During this seminar we were asked to read the Rick Poyner version of the Ken Garland 'A design manifesto' he wrote in 1964 collaborating with 22 people. In my opinion the manifesto is highlighting and communicating how designers skills are wasted on commercial design for dull daily products such as dog food. They are being bought out doing advertising, marketing and branding as commercial work is what pays the bills. The creative designer is being lost through their freedom being cut off whilst doing this type of work.
We were required to annotate the manifesto and extend a thought in the text with our own thoughts and understanding on the text; this may also involve highlighting key words of interest.
 |
| Adding annotations |
My thoughts and annotations on the manifesto were about how advertising is seen as the money making area of design and this is where we are directed in terms of our time and skills. So expanding on this it is seen as the natural place for graphic designers to work within which is the commercial world. In there manifesto is suggests that tutors promote this but in my experience here at university I feel that we are encouraged by tutors to be creative whilst looking for commercial work so that there is a balance. It also suggests that the commercial designs are informing and influencing the way people think, speak and act which in a way is making people in general conform to a certain way of living. Commercial work focuses more on function rather than form which as times can make it appear that we have lost creativity and imagination. Overall I annotated about how designers are losing their creativity to the commercial world, however I feel that you need some creativity to produce successful advertisements. There's proof that designers can still be creative in adverts as there is many clever advertisements which I have been looking at for for my studio project; the message is still there but it is more playful and engaging without losing the purpose. The manifesto is trying to tell designers of today and of the future that our skills need to be used for more than just to feed the 'machine' and use them to create more informed designs which show expression and creativity. And an underlaying message is that we shouldn't underestimate how powerful design can be and the impact it can have on society.
Key words:
Lucrative
Lack of freedom, imagination
Commercial work - pays the bills, ease, ordinary
Consumer, consumerism
Skill set - wasted
Communication
Influence
 |
| Redacting from the manifesto |
After annotating the manifesto we were given the same manifesto again with a black pen; I was instructed to remove the words/sentences/paragraphs (via redaction) that don’t look like my own personal manifesto. So the end result would be something that if I were to publish as my own manifesto it would represent what I stand for. You could redact as much as you wanted, the only rules was that you couldn't add any words to it and then words left on the page still had to have a meaning. As I agreed with most of the text I saw it as a way of simplifying the text slightly so that it relates more to me. As you can see I left most of the words visible as to me I think that most of the statements resonated with me and stood for what I stand for so I didn't see any reason to redact these from the text.
My Thoughts
From reading this manifesto it has me more aware of how commercial work is affecting the way designers work and create as the price influences what we design as in the time we live in means that we need money to pay the bills; it is all about circumstances. By annotating the piece is has helped me to gain a fuller understanding and depth of the manifesto. I believe in most of the statements being expressed in this manifesto as I feel that commercial work can take away the creative side to design which is a real shame; so when creating my own manifesto it will have a big influence from this existing manifesto.
