Connected to my work around reputation and participation I've been thinking about the best way to design a sense of authorship. Finding the right design for your brand is crucial at conveying the importance you attribute to the individual voice.
Some brands, most famously the Economist choose almost never to give a by-line or credit. The theory goes that something like this: journalists are egomaniacs and protective about their own territory and their own work, and not having bylines mitigates against that somewhat. With bylines, you worry more about your own story. With no bylines, you worry more about the whole paper because your reputation depends on the reputation of the whole paper.
Understandably, hyper-personalised media experiences like Twitter and flickr put authorship at the centre of the design:
Books have traditions related to content type too. Novels where authorship give design prominence. The book is about sharing self expression and a particular view of style:
Poetry and auto-biographies tend to feature authorship even more:
But biographies put the lead character centre stage and the author barely gets a look in:
Books that tend to be more function or reference led rarely put the author's name at the forefront of design:
Which brings me to travel, where there's quite a bit of variation. Lonely Planet, celebrated for its editorial voice chooses not to lead with the author on it's book or on it's current website:
Newspapers, with a travel section do seem to go more for recognised voices and talent and design them into the product:
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