"The role of designers in communication and visual culture is evolving, from designers serving as commercial 'hired guns' to assuming the more empowering roles of design authorship. It has become standard practice in design education to teach designers to develop their own voice and create self-initiated projects. The role of the designer can expand to being the author, producer, curator, network facilitator, activist, consultant, entrepreneur... the list goes on and on. In this book, Steven McCarthy, a professor of graphic design at the University of Minnesota in the USA and expert on the subject, provides an overview of the phenomenon of design authorship and interviews many international designers who have taken on different roles as authors or producers of their own projects. 'The Designer as...' is written to give design practitioners a consolidated overview of text and images that have been important in the development of design authorship"--Provided by publisher

• 1. Concept, history. Design authorship explained
• Design authorship's enabling technologies
• Timeline of design authorship
• Interview: Rick Poynor
• Interview: Ellen Lupton
• 2. Writing, type, text. Writing needs graphic design
• Typographic design authorship
• The visual-verbal text
• Typography and life: a comparison
• Interview: Kenneth Fitzgerald
• Interview: Anne Burdick
• 3. Advocacy, social activism. Cultural legitimacy
• Designer as author activist
• Design advocacy across media
• Interview: Mieke Gerritzen
• Interview: Noel Douglas
• 4. Design for art's sake. Critical design and design fiction
• The art-design zone
• Sampling and remixing
• Interview: Warren Lehrer
• Interview: Johanna Drucker
• 5. Entrepreneurism and economy. Design entrepreneurism and economy
• Designer stories through entrepreneurial publishing
• Interview: Doug Powell
• Interview: Rick Valicenti
• 6. Community design authorship. Community design authorship
• Curating design authorship
• Interview: Armin Vit
• Interview: Michael Longford