First things first manifesto – the first version, 1964.
Like many others, I was deeply struck by this when it first came out in 2000 (although truth be said, unlike many others, I was still in college at the time, and therefore all they talked about seemed distant).
Later on, and after a couple of intense years working as a full time designer, things like this increasingly started to make sense.
Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession’s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best.
Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design.
What they proposed, in turn, seemed idealistic, even utopian. But even so, their ideas kept nagging me throughout the years.
There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help.
We propose a reversal of priorities in favor of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication – a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning.
I caught myself in a deep identity crisis during a trip to Brazil where I got to spend a couple of weeks in a place where the word design didn’t make any sense. I tried to explain what I did to people my age (in their twenties), and the only answer I got was something along the lines of “what is that for? I can’t understand.” I have to say that I started doubting myself, my job and my values.
The return to the first world made me forget these doubts quickly enough. But they caught up with me after some years of work, and the uneasiness kept growing, and with it the feeling of void. No awards or recognitions can soothe the fact that, truth be told, most of my work doesn’t account for much; is portable and disposable; doesn’t impact my surroundings in any way.
So I had to try and believe that it could account for something. And this endeavor is solely meant to prove myself right.
Filed under: dovetailing, history, opinion, 1960s, 1990s, design activism, emigre, first things first, ken garland, manifesto
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