Simran Hemnani

Do more than just living

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The designer as author

Michael Rock is an American graphic designer and a founding partner and creative director of 2x4, a design company based in New York City. He runs a wide range of projects, collaborating with brands like Nike, Prada, Miu Miu, Target, Hyundai or people like Kanye West. In 1996 he was awarded the Rome Prize in Design and received the National Design Award in 2006. His writing on design has appeared in publications worldwide and his critically acclaimed collection of essays and projects, “Multiple Signatures,” was published by Rizzoli International in 2013.

This reading is based on Michael Rock’s study named, “The designer as author”, written in 1996. “What does it really mean to call a graphic designer as an author”. Rock questions the reader what authorship means in terms of graphic design. He takes us down the lane, back in history to help us understand what authorship meant back then. Using various comparison between thoughts, examples and showing various perspectives from various designer’s point of view, he talks about various ways of authorship. He doesn’t speak only about graphic design as an author but generally auteur can be a writer, film producer, etc. He also outlines the development and complexities of this idea.

It implies that authorship might mean new approaches in communication rather the origination of message. It may also lead to conservative notions in terms of design production and subjectiveWimsett and Beardsley were the first one to tell that a reader could never really know the author from his or her writings. Michel Foucault raised the question who is an author in 1969. Outlining Michel Foucault outlines the basic characteristics and function of the author. He talks about how after the 18thcentury the relationship between the author and the literature has changed. In the past, literature use to be authorless while scientific texts demanded the author’s name to be considered valid. Nowadays, the situation has been reversed. Literature requires a connection to someone, someone who takes responsibility for his writing and can be punished.

Rock speaks about how the poststructuralist readings critique readings form not what it means but how it means.Further to this, the reasons for why the term “Author” has emerged in graphic design and whether it is desirable were stated. I agree with the idea that authorship is more about the unique approaches; new ways, in which the designer can communicate particular message. On this surface at least, the designers were moving away from the authoress scientific texts through which inviolable visual principles arrived at through extensive visual research were. After this it was revealed that due to existence and theory of the term authorship graphic designers could claim some level of ownership over the message they were trying to visually communicate with the society.

In today’s world authorship in graphic designing is very important. For example, the design is taken place in a collaborative setting and hence it’s all within a studio. This leads to make the origin of any particular idea uncertain. Any inner, meaning should come from the aesthetic treatments as much as form the work content. The difference between designers is revealed in the unique each individual designer approaches content, not the content they generate.

I would suggest this reading to everyone because it provokes you to think deeper on what should be the real purpose of the existence of authorship over anything you have worked on as designer or in your profession.

‘If you look at the span of graphic design, you discover not a history of content but a history of form.” Michael Rock, 2005

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Reading Armstrong - Helen, 2009

Revisiting the avant-garde - Helen 2009

Is a chapter of a book called the graphic design theory. was the founder and artistic director of Armstrong Chamber Concerts.

This chapter relates to the theme of the week as during our seminars we have explored the definition and the origins or authorship and technology. Armstrong also explores the term authorship by looking at how graphic designers may be seen as authors and how technology can take over the importance of the authorship digitally

It is important to understand as to how people document their work and take ownership over it. When designers and artist created their work, they felt a more personal connection towards it. Collective authorship changed the producer and consumer relationship, but avant-garde artists believed in digital tech future. They considered authorship as a characteristic of a middle-class person.

Authorship connects to the theme of technology because, with the arrival of technology, graphic designing replaced the ideal of objectivity to subjectivity. There were many Avant-Garde artists in contrast to people believing in authorship.  Being ideals of neutrality and objectivity meaning to take clients message as the central component of work in contrast to the predominant modern concept of a designer as a neutral transmitter of information.

In simpler terms, an objective perspective is based in fact, in things quantifiable and measurable whereas subjective perspective is one open to greater interpretation based on personal feeling, emotion, aesthetics, etc. As a result of technology, new emerging voices are been heard. Content generation by individuals promoted a more open way of sharing ideas, tools, and intellectual property.

In Dmitri seigal's blog entry "Designing your own grave", we speak about prosumers.  Reason being, the popularity of DIY allowed individuals to become consumers and producers which changed the relationship between the same.

Affect on DIY was that people don't just eat food anymore, they present it; they don't look at pictures, they take them; they don't buy T-shirts, they sell them. The question raised in the blog was, "what services do we designers offer in a prosumer market?"

This evolving consumer mentality might be called "the templated mind." The templated mind searches for text fields, meta tags and rankings like the handles on a suitcase. Data entry and customization options are the way prosumers grip this new generation of products. The template mentality emphasizes work over style or even clarity. This goes back to how authorship gave one handcrafting experience and let no template mind grab his opportunity the easy way using machines and robotic innovative skills.

What I find most interesting in this reading is how authors encouraged people to produce things themselves and be the owner of it. It makes me feel sorry because in the generation we live in mass production has taken over by so much only because it is cheaper so, hard worker who hand make the things don’t really get much credit as much as mass production stuff this is because mass production stuff in quality wise are better as it was machine made.

For example The artist Joe Scanlan touches on the more troubling implications of the DIY explosion in his brilliantly deadpan piece DIY Coffin, which is essentially instructions for making a perfectly functional coffin out of an IKEA bookcase.

Yes, I would recommend this reading to the class as it gives us a brief idea of how important it is to have authorship of our own work.  

