchandise and advertisements distort our vision and understanding of the true world. We are fed propaganda from every side. What is true that we see, we can only decide for ourselves.

Summary

Reading I: Discourse and Authorship in Design Practice

Kai Nordfors, 28.09.2021

We held our meeting via zoom on Sunday morning 26.09. Ossi was absent, but it didn’t affect our conversation that much. We started by discussing Benneth’s and Rock’s texts and what kind of feeling it left on us. We all agreed that Benneth’s work was a bit too heavy to digest. It was more of an historical run and outdated depictions, and maybe too much just irrelevant stuff in general regarding the topic of graphic design. Our conversation formed into a discussion about authorship and it’s meaning. Who is the author in the collaboration? Does the author need to own their copyright in order to be claimed as an author? Is human ego and authorship tied together? We spoke how it would be nice if working would work fluidly, without claiming any authorship to anyone. But is your ego on the way then? Aleksandra brought an example of a person who does music under alter ego character and in that way hides their personality and true identity, making it a bit hard to recognize an authorship to be theirs. I, on other hand, made an example about our collective that I’m part of, where we want to make sure that everyone gets their opportunity to be seen and we want to portray everyone equally on our social media and so on. Then we started to speak about oral culture and how historically inaccurate many of historical recordings are, because some white men were just like “Imma snippety snap out of this minority’s culture and make it mine”. Like Lönnrot, snippety snapped from Carelian and Sami cultures and “wrote” the Kalevala epos, making plenty of people think Kalevala’s roots are in predominant Finnish origins. And so did many historians and that way their work is totally inaccurate and unreliable. We also spoke about how big of a power an author has. I made an example of a bible: it is a collection of the stories and metaphors, transmitted orally and collected by different people (men). Everyone who has contributed to the collection has added something of their own in there and by that modified and original story. By censoring or exsaturating or what not. The source is gone and we cannot find it. The same applies to social media. Even though a lot of information we get from social media nowadays is way much more trustworthy and better than from general news. Still we lose the origins of the source and cannot be sure to trust the information. See also Aleksandr’s example about “Lo and Behold” by Werner Herzog. For the last part of the conversation we spoke about are designers artists or commercial workers? Do we get enough freedom to decide what we want to do in our work?

Summary

Summary, Reading I: Discourse and Authorship in Design Practice by Jen Sanderson, 28 Sept 2021

Discussion began with general impressions and comparison of the two texts. The more literary-oriented Bennett text was at times difficult to relate directly to design authorship, though did provide a thorough history of the origins of the term, an observation shared by the whole group. The importance and differences between individual and collective authorship formed a large part of discussion as well. It was agree that individual authorship presents a pressure to be ‘seen’, especially in the context of social media. The point was also raised (by Kai) that there are also needs and positives to be ‘seen’ – particularly in the context of representation. The Bible became a key example of the status of some texts/authorship and we explored how the text has been edited and re-edited to suit different contexts, manipulating the reader. Social media and the new wave of content digestion, specifically news direct from the source rather than the big outlets, allowed us to think about the relationship between truth and authorship. Pedagogy and graphic design education also arose in our dialogue, in which we shared our own experiences with authorship/originality and the tension between the tropes of corporate design standards and staying true to our design style/point of view.

Summary, Reading I: Discourse and Authorship in Design Practice by Aleksandra Czupryna, 27 Sept 2021

During our discussion we touched upon many interesting points. One of the things we discussed was the example of bible, which Kai earlier wrote about in his introduction. We all found it quite perplexing that such ‘holy’ texts which are hundreds of years old are considered by many people infallible and completely true. In reality, we can’t even know if the news we heard yesterday were true or fabricated, let alone texts that come from such distant past. The Bible like every other book was also edited and while some parts made it to the final version, others were banned or hidden away from the public. That made me ponder about censorship and how that is a very important aspect to consider when thinking about authorship. Even today I’m times when we consider ourselves so free and advanced compared to societies of the past, we’re constantly surrounded by censorship - for instance many posts can and are deleted from Facebook if they propose alternative opinions (a recent example would be regarding corona iris information).

