A Question of Research

 See when I started to think more about my Manifesto and what it would be about I began to think if it was actually useful for other people and if it even answered my question, I have these ideas of grandeur that the manifesto will be amazing and solve so many problems. I decided to do a mindmap where I tried to list who exactly the manifesto would be for and if it would even be useful. As you can see I couldn't really put that much down on the page when I tried to think who the audience for the manifesto would be, yes maybe artists would find it interesting but even then would it help them, would it resonate in any way. I'm just not sure it will do that nor now that I think about it will it even be appropriate for the project question, yes some of the manifestos I have read in my research read like theory books and give a new way of thinking but I don't think it works as well. Throughout this research I have found myself more interested in the theory and rule books on grap...

 Having read all these rule books, manifestos, looking into my own methodologies and attempting to improve my own drawing skills I have decided to try and create my own Manifesto for how I feel we should create Graphic Design and what a Graphic Designer should be when it comes to their own work. I got this idea especially from the "365 rules for Graphic Design" book as I felt that when reading it that it was attempting to box us in and tell us by creating these rules upon rules that we have to follow, this was when I started to think about why we actually need them and that there aren't really any of these rule books for artists and painters so why should we be different.  Maybe our best designs can come from having no rules at all, just being able to create our own designs that we want to.  I found this website from a college in America that outlines how to write a manifesto and what points to follow when writing it, some of the most interesting points they outline are t...

  I also found a manifesto from one of my favorite designers, El Lissitzky who founded the constructivist art movement in soviet Russia. I never knew he wrote a manifesto of sorts that was for constructivism, this would have come in handy last year when I did an essay on the art movement. What I like about this is that Lissitzky talks about creating something automatically, that artists/designers have a way of doing something that is done without them being fully aware. Perhaps this is how constructivism was created?  The more I read these manifestos the more I'm finding myself fascinated with how they are written and how they came to be written, it might be interesting for me to try and attempt to write my own manifesto? what it would be about I have no idea but it could be an interesting way to research something. Graphic Design theory: readings from the field. Armstrong, Helen. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009.

  This reads a bit like a manifesto to me so I thought it would be good to look at, it was written by Joseph Muller-Brockmann and focuses on his use of grids and the philosophy of design. I quite like this manifesto as it focuses on the idea of making the design as clear and readable for the audience as possible, he says that using his grid system will mean you apply to "laws of universal validity" which seems a bit forceful really. While I believe the grid system that Brockmann created and is now used by most designers is incredibly useful and good for design, this idea of using them to obtain validity is wrong to me in some way. I think design is more about being creative so why should we, excuse the odd pun here, box ourselves in by keeping to this ruleset. At the end of this Brockmann writes that "every visual creative work is a manifestation of the character of the designer" this again I agree with wholeheartedly and I think even goes against what Brockmann is ...

 The first manifesto I thought about looking at was Futurism, having done a project on the Manifesto in the second year of my BA I think this will be a good place to start with looking at the rules they create. The manifesto is basically a story about how the futurists came up with their manifesto and problems that happened along the way, it talks about cars speeding along the road and crashing drinking, mud, and factories which all serve to create an image of the world the futurist want to create, however halfway through the manifesto F.T. Marinetti calms down and lists out the manifesto itself. He writes down 11 "rules" in the futurists must follow for them to be futurists  The rules that the futurists created are meant to be followed by their artists, designers, and followers. But I cant get the feeling that this might have stifled their creativity. It's like they are being told to design in only this set way and that no other way is correct except their way, is this t...