100 years of manifestos
Found on Social Design Notes
Since the days of radical printer-pamphleteers, design and designers have a long history of fighting for what’s right and working to transform society. The rise of the literary form of the manifesto also parallels the rise of modernity and the spread of letterpress printing.
This list of design manifestos was buried in a previous post but deserves its own permalink. It is largely drawn from Mario Piazza’s presentation at the Più Design Può conference in Florence, though I’ve edited and added to it. I’ve also added links where I could find them.
- 1909 Futurist Manifesto
- 1922 Taller de Grafica Popular Manifesto of the Painters’ Union
- 1923 Topology of Typography, El Lissitzky
- 1923 The New Typography, László Moholy-Nagy – a call for design against the bourgeois, in support of the proletariat.
- 1959 The journal “New Graphic Design,” though not explicitly a manifesto, called for a radical rethinking of design along more scientific lines.
- 1964 First Things First
- 1971 La coscienza del designer, by Albe Steiner
- 1978 Atlante Secondo Lenin – not so much a design manifesto, as a designed manifesto. The innovative infographics visualize theories for gaining power.
- 1979 Ahmedabad Declaration on Industrial Design for Development
- 1983 The Free Software announcement, later clarified in 1985’s GNU Manifesto
- 1987 Design memorandum. Dall’etica del progetto al progetto dell’etica.
- 1989 Carta del progetto grafico
- 1991 The Function of the Graphic Designer, Pierre Bernard
- 1996 Viewer’s Declaration of Independence
- 1998 Ne Pas Plier statement
- 1998 People’s Communication Charter
- 2000 First Things First update – not just about advertising this time, but setting new values.
- 2000 Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth (though I thought Dean Allen did a tidy job ofdemolishing this.)
- 2001 AIAP, diseno etica e comunicazione
- 2001 Socialist Designer’s Manifesto – a series of ideologically driven limitations along the lines ofDogme 95.
- 2002 First Declaration of the St. Moritz Design Summit
- 2004 The Free Culture Manifesto
- 2006 The Public Role of the Graphic Designer
- 2006 Owner’s Manifesto, The Maker’s Bill of Rights
- 2008 Metahaven, White Night Before A Manifesto
- 2009 The Repair Manifesto from Platform21
