4 dEsIgN sTuDeNtS, 10 aUtHoRs* aNd a pRoBLeM wItH nAmEs

4 dEsIgN sTuDeNtS, 10 aUtHoRs* aNd a pRoBLeM wItH nAmEs is a self-published book, printed in risography in a limited edition of 50 copies. It started with a simple question: why does almost nobody simply call themselves a designer anymore?

The publication works through design's identity crisis. Hyphenated job titles are part response to an increasingly complex profession, part fear of not being enough. AI is reshaping what authorship even means. And reclaiming the generic title of designer becomes an ethical position, one that embraces the breadth of the discipline and takes responsibility for everything the role demands.

The book brings together ten influential authors, our own critical glosses on their texts, and the transcript of a roundtable we organised with Joana Tavares, Mário Moura and Silvio Lorusso, one of the authors we had been reading. The transcript is scattered across the publication rather than held in a section of its own, so the conversation keeps interrupting the theory instead of concluding it. Around it sit a mind map, AI-generated images, diagrams, and section openers built around artist references.

Rather than offering a definitive answer, the book invites the reader to question how the profession keeps redefining itself, and whether simply being a designer might still be enough.

Collaboration with: Inês Campos, Isa Goulart & Mariana Coelho