Above a student sleep-in at Hornsey College of Art in 1968.
Buckminster Fuller gives a lecture during a sit-in at Hornsey College of Art in 1968.
Back in the 1960s, British student activism came to the fore. The Vietnam War, racism and more-local frustrations (like student fees and representation) rose above the parapet. There were sit-ins, sleep-ins, lock-ins and all manner of demonstrations throughout the ’60s. One far quieter protest came in 1964 from a group of graphic designers, photographers and students, headed by Ken Garland. They put their names to a manifesto entitled ‘First Things First’. It rallied against the consumerist culture. They were frankly appalled by many of their industry colleagues chasing and pandering to the commercial pound. This group of manifesto-waving comrades were more about using their creative skills to better society, rather than damage it. Here is that original manifesto:
In 2000, 36 years on from ‘First Things First’, the cause was taken up again by the Canadian magazine Adbusters; after spotting an article in Eye magazine, they decided to reprint the ‘First Things First’ manifesto. This culminated in the manifesto being updated for the 21st century and another group, once again wanting the creative community to adhere to similar principles, got out their pens and signed it.
They were Jonathan Barnbrook, Nick Bell, Andrew Blauvelt, Hans Bockting, Irma Boom, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Max Bruinsma, Siân Cook, Linda van Deursen, Chris Dixon, William Drenttel, Gert Dumbar, Simon Esterson, Vince Frost, Ken Garland, Milton Glaser, Jessica Helfand, Steven Heller, Andrew Howard, Tibor Kalman Jeffery Keedy, Zuzana Licko, Ellen Lupton, Katherine McCoy, Armand Mevis, J. Abbott Miller, Rick Poynor, Lucienne Roberts, Erik Spiekermann, Jan van Toorn, Teal Triggs, Rudy VanderLans and Bob Wilkinson. It was then co-published by Adbusters, Emigre and the AIGA Journal in North America and by Eye and Blueprint in Britain, with further connections in the Netherlands and Form in Germany.
Now we are 17 years into the 21st century and it is clear that many of the concerns of that little 1964 band of brothers (and sisters) have been proved right in their fears of the state of Britain. We are an obese, hyperactive, commercially obsessed society. The digital age has disrupted virtually every area of our daily lives. The design community has mushroomed out of all proportion to the extent that for every designer with a moral compass in harmony with ‘First Things First’ and with the desire to benefit society, there are far more who are happy and hungry enough to use their skills to help to peddle useless crap by designing packaging to encourage children to eat and drink products overfilled with sugar, salt and fat, helping to make Britain and increasingly obese and unhealthy society. Ironically, many of the design presentations of this never-ending parade of products are featured on the Design Week website, often as exemplars of creativity, without one word of criticism.
More sinisterly, every Internet search we make is being tracked and the information sold to advertisers, which in turn will relentlessly target us to buy, buy, buy. This was far from the imaginings of Ken Garland and Co. back in 1964. It would have seemed like an unbelievable world of horrific science fiction.
I’ve often wondered how many of those original (sadly, some no longer with us) 1964 signatories, and the later 2000 group, have adhered to the promise they all signed up to, steering well clear of promoting commercial ‘striped toothpaste’, cat food, stomach powders, etc., along with all those other areas the manifesto so bitterly despised. It would seem that of all of them, Ken Garland clearly has.
If you have any views on this do drop me a comment.
Further reading on ‘First Things First’
The original Eye magazine story here
And the 2000 update here