Category Design Discourse

Proposal for a Constitution

In light of what we dis­cussed on Wednesday both in the group meet­ing and sem­in­ar I wanted to col­lect togeth­er all the things I would like to see in a pro­fes­sion­al body for visu­al com­mu­nic­at­ors. This is very much what I per­son­ally would like to see in a pro­fes­sion­al body so not every­one will agree. It is also very much a draft, not exhaust­ive and as a pro­fes­sion­al body is quite a prag­mat­ic thing to pro­pose I wanted to be ideal­ist­ic in what I think its remit and pur­pose should be. I am refer­ring to it as a con­sti­tu­tion (very American) for want of a bet­ter word and to avoid call­ing it a mani­festo. There are lots of grey edges to some of the state­ments as we dis­cussed as a group but I wanted to make some state­ments based on gen­er­al prin­ciples initially.

Political Posters

A poster From the Conservative Party seen in 2009

More attract­ive than David Cameron’s photgraph?

I felt I was inev­it­ably going to write some­thing about mani­festoes, pro­fes­sion­al bod­ies or a uni­on for my essay as well as these top­ics being the main focus of the group dis­cus­sion but I have for­tu­nately(!?) found anoth­er top­ic I’m inter­ested in, although I’m still try­ing to work out exactly what my angle will be.

Design Anarchy

I come cross this recently, and I just found this mani­festo has got quite rad­ic­al approach against media and advert­ising industry ( in the mean time Kalle Lasn is mar­ket­ing his book through the media he is refer­ring ).  He is enfor­cing the idea that we, design­ers hav­ing a power­ful pro­fes­sion that can have nasty soci­et­al consequences.

Design Anarchy

Kalle Lasn | 2006

Cultural revolution is our business

We are glob­al net­work of artists, writers, envir­on­ment­al­ists, teach­ers, down­shifters, fair traders, rabble-rousers, shit-dis­turbers, incor­ri­gibles, and mal­con­tents. We are anarch­ists, guer­rilla tac­ti­cians, meme war­ri­ors, neo-Luddites, prank­sters, poets, philo­soph­ers, and punks. Our aim is to topple exist­ing power struc­tures and change the we live in the twenty-first cen­tury. We will change the way inform­a­tion flows, the way insti­tu­tions wield power, the way the food, fash­ion, car, and cul­ture indus­tries set their agendas.
Above all, we will change the way the inter­act with the mass media and the way in which mean­ing is pro­duced in our society.

Design Anarchy

Design anarchy is mad­ness. Choose it only if you are cer­tain the oth­er options will cor­rode your soul and give you a bleed­ing ulcer, only if you know you are among the chosen few design­ers who hold Prometheus’s holy fire in your hands. You will suf­fer for years and live like a stray dog, but you will have the joy of break­ing all the rules, of freely mix­ing art and polit­ics, of pour­ing your beliefs and con­vic­tions into your work. Eventually, if you are really as bril­liant as you think, you will have a crack at push­ing the bound­ar­ies of blob­al cul­ture with bold new forms and fresh ways of being.