Introduction

Introduction, Reading I: Discourse and Authorship in Design Practice by Jen Sanderson, 25 Sept 2021

Both Rock and Bennett refer to authorship in the context of both the individual and the collective. I think that this duality reflects the changing nature of authorship in design aptly. This brings with it the question; how much does authorship have to do with the individual? And, in a culture that is increasingly collaborative, is authorship in the sense of ownership still relevant? This individualistic idea of authorship feels outdated in today’s world. As reflected on by Bennett, the notion of the author was for a long period of time associated with one singular practitioner held in high societal esteem - think of high-art. The connotations of the term have clearly shifted since then when its meaning was patriarchal and arbitrary. Rock touches on the problems associated with centralising the author in design bringing forth the status of the author as a point of great bearing and can no doubt influence the reader. Perhaps authorship is now something which can be attributed to the many? This idea of collective authorship is certainly fuelled by the Internet and social media where mass-sharing of content makes ownership of original ideas even more diluted. The Internet has provided great opportunity to decentralise design authorship whilst also posing many problems with control over use of work and copyright infringement. It must be said, though, that the idea of the individual is far from left behind. It is the focus of many designers to find their own style or niche viewpoint in their practice. This is a conflicting process – there is a battle between producing meaningful, personal work and being passive to the meanings that clients wish to communicate. It seems, at this stage, that a designer’s self-expression and point of view is at times entirely separate from their passive commercial work – a point also raised by Rock. It is almost as if there are two different versions of design authorship at play here. It remains, however, that authorship is closely related to ‘uniqueness’ or to one’s individual style. For many, to have authorship over their work is a constant and evolutionary process and I think that a balance between finding your own point of view whilst engaging in collaboration is important.

Rock’s models of design activity are of particular interest, branching out from the restrictive nature of design authorship, exploring the designer as translator, performer, and director. These models are a much more realistic suggestion than the relation of design to the auteur theory covered by both Rock and Bennett in some detail. Though there are clear parallels between film direction and design, the strict criteria of the auteur is far too limited to apply to today’s design culture. The designer as performer model in particular struck me as relevant to the design authorship discourse; in the same way that the actor brings their own interpretation and style to a piece of work, the designer brings theirs to a given matter/content/issue. Cited by Bennett as a major shift in the relationship between author and text, the dawn of print production to many critics posed a threat of “potential regularisation of […] published work” and therefore a threat to originality. Whilst the “uniformity of the printed book” certainly provided clear-cut restraints and a rejection of the manuscript as it once was, this gave rise to a counterculture. This reminded me of the ‘book as object’ concept and Rock’s model in which the designer is a performer. Despite the standardisation of the print and distribution process, the designer is still able to communicate an individual point of view and style. The designer even flourishes in the face of these restraints. An example that comes to mind is the work of Futurist and Dada designers such as Fortunato Depero (the Bolted Book, see the link below) who experimented not only with content, but with the physicality of the book itself, attaching the pages together with industrial grade bolts. This “counter reaction” to the developments in the production of text again reflects the innate desire for designers to impart an originality on their output. After engaging with Bennet and Rock’s debates surrounding the relationship between design and authorship, it is clear that the field is ever-changing and unresolved. The discussions surrounding individual and collective authorship, the role of the Internet and the ability of the designer to maintain originality within strict constraints are themes that I would like to explore further in discussion.

The Bolted Book example, Fortunato Depero https://www.boltedbook.com 

Introduction 

Reading I: Discourse and Authorship in Design Practice

Kai Nordfors, 25.09.2021

I will divide this introduction in two separate parts: who is an author and what means to be an author? Both Benneth and Rock explore these same topics in their texts and wonder about the same questions. I will begin by asking, who is an author? Benneth wonders in his text who was the first author on this earth? But the main question is: what is the definition of authorship? As Benneth describes, the definition of authorship differs depending on the historical era and on the role of copyright at that particular time. Is copyright a mandatory thing to be present in order to own an authorship? It got me thinking when Benneth wrote about the oral culture of epic poetism and how this data of long tradition has been collected by someone. And this someone (in Benneth’s example Homer) is then essentially considered as an author, even though the origins are deep in the oral culture. Then eurocentically we consider this data as european or as a part of a culture of a majority, even though it is not. The problem is mainly the lack of record and the privilege of a data collector, who can read and write in the universal language at the time, and segregation, colonialism and racism. Therefore we have a lot of inaccurate and misleading literature and recordings that are claiming the origins to be in one culture while the origins are actually in another culture. If the definition of the authorship would’ve been the same in the medieval or earlier time, as now in our modern times. We would have a ton of brilliant and diverse authors. If the white man hasn’t had the option to use the copyright as the only one. I also need to quote Benneth’s quotation on Lorde’s: “... It seems to us necessary to construct an ideal text or to seek an original, and we remain dissatisfied with an ever-changing phenomenon. From one point of view each performance is an original. From another point of view it is impossible to retrance work of generations of singers to that moment when some singer first sang a particular song.” I want to debate that this is a quite ignorant thought, all things said. 

