COP OUGD401 - The definition of Manifesto & Task 3

Context of practice - What is a manifesto?

The definition of 'Manifesto';man·i·fes·to
/ˌmanəˈfestō/

Noun A public declaration of policy and aims, esp. one issued before an election by a political party or candidate.

Examples of design manifestos;

• Collective designers' first things first 2000
• Bruce Mau's Incomplete manifesto for growth

In the session, we learnt about how to go about writing our own manifestos. Firstly, we had to decide what sort of sector of ethos us as designers fell into, as all areas of life effect the way we design, and what motivates us to design. 
In pairs, we started by listing as many words as we could under different possible sectors of ethics: politics, society, culture and history. We had to write down the first words that came into our head, without any real thought just instant reaction. My handwriting is the bolder one: 

We then had to sort the words we had listed into sections depending on their positive and negative connotations. I found that nearly all of the words I had listed for culture were positive, and that there were a lot more words in total for that sector. The one that had the most negative connotations was politics, and the most even word being history.

We then wrote 5 statements each for each of the positive and negative sections explaining our reasoning for the words we wrote down:

This was going to help us to determine our own personal ethos and help us write our design manifestos.

Task 3 - Politics, Society, Culture & History

'Think about where you are as a designer in terms of political, social, cultural or historical orientation'

Politics

Observingly, when my work is driven by political reasons, it is negative in tone. This is because I do not agree with a lot of the (british) political goings on of our time. Contemporary democracy in my opinion has not stayed true to it's definition, and I think that it is unfair that our government cannot decided whether we are a capitalist or communist country.  I also observe that my work is much more opinionated and 'one-way' when motivated by this.

Society

Society is constantly affected by design, but in my opinion, not a creative way. Societal design is all about tactics, consumerism and box-ticking. From what I can understand it's too general and too much 'one size fits all' in it's ethos, and so to reach out to everyone, you need to think of them individually and not as a whole. 

Culture

I think culture and design are very important because of their strong interdependence of one another. Without design, there is no culture, and without culture there is no design. The cultural essence in a design can make or break it, be emotional, patriotic, nostalgic, exotic, empathic... the list goes on. In the same way, design in culture is cosmopolitan, historical and symbolistic. It is the most important part of my inspiration as a designer.

History

Historical references in my work are just as important as cultural ones. Nostalgia, patriotism and intrigue will guarantee to reach your audience. Of course this is paramount for consumerism, but more importantly, it is essential for the happiness of the designer knowing that the audience was touched by their work. The best way the arts affect an audience is when the audience become engrossed in empathy and taken away to a different place/ time. Genuine authenticity to this effect only adds to the magic.