Design Authors and Auteurs: Designers' Books Ascending with Brian Roettinger, Adam Michaels, and Tanya Rubbak organized by Susan Thomas, LIU Brooklyn

1. LA ART BOOK FAIR: 2013
Design Authors and Auteurs: Designers' Books Ascending
with Brian Roettinger, Adam Michaels, and Tanya Rubbak
organized by Susan Thomas, LIU Brooklyn
Welcome to our session, Design Authors
and Auteurs: Designers Books Ascending.
I’m Susan Thomas, a librarian at Long
Island University in Brooklyn, NY. I used
to work at Pratt Institute, and I write about
independent art & design publications. My
introduction will be personal, tracing a line
of publications that led me to the three
designers here today. I became a librarian
out of bibliomania but also out of graphic
design. My love of design flowed from my
love of music, but design also shaped
music. I often judged an album by its
cover. I almost always judge a book by its
cover!

2. I got in to punk rock, I got in to hardcore:
and also the aesthete: Like many young indie lovers, I spent more of my time
record collecting than book collecting because I only liked used books from
previous decades. I didn’t care for prevailing book design in the 80’s.
I wanted new music and old books—

3. Zone
Books
Bruce Mau
The phrase Design Authorship entered design dialogues in the
1990’s. By then, there was published evidence of the designer as
author or auteur—for example, Bruce Mau’s work with Zone Books.
Although he worked closely with writers and editors to determine
materiality and visual framework for each book, Zone books seems
his project. Earlier in the 20th Century, many designers wrote,
designed, edited and published their own works: manifestos,
typographic experiments, and as design scholar Steven McCarthy,
has written:, “self- aggrandizing projects, investigations into pure
expression, works of utopian idealism, and signifying sub-cultural
gestures.” All contribute to the evidence of the designer as author
over the last century and into the present one.

4. From a librarian and print fetishist’s
point of view, the outcome is terrific.
Print book design is superlative now—
(Perhaps it has to be to sell books in
the digital world.) The number and
success of independent publishers—
more likely to invest in the book as
object– creates opportunity for
designers: Here’s a box set of Love &
Rockets, published by Fantagraphics.
Beyond books, other art and design
publications—zines, periodicals,
pamphlets, posters-- like those for sale
this weekend, abound. The role that
designers play is our subject today.

5. Many artists publications are made by designers—or made collaboratively with other
creatives. “Authorship” is not just writing. Designers might engage in research, writing,
editing, art direction, publishing, performance, or software design. Collaborating or working
alone, designers might explore a concept at length, advocate for something, create new
knowledge, or give shape to and promote the value of a product. One notion of Design
Authorship is an increased level of commitment and responsibility with published content.

6. When I worked at Pratt
Institute, I selected
independent art publications
for the library, especially
periodicals, and I started
paying more attention to
those either made by
designers or featuring
outstanding design
(Marmalade, GUM, The Pop,
for examples). I bought titles
like the now defunct design
journal Dot Dot Dot produced
by Dexter Sinister. Many such
publications seemed to be
ignored by libraries because
they weren’t established
periodicals and they weren’t
traditional artists’ books or
zines, either. They fell more in
to the category of artists’
magazines.

7. Dot Dot Dot covers

8. Designers’ publications
have a special appeal for
people who favor published
artists’ books over
sculptural book arts. This is
a zine made on a risograph
machine by Brian
Roettinger, one of our
speakers today.
44 pages / 20 x 25 cm / Two-color Riso <Fluo Pink & Fluo Orange> Edition of 100 / 2011

9. The zine graphically chronicles the history of punk in LA and is an
example of design writing, in which image and text rely on each
other.

10. Collage Culture:
Examining the 21st Century’s
Identity Crisis
I picked up this book at Family
Bookshop here in LA, and once again I
saw Brian’s name. Brian is an LAbased artist and graphic designer who
runs the multi-discipline design studio
Hand Held Heart, which started out as
a record label. He is perhaps most well
known for his designs for art and
architecture catalogues and record
album covers with No Age, Liars, and
more recently Beach House, but his
creative practice extends well beyond
that. His diverse works bridge the
divide between art, music, design and
concept. He was named Album
designer of the year in 2009 by Rolling
Stone.

11. He designed the book Collage Culture and also contributed a chapter of computergenerated collages made using software that he and programmer/artist Chandler
McWilliams made. All collages are based on a list of 16 compositional algorithms.

12. Collage Culture Box Set
This is the limited edition
box set of Collage Culture,
which is, to me, a print
fetish object. The
technologies in the box
reference the past (LP,
cassette, badges, author
photos), the very place
we’re encouraged to break
from, but also point to the
future (CD with
downloadable software
program).

13. I also purchased the first issue of Public Fiction at Family—PF is a thematic project
that takes form in print and space. The first theme was “Church”

14. Tanya Rubbak contributed to
that first issue of Public
Fiction: here is a scanned
section from Tanya’s 2-page
spread. Tanya is a
multidisciplinary artist and
graphic designer based in
Los Angeles. She creates
work in collaborative
settings, focusing on
publications and other
embodied printed and digital
matter that live in the
intervening spaces between
design, art, performance,
and authorship.

15. C0-founder of Signify, Sanctify,
Believe and co-director of Native
Strategies, Tanya has presented
projects at, and worked with,
many spaces and institutions in
the Los Angeles area, including
Pomona College Museum of Art
and Human Resources.

16. Adam Michaels is the co-founder of Project Projects, a New York based design studio
producing commissioned work and independent publishing and curatorial projects. PP
were finalists in the National Design Awards twice. Adam is also the series editor and
designer of Inventory Books, an imprint published by Princeton Architectural Press.

17. Adam designed and edited The Electric Information Age Book, an Inventory
Book he’ll talk about today. I learned about the Inventory Books when I ordered
the book Street Value book for my library—a book about the neighborhood I
work in.

18. Adam is a member of The Masses, the band that formed to record
a supporting album for The Electric Information Age Book. The
album is an offshoot of Adam’s design practice, and embodies a
different form of publishing. The project connects with Adam’s
earlier years playing in DIY punk bands in Chicago and
Minneapolis. The Masses performed in Milan and at the NY Art
Book Fair last fall. I was there! This is a book you can dance to!
The Masses vinyl album: Chipboard sleeve is die-cut, screen printed,
and letterpress printed

19. This final image is the scene at Dot Dot Dot,
when the group were putting together issue 15
on site, as part of an art exhibition. Dexer
Sinister’s new publishing project is Bulletins of
the Serving Library, and that allows me to
conclude saying the word “library”!