Thursday, August 7, 2014

The importance of a manifesto




The importance of manifesto

Let us begin by defining what a manifesto is: A manifesto is a published verbal declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. A manifesto usually accepts a previously published opinion or public consensus and/or promotes a new idea with prescriptive notions for carrying out changes the author believes should be made. It often is political or artistic in nature, but may present an individual's life stance.

We will be focusing mainly on the:"First Things First" manifesto as well as the "Incomplete Manifesto of Growth".

THE FOLLOWING HEADINGS ARE LINKED TO THEIR MANIFESTOS:


The First Things First manifesto was written during the year 1964 by Graphic Designers declaring the importance and value of design arguing that it should not be overlooked. It suggests that designers are being exploited creatively to promote company products.
 This argument was revisited in the year 2000 by Graphic Designers of that year, who also believed in the views of the manifesto. They then rewrote it to accommodate what was considered contemporary at that time.
They as designers believed that their talents should be used for causes that matter, like designing and creating awareness for non profit organisations. We as a team agree with this argument, but then again we see design as we see Mathematics. The more one actually works on something the more experience and skill they will acquire. Although this manifesto argues facts by saying our worth as designers should not be used for what we do not believe in, I see it as a challenge to show the capability of a designer to do what is expected of him or her. Design is a career and as designers we should engage in as many project as possible.  We believe that we should not limit our creativity according to a certain theme or purpose, we should use every opportunity we come across to grow.









We see this manifesto as more of a desiderata ; things wanted or needed. It is composed of things we believe many designers would want to be. It is compiled of steps that reveal the secret of growing as a designer in the art world. 
No  matter where you are in life, or how high up the ladder you’ve climbed, there is always room for growth and improvement. As a Graphic Designer there are times where we feel frustrated about a project and not know what to do leaving us feeling particularly uninspired.  Laone spends time stressing and wondering when a piece of creativity will fall from  the sky because in the design world time is literally money. While I on the other hand end up submitting a below par design, just for the sake of handing in.

This manifesto is about showing designers that they do not have to go through that. All they have to do is simply enjoy what they do. They should take every project that comes along as a challenge and a platform to better themselves. One would decide to view this manifesto as something that is intended to build the perfect individual with the excuse of "no one is perfect" in mind. On the contrary, we believe that it was intended for growth instead.


The De Stijl group had a goal of an organic combination of architecture, sculpture and painting in a lucid, elemental, unsentimental construction. This group was interested in "pure reality", universal harmony, asymmetry, abstract reducing, geometry as well as vertical and horizontal lines. This pure reality which they mention means that their art was to be represented by the purest things as in primary colours(red, blue and yellow), and straight horizontal and vertical lines with  representations of only geometrical shapes. With this kind of art if there was no manifesto to explain its values people would have had overlooked it and saw it as something directed towards children and that right there is the importance of manifestos. De Stijl is truly art in its purest form with nothing abstract.

Without manifestos it would have been hard to understand the meaning and purpose of art. Unlike mathematics and science there is no one definition which describes it completely. Therefore manifestos have helped  in making the movement pioneers explain the vision and purpose of their art so that it would not be misinterpreted. 

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