The last time I formally discussed authorship, ownership and control was during my time lecturing at a Leeds Arts University. Since then, it has become a theme that has taken on a renewed relevance. Authorship in design has always been difficult to define, and whether it is a logo, a website or a brand identity. Is it the designer who created the concept, the client who set the brief and pays the money, the type designer whose work underpins the typography, or the culture that interprets, reshapes and reuses the outcome? Let's look at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens brand refresh (2023–24), a project I directed while serving as Design Director at Defeye Creative, where I conceived the design, developed and delivered the outcomes. The project was delivered under the Defeye Creative name, raising questions about who is recognised as its author. Once the brand was launched into the public sphere, ownership became even less straightforward. A brand identity, when released, is no longer fixed as it becomes interpreted by visitors, reshaped by marketers, re-contextualised by culture, and subjected to the contingencies of technology and use. Even a project executed by a single creative voice is, in reality, the product of multiple forces. Fonts and typographic systems build upon decades of accumulated labour (Bringhurst, 2004) and colour systems, whether Pantone or digital standards, structure choices long before the designer intervenes. The history of the Gardens, the expectations of its audiences, the constraints of the client, and the quirks of the design tools themselves all exert influence. Design is rarely the product of a lone vision but of a distributed process where meaning is co-authored across collaborators, tools and audiences. The designer’s role is to orchestrate these inputs, provide intent and direction through acts of selection of what to keep, what to reject, and what to elevate.

Ownership complicates this further. Under UK copyright law, work created within an agency belongs to the agency (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988). At the same time, designers hold moral rights, such as the right to be credited for their work and the right to reproduce it in a portfolio (UK IPO, 2022). In this sense, my authorship of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens refresh (conceptual and practical) is distinct from the agency’s legal ownership where the two claims coexist, overlapping rather than cancelling out one another. Which is a perfectly normal assumption and standpoint within the design industry. Control adds yet another dimension when guidelines are handed over and a project passes into the hands of marketing teams. Teams may respect the design or distort it, assets may be cropped, recoloured or paired with incongruous elements. Sometimes, work is withdrawn or suppressed for political or strategic business reasons in what could be considered a form of censorship (Cramerotti, 2011). In this sense, authorship is not only about creation, but also about who has the authority to preserve or modify design outcomes once they leave the studio. Taken together, authorship in design resists singular definition: Authorship is simultaneously legal, creative, cultural and institutional. The Birmingham Botanical Gardens project exemplifies this because it was authored by me, owned by Defeye Creative and Birmingham Botanical Gardens, shaped by culture, and subject to ongoing acts of control and censorship. Therefore design is not simply to produce an artefact but to navigate and negotiate these overlapping claims (ownership, authorship, control) that continue to determine what the work is and what it becomes.

If you are interested in further context and thoughts around authorship in design, there are many interesting articles that deep dive into the world of authorship, ownership, translation. The article by 2x4, Designer As Author (1996), makes a compelling argument and is worth a read, as is this article from Medium, Design & Authorship (2015), and this article from Eye Magazine, The Designer As Author (1996). If you’re developing a brand, start-up, or in need of a refresh that deserves this level of attention, come and say hello!