Abstract
This paper responds to recent calls in design literature for a return to design
authorship, and the appropriation from fine art of theories of relational aesthetics
(Poyner 2005, Mermoz 2006). I suggest that before looking to art as a model, it is
useful to retrace various divergent moments in the authorship and entrepreneurialism
debates in graphic design. This paper describes how these debates polarise the
designer-as-author as antithetical to the designer-as-service-provider, and as such
omit a third term, experimental design. I discuss an example of experimental design,
Re-magazine by Jop van Bennekom, in terms of how such design challenges the
promises of “total control” or autonomy that is identified by many as a key motivation
in practices of graphic authorship and entrepreneurialism (Heller 1998, 2006, Lupton
2003, Margolin 2003, Tremlow 2006). I interpret issue nine of Re-magazine as an
allegory that questions design’s pursuit of autonomy. Rather than confuse the distinct
specificities of fine art and design practices in an unexamined adoption of relational
aesthetics, as Poyner and Mermoz suggest, I propose that design must first reflect on
its own products and practices.