Then there is a second question: what does it mean to be an author? Well it actually may bring us back to the same question: what is the definition of the authorship? This same question just sums up both the first and the second question. But bare with me, there are two different perspectives to this. Another perspective is that there are many different levels and roles in an authorship and especially in a contribution to a book or project in general. If we take for example creating a book. There is a writer, editor, co-editor, proofreader, graphic designer etc. A whole team who is working behind this project. Yes I did write the roles in kind of hierarchical order, saying that the writer would be the initial author. But every single one who is contributing to the project is modifying the content somehow with their own ideas and actions. The content could seem to be for the most part made by the writer, but everyone's participation is affecting the project’s content somehow. I’d like to make an example of the bible: it is a collection of the stories and metaphors, transmitted orally and collected by different people (men). Everyone who has contributed to the collection has added something of their own in there and by that modified and original story. By censoring or exsaturating or what not. Rock wonders in his text that is authorship all about originality? But in this sense, with the example with the bible, the origins and the originality is long lost in the depth of the history. And the book is continuously modified by modernisation of the language, by reprinting it and by redesigning the visual identity to each new edition. The author is lost and the authorship is owned by a publisher. Still the majority of christians swear by the bible and believe in its literal meaning. At least as I see it, I left the church a long time ago and became a satanist (nothing to do with worshipping the satan). 

Now all this said, who is an author in the field of graphic design? Are they the one “... who actually writes and publishes material about design” as Rock describes it? In that sense can any other designer be called an author? Is a graphic author the one who designs and writes their own content and their own design? I see a graphic author as anyone who creates their own content with some sort of originality in it, even though the content could consist of references and there wouldn’t be anything actually written or created for this piece by the designer. But it is still curated by the designer, so therefore they are an author of their work.

Introduction, Reading I Discourse and Authorship in Design Practice by Aleksandra Czupryna, 25 Sept 2021

I feel like graphic designers and the profession of a graphic designer (and especially those with academic education that stresses conceptual thought) are at a bit of a transformative, awkward, in-between stage of development. The minds of graphic designers that I know from my previous school and from Aalto rarely focus on making good posters or good websites, but rather everyone seems to be seeking first and foremost work that is meaningful to them, and work through which they can express their personal interests. Graphic design right now is clearly not what it used to be.

In his article, Michael Rock states that authored design, in contrast to design that facilitates and “merely” brings form implies a “higher, purer purpose.” I find his statement very compelling because it is truly how the state of things is in graphic design, but it is the first time that I see it stated so clearly by somebody. What I have been recently thinking quite a lot about is that many of us (by us I mean still studying graphic design and searching for a place for ourselves in the industry, trying to figure out what we are going to do in the future), are sort of like artists without a medium. The ideas of authored, self-initiated, speculative or investigative design all sound very compelling but they seem to overlook the simple fact that these research-like / expressive endeavours are not something that can provide income, especially for designers in the beginning of their carriers. Another aspect that also refers to what I wrote about in the previous paragraph, is that while the general public or society clearly perceives directors or authors of films, graphic designers are most often seen as a pair of hands that know how to draw, know some softwares, typography and can whip up a logo in a couple of hours. 

In the book by Andrew Bennett, his description of the medieval sense of authorships, with scribes and commentators adding their input into the final work reminds me of a Talmud layout and Talmudic scholarship. In the book the main text and its readings or interpretations exist side by side. I have pondered about this topic of spoken cultures and traditions before, and to me it seems much more natural and valuable that stories or texts would evolve over time, when passed on through generations. The only constant thing in universe is change and as scientific, social or political paradigms change and are overthrown every hundred years only for the new ones to come in and be overthrown in the future, with authors being blamed for their own lack of knowledge, it would be interesting to imagine what it would be like to have a different system - like the oral system before the introduction of writing was applied to our communication and knowledge creation now - something that would be flexible, facilitating change and evolution - and bringing multiple people’s voices together instead of singular “authors”. Here I am also reminded of a scene from Werner Herzog’s documentary “Lo and Behold,” from 2016, where he introduces Ted Nelson, an internet pioneer and thinker from the 1960s - times of “speculative concepts of a connected world” in the early days of the internet. Ted says that interconnection of everything in the universe has been at the centre of his work for years, focusing especially on the interconnectedness in writings. A system that he invented in the 60s assumed that every text published on the internet that had quotations from other texts, would have the links to the original source texts - in this way all the sources would exist and be readily available at hand at any moment. In his vision nothing would be published out of context. I think these sort of alternative ways to imagine how we function are very valuable, and I would be interested to hear if people know more of these in the class discussions. 

The photos attached are a screenshot from “My Typographies” by Paul Elliman, and a screenshot of Ted Nelsons system from “Lo and Behold” by Werner Herzog (the entire film is on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbhsPNnVWo)