First Things First 2000 manifesto — an outdated concept

This rather relevant article has just been posted on Grafik Magazine's website by David Quay.

I have just been watching a documentry on the Belgium tv channel Canvas about the multi-national seed company Monsanto. If you believe the documentry the company is out to control food production globally with it's genetically modified seeds. The documentry is very unsettling, so I looked up the web-site of Monsanto and on the surface everything seems perfectly in order. The web-site is reasonably well-designed in that seamless corporate manner that invites confidence. Even the logo has a nice, homely ‘bio’ feeling. I started to wonder who designed this website and all the printed matter the goes with it.

That brings me to the second thought. I came across by chance The First Things First 2000 manifesto that Ken Garland had first organised in 1964. I was too young to have signed the first version but I was asked to sign the second. I refused to sign it — I felt that it discriminated against many good designers who do their very best often under difficult and strict commercial conditions.

All the signatories have to buy toilet paper, toothpaste, detergent, and soap? Do they not buy these things because they are aestetically challenged? Or do they buy only from Muji, which is just another very clever marketing excersise?

....visit the link for the rest

www.grafikmag.com

Blogger Issues

Hi Guys

I tried to log on to Marina's administrator account to change the blog settings and it wouldn't let me in. So Marina mebs you could have a go and see if you can change it. The problem is you can't read comments people have added without clicking on the comments button. I feel this is a very tiny and insignificant button and it isn't immediately obvious that there are comments unless you go back over every post and check. Is there some option for 'show comments' or something similar? Sorry to put this admin pressure on you.

If not maybe we'll have to post comments as separate posts??

Hope you're all having nice weekends.
xxx

Oded Ezer

I was massively inspired by Oded Ezer in last nights lecture. I've had a look online and found some of his work. The pieces that I found the most beautiful were the cut-out type projects. The open poster is just amazing. I love that your brain tries to read what word it is, is it still legible? Or are we just trying to make sense of the parts of the forms we recognise? Is this then similar to gestalt?? (Just trying to get my head around all this newly acquired Graphic Design vocab!!)

It was also interesting to hear his philosophy and how he manages to fund his extremely uncommercial projects. He said he has to be two people, he works in the day as a commercial designer (he didn't present any of this work so it obviously does not excite him as much) then he sleeps for one hour and then works on his own projects afterwards!! He works from home so he doesn't have many expenses and he charges massive fees for the commercial work he does do!!

How can someone survive on so little sleep and where do his family fit into this??

Also, the fact that he can "charge massive fees for commercial work" is only possible as he has established a reputation for himself. As young designers starting out this will not be possible for us! How can we manage our lives and strive for this balance between soul-less (or soul destroying) commercial work and the lovely personal work that makes us happy and keeps us in love with Graphic Design?? Is there a universal answer or will we have to chose to sacrifice something else – such as sleep, family, friends??

How can you be a Graphic Designer without loosing your soul? I think my quest this year will be searching for this answer! (Perhaps I should start by reading the book!)

David Carson

For those who are interested in postmodern typography this video is a brief interview of David Carson and the history of Raygun magazine.

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I Love Typography

...is a really interesting website/blog about typography.
Have a look at the links on the right hand side, they're all divided by themes and categories. Hope you all enjoy!

http://ilovetypography.com/

The Virtual Revolution

The BBC iplayer has the last 3 episodes of this documentary all about the web, its history, its future and all the other issues surrounding it. It's very interesting and really gets you thinking!! Especially around the issues of editing, gatekeeping and freedom of speech!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qn37q/hd/The_Virtual_Revolution_The_Great_Levelling/

Topic: Text

Related to the key text 'Am I type?'.
"Typography used in the form of a narrative film used by film studios and directors to capitalise on the visual impact of the title sequence to sell the content of the film, convey information and establish the film's identity and mood. Typography in this screen context might be described as largely image based and interpretative and the audience activity here follows the viewing regime of the dynamic screen." (Hilary Kena)

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