Quote

“Design your own Life.”

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Beauty lies between the pages of a book

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Video games as an art (Should video games be viewed as art?)

Brett Martin is a journalist and author. His latest book, Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution, From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad, was published in July 2013. This extract is taken from ‘Video games and art’ written and editing by Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell .

This extract argues whether to consider video games as an art or no . While the medium of video games being as art is still relatively new , there does not appear to be a heavy controversy around the issue. Video game has evolved over the decades from a purely technical definition to a general concept defining a new class of interactive entertainment.

In the first half of the reading Brett talks about Oscar Rejlander who argued that photography was art . Criticism of Rejlander’s photography came from all sides and voices.though photography is regraded as art today , other mediums have shared the same fate as early photography and so has video games .

Brett mainly focuses on how the art world has a hard time accepting to the new medium and how the controversies arise with every piece across history .Many gamers , themselves argue regarding several games being considered as art.for example Madden Football . Games compile all of the art world’s tools into one medium ; Drawing, Painting , sculpting , design , architecture, creative writing, computer and video art and acting all come together to create video games. But this brings up an argument for the society that despite the interactive element allowing players to control and manipulate the game’s environment while creating an ethereal experience from playing, it fails to convey emotional complexity art demands because video games only simulate humans.  

Aside from all the arguments , we conclude that it is sure to receive criticism and  praises even  before the purpose is clear to the society. The public should not let a new medium frighten them. Video games are still not completely accepted as a form of ‘art’ due to all the hindrances this new technology has faced but this issue has indeed reduced over the years, as videogames have gained worldwide popularity.

The most interesting part in the reading is that every negative aspect as a positive argument to it. For example violent movies and violent games are known as ‘ healthy ways’ of releasing anger and frustration. Yes, I would recommend this reading to class as budding graphic designers we need to have knowledge about the philosophy of the society during every new era . 

“Few artists make video games for the aesthetic , but thousands of artists creating video games want to establish something more than the next big game that will sell” 

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Cultural Studies (Home-Territory and Identity)

‘Home-Territory and identity’ is written by J. Macgregor Wise, who  is a Professor of Communication Studies at Arizona State University, USA, where he writes and teaches about cultural studies of technology, globalization, and surveillance. This extract is from  a book called ‘Cultural Studies’.

‘It was not the space itself, not the house, but the way of inhabiting it that made it a home …’ . This statement is taken from the reading , it  describes about home not only being ‘ a collection of milieus’ but ‘it is a territory and expression ‘. One may agree that home is not limited to just final objects being unpacked and arranged but also the feeling associated with it but likewise it is also the presence, habits , effects of spouses,  children, parents and companions.  Our home is the creation of a space of comfort, made with boards and beams but described in many other ways. Wise, further  explores concepts of culture, territory and identity in order to give us , students a new perspective on the idea of home.

There were many interesting parts in this whole reading , ‘ what is most important  for the milieu is the effect of the object rather than the object itself,…..,drawing around oneself an expressive space from a variety of markers and milieus ‘ conveying the message that home had always in one way or another been open ; constructed out of moment ,source of communication , way for social relation etc  . Another interesting part about this text was ‘ Home is not a static place. “ One can never step into the same river twice,” as they say. Home is always movement (even if we never move, if we spend our whole life in the same room.) . However , I feel that home isn’t just a  thread,or  a line ;  it the  point. It is either an originary point to which we may return, or an end point to which we will eventually arrive. We are always in between.

The reading indeed was very captivating as it takes us on a journey through emotions, personal space , culture ,homemaking , habit and nomad  . I would strongly recommend this reading to my class as this text as this makes us realize how things are inextricably linked to each other and how home and identity are both product of territorializing forces.

“The process of homemaking is a cultural one. ”

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The moment I fail to put into words

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Species  of spaces (The Street)

Georges Perec , was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentarist, and essayist . Perec is a great storyteller and a wry humorist. There is always a point in reading his work. But the sense that these narratives are going nowhere, or chasing themselves around into oblivion, is the aesthetic that lies behind almost everything he wrote. He wrote plays, poetry, essays, film-scripts, opera librettos, and may other texts which confound traditional generic categories.    ’The Street’, it is a chapter from the book ’Species from spaces’ beautifully expressed by Georges. This chapter portrays the lightest of touch, making things seem vibrant on the streets that we tend to ignore. Perec proves through his writing about his ‘not so ordinary ’ sight .Behind all the lightness and humor, there is also the sadness of a French Jewish boy who lost his parents in the Second world war and found comfort in the material world around him,  and above all in writing.   This chapter very much gives you the sense of balance or correlation with the surrounding around you. It describes the gutter, the pavements, the relation or the bonding between people passing by, street lights, construction of buildings, homes of people etc. There were a few eye catching lines which made the text more readable and less dull ;  for example , “ two blind people , holding one another by arm “ . This statement shows how Perec is being able to feel the bond between two blind people or rather he is able to describe relation between two people as he lost his loved ones at a very young age.   He tends to write what is of no interest, what is most obvious, most common, most colorless… shops, gutter , building, payments, etc. he makes e an effort to exhaust the subject, even if that seems grotesque, or pointless, or stupid. If we still haven’t looked at anything, we’ve merely picked out what we’ve long ago picked out. Which changed my perspective of observing my surroundings.   “Nothing other than the record of a threefold experience of ageing : of the places themselves , of my memories , and of my writing . “