Ask a designer what the role of a designer is, and you will get as diverse a spectrum of answers as you will designers. Is it one of creative expression or rigorously conducted research? Is it engineering over artistry, or vice versa? Can it be everything, all at once? Many designers will chafe even at that, saying not taking a position is part of the problem of our times.

Designers taking a position, at times referred to as authorship, has always been fertile ground for debate between critics, theorists, educators, and practitioners. There are designers who shy away from authorship because they think of themselves of problem-solvers, not a brand. Then there are those who believe designers are not merely mediators, not just part of an agency that suggest various options to the client, but in fact need a strong voice and make decisions – an attitude that could be seen as in opposition to the prevailing sentiment that design is all about collaboration.

A collection of interviews and essays by editors Louise Schouwenberg and Michael Kaethler in a new book titled The Auto-Ethnographic Turn in Design (2021, Valiz) gives me a good opportunity to explore these issues. In this episode of Bevel, I chat with Michael (our first returning guest to the series) about making sense of phenomena in design described as auto-ethnographic and how, if at all, authorship fits into the discourse.

“Auto-ethnography gives an authority to the designer as someone with something to say and a means to say it,” says Michael in one of his essays. It “situates the designer at the heart of the research and connects this position to the culture of design and the broader cultural realm.”

Michael Kaethler is a sociologist of design whose work focuses on the transmission, production and embodiment of knowledge in art and design-oriented practices.