The first things first manifesto is a call to arms to designers, telling them that they should be using their expertise to support companies and causes that contribute to our national prosperity instead of 'flogging their skills and imagination to sell things'. The Emporio Armarni 'diamonds' perfume advertisement below is an example of these products that has been skilfully designed by creatives who in turn have contributed to the consumerism that is unhealthy for our society. The advert preys on the target audiences insecurities and advertises the image more than the perfume. They are selling the hope to be more like Beyonce to the audience. They are buying the perfume not based on the smell, but the fact that Beyonce is using it and the elegant way. The bottle has been designed in an aesthetic that resembles a diamond which gives the product its name. The reason they have chosen this is the preconception that diamonds are extremely rare and have value. This preconception was falsely put in place by the Da Beers Diamond Company in the 1930s to open up a new market that they could control. This preconception gives the product a sense of value and important in the eyes of the target audience when in actual fact it costs them very little to manufacture it, giving the corporation a huge profit. This causes independent companies in the same market to perish.

This advert is the 'design as persuasion' mentioned in First things first (revisited) by Rick Poyner. 

Triangulation- Referring to a process where you use 3 sources (compared and contrasted) to reach an informed decision about what your talking about. The more sources you use and the more material and different views you find of your chosen subject, the deeper your analysis will be and more critical and informed.


Our Group was set the task of analysing the first things first manifesto (1964 & 2000)
Explain how the 2000 manifesto is deferent to the 1964 manifesto.

1964 Manifesto Points:

- Rebuking advertising

- Stop applauding work to sell products that aren't a necessity such as cat food, stomach powders, fizzy water

- 'Advertising industry is wasted on these trivial purposes'

- Instead use the talent to pursue more socially meaningful causes like designing sign-age for streets and buildings, to educational materials.

- Needs to contribute more it the national prosperity with the skill and experience.

- It is urged to develop a more critical and ethically sound mind towards the application of their skills, in a period of time when materialistic luxury were everywhere in the 60's from 'gimmick merchants' and 'hidden persuaders' in high pressure advertising to be more affluent.

- Working against materialism and instead working to 'national prosperity doing projects such as educational purposes.

- It wasn't set out to destroy advertising but ‘a reversal of priorities in favour of the more useful and more lasting forms of communication.’

- Sparking a debate

(Garland, 1964)

2000 Manifesto Comparison:

- Updated to be more culturally relevant whilst structure remains similar.

- The original text was signed by 'graphic designers, photographers and students', while the 2000 reflected “graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators” so a broader reflection of the creative industries and not just graphic designers.

- 'Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it' a tide of books and publications reinforce it'. In this update it targets creative students, a poster version will be designed by Adbusters who published the update and dispatched to design schools around the world to target this.

- ‘First Things First Manifesto 2000’ is being published in its entirety, with 33 signatories’ names, in Adbusters, Emigre and the AIGA Journal in North America, in Eye and Blueprint in Britain, in Items in the Netherlands, and Form in Germany. Larger published breadth.

- It also expands the original manifesto’s concerns:

'Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help. … Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design.'

- Urgency and not just starting a debate. Having to do something about it and not just talking about it.

- Products listed are more ethically debated to 1964 manifesto. Credit cards - Debt. Sneakers - Made in 3rd world etc.... More ethically charged.

(Lasn, 1999)

First things first, revisited. (Poyner, 2005)

1964 was post-war consumerism.

Optimism with consumerism coming across the Atlantic form the US to the UK.

Proposed as a critique of US style consumerism.

Ken Garlan - Activist (CND) and socialist

Tony Benn agreed with this so it had political backing too - but socialist backing by Labour.

Suggesting that it has accidentally become a manifesto and a call to arms but not intended to when written by Garland.

underlying political system not in question.

Garland says it's part of a good economy in recovery of post-war Britain and advertising is not the end of the world, but you should just become more ethically aware.

A necessary part of economy.

Design is not neutral.

We only learn about the commercial fucntion of design.

In the 2000 manifesto it alludes to it as well - not just the world of consumerism but the world of education as well. It creates a system where there's not any alternative but consumerism.

1964 optimism that they could change the world. Very different time now to 1964.

System is not emerging but a global system of commercialism and consumerism.

Supportive of the manifestos. Revisiting it again and a history in support of it. Acceptance of it.

Michael Beirut (2007)

Foot-Notes 1-5:

Analysis of the 2000 manifesto.

Summary of beliefs and a call to arms.

Should this be a call to arms and is it accurate?

Talks about drawing attention to things that are ignored like the signatories of the design as they are signed by designers who work in culture already. Established designers in culture already and not commercial working.

Working in education already and not in a big ad-agency. They have practices above and behold having to pay the bills. It's easier to work for culture when you don't have to think when your next pay check comes in. They won't ever have to do that so manifesto looks down on designers and more importantly, students.

