OUGD501 - Study Task 01 - Study Task - Authorship & Graphic Design

‘The Death of Author’ by Roland Barthes was written at a very poignant time in the history of the arts. His seminal essay ‘Image Music Text’ is often considered a metaphor used to describe the dramatic social, political and cultural alterations that were taking place across Western civilisation in the late 1960’s, notably in Paris. Protests were breaking out all over Europe, mainly led by students and industrial workers. There was a strong sense of revolution in the air. People’s fundamental way of thinking about culture and society was changing. Disillusionment with knowledge hierarchy, class systems and the educational structure of the time was the driving force behind the so called revolution. To quote Barthes: “The birth of the reader is the death or author” This quote is significant as it throws light on the issue of hierarchy within the educational system. This hierarchy system in education involves institutionalized learning and teaching, and ultimately promotes the concept that knowledge grants you superiority over someone who is less advantaged. The system leaves people feeling inferior or inadequate of being on the same intellectual level as say someone with a PHD. The issue of hierarchy is still relevant today, not only in the educational system but in mainstream media. We are taught from a young age to ‘listen’ to those who are of ‘higher statuses, and this unfortunately, has created a divided society, with some dominant and some marginalised as submissive. Barthes fundamentally believes the author should be irrelevant when creating your own interpretation of ‘text’. Instead, he believes we should look to interpret our own meaning derived from personal experiences, knowledge and cultural references. In theory this would create a more free thinking society where we are less reliant on the dominant, hierarchical figures.

Barthes’s philosophy relates massively to the context of contemporary graphic design. Throughout the 80s, 90s, and the early part of 21^st century, postmodernisms influence on graphic design led to the ‘reader’ becoming much more independent and free in their thinking. Modernisms ultimate vision was to create a utopian society constructed through a uniform aesthetic. Postmodernism abolished those constraints. Born out disillusionment, the new wave postmodernist designer began to realise the potential of their typography and image composition's to communicate human emotion and expression. Changes in technology gave the postmodernist designer/thinker more power than ever. Cheaper, more accessible pieces of technology such as the desktop computer changed the author/reader relationship forever. It gave the most unlikely figures the power to demolish the hierarchal system. Take David Carson for example. This now world famous designer came from a humble background. Carson was a surfer for many years before turning his hand to visual communication. His signature grunge style which is closely associated with postmodernism uses dirty type and unconventional photographic processes. His work evokes emotion, ultimately allowing the ‘reader’ of the ‘text’ to decide for themselves how to interpret the visual codes. He significantly influenced a generation to embrace typography as an expressive medium. He changed the public face of graphic design forever. A quote from the Barthes essay relates perfectly this. ‘A text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. Yet this destination cannot any longer be personal: the reader is without history” (Barthes, 1977). When this essay was written, this quote would have been more applicable; however, Carson’s unique style has proved that a ‘text’s’ destination certainly has the potential to be highly personal.

“The problem for anyone who yearns to retain older conceptions of authorship or the author function lies in the fact that radical changes in textuality produce radical changes in the author figure derived from that textuality. Lack of textual autonomy, like lack of textual centeredness, immediately reverberates through conceptions of authorship as well. Similarly, the unboundedness of the new textuality disperses the author as well” Landow, G.P. (1992) 'Reconfiguring the Author' in Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press. 

To quote Barthes: “and the modern scriptor “born simultaneously with the text, is not way equipped with being preceding or exceeding the writing”. We are living in the information age. People are born into a world now where ‘text’ is ridiculously easy to access. Take webs fonts for example, people like to think they have a grasp on typography because they can select trendy fonts and utilise them well. But for many years before digital computers, having an extensive knowledge of typography wasn’t something that everyone had, in fact it was an exquisite art form and profession, a rare talent to have. Typography has been massively impacted by technology and hand rendered type used to be owned by the ‘author’ however digital font packages have arguably destroyed the relationship between author and audience.