Tools of advertising are portrayed as evil but they are the same as graphic designers and examples are given in charity and non-for-profit organisations.

Graphic design is the art of the everyday.

Why limit your audience? Or impact.

Graphic Design role in advertising.

Inform vs Pursuade.

Views audience as passive.

Look at them as people and not just evil advertising.

How can you refuse to design everyday items for everyday people when it's what they need.

Behind the first things first manifesto that graphic designers have a massively impactful way on people. In jobs in advertising - what is your role? Graphic designers don't shape the message if they work in an ad agency but instead ass the gloss and finish it off.

Thinking of people as too mindless and stupid but really they're actually actively engaged.

Presented in a way of- you're either with us or against us. Given a choice.

Avoids the complexity of the situation.

6-7

Personal freedom to seek pleasure.

Harmful code of public discourse?

What if we withdraw from this space?

If we boycott they're left to it or it's polluted with rubbish. Isn't it better for everything to be better designed by only the ethical? it is for our industry but to the public - do they even care?

Celebration of the role of the designer but humility is needed to remember not a lot of people realise the role of Graphic Design.

Culture Jamming - disruption of

Adbusters saying what we do is what all you should do. Have an anti-capitalist message.

But there's also other forms of designs which are very ethical but aren't as 'in your face' and sexy enough for Adbusters.

Bruce Mau (1998)

More or less a complete contraction to itself.

Point 12. Keep moving. Point 13. Slow down.

First things first is an educated and agreed upon set of values.

This is very opinionated and subjective by Mau.

Focussed on personal satisfaction.

Contradictory but this is what makes it so readable.

Informal, casual but individually responsive.

Everyone is a leader point 10. Individual compared to FTF where a collective impose their ideas.

Being true to your own creative self.

Taking your personal decision and then being a better creative.

FTF - socialist in how it is a collective responsibility. Shared responsibility which is its downfall too as it talks about everyone being equal to them.

FTF asks for designers like Bruce Mau in working ethically setting up a company called Public Good - for social chance. In his manifesto it isn't dogmatic and hammering home ideas - they're very broad in a sense.

Personal notes from online resources:

The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self. The conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt. For example, if the ego gives in to the id's demands, the superego may make the person feel bad through guilt.

The idea of the "mirror stage" is an important early component in Lacan’s critical reinterpretation of the work of Freud. Drawing on work in physiology and animal psychology, Lacan proposes that human infants pass through a stage in which an external image of the body (reflected in a mirror, or represented to the infant through the mother or primary caregiver) produces a psychic response that gives rise to the mental representation of an "I". The infant identifies with the image, which serves as a gestalt of the infant's emerging perceptions of selfhood, but because the image of a unified body does not correspond with the underdeveloped infant's physical vulnerability and weakness, this imago is established as an Ideal-I toward which the subject will perpetually strive throughout his or her life.

In Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, the ego ideal is the part of the superego that includes the rules and standards for good behaviors. These behaviors include those that are approved of by parental and other authority figures. Obeying these rules leads to feelings of pride, value, and accomplishment. Breaking these rules can result in feelings of guilt.

The ego ideal is often thought of as the image we have of our ideal selves - the people we want to become. It is this image we hold up as the ideal individual, often modeled after people that we know, that we hold up as the standard of who we are striving to be.

Comparison of Identity Theory and Psychoanalysis

The main similarities that i've drawn from Identity theory and psychoanalysis is the belief of an ideal self, a role model for our actual self to aspire to be like. Styker and Freuds theories could work together. Freud's theory suggests that there is a negotiation to your actions and feelings between the ID, Ego and Super Ego. The super ego consists of the conscience and ideal self that has empathy for others and stops your ID and Ego acting on pure impulse. The diferent balances of ID, Ego and Super ego make us diferent from each other emotionally and can create the Hierarchy within social situations that Sheldon Stryker mentions.

Stryker's theory speaks more of identities that a person can take on when in diferent social situations. There is a hierarchy of identities that a person has which has been formed with positive feedback from others. This belief suggests that there is a Ideal self that above all other identities is the one that we want to be. Much like the ideal self mentioned in Freuds 'ego ideal' theory that set rules for good behaviour which have been approved by parental and authoritative figures. Stryker's theory suggests that the feedback for your ideal self is a constant one that is never complete.

Freud's ID, Ego, Super Ego theory ties in well with George J. McCall and J.L.Simmons' Theory of Identity (1960) with the belief that identity is improvised as the individual seeks to realise their various plans and goals. The way Freud explains his theory it seems as though the ID, Ego, and super ego's balance of ability to control your actions changes with the social situation. If you seek to realise a plan or goal (as mentioned in Theory of Identity (1960)), the impulsive ID seeks to act impulsively to achieve your goal. The semi-concious ego works partially alongside the super ego to achieve the goal without causing harm to itself and other peoples perception of the ideal self.