100 Years of Design Manifestos

Today I came across this fantastic list of design manifestos and I had to post them.

The following list was complied by John Emerson.

Since the days of radical printer-pamphleteers, design and designers have a long history of fighting for what’s right and working to transform society. The rise of the literary form of the manifesto also parallels the rise of modernity and the spread of letterpress printing.

* 1909 The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism, F.T. Marinetti

* 1914 Manifesto of Futurist Architecture, Antonio Sant’Elia

* 1919 Bauhaus Manifesto, Walter Gropius

* 1922 Manifesto of the Painters’ Union, Taller de Grafica Popular

* 1923 Topology of Typography, El Lissitzky

* 1923 The New Typography, László Moholy-Nagy - a call for design against the bourgeois, in support of the proletariat.

* 1959 The journal "New Graphic Design," though not explicitly a manifesto, called for a radical rethinking of design along more scientific lines.

* 1964 First Things First, Ken Garland

* 1967 The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord

* 1971 La coscienza del designer, Albe Steiner

* 1978 Atlante Secondo Lenin - not so much a design manifesto, as a designed manifesto. The innovative infographics visualize theories for gaining power.

* 1979 Ahmedabad Declaration on Industrial Design for Development

* 1983 The Free Software announcement, later clarified in 1985’s GNU Manifesto

* 1987 Design memorandum. Dall’etica del progetto al progetto dell’etica.

* 1987 Ten Rules of Good Design, Dieter Rams

* 1989 Carta del progetto grafico

* 1990 A Scandinavian Design Council Manifesto on Nature, Ecology and Human Needs for the Future

* 1991 The Social Role of Design, Pierre Bernard

* 1991 The Munich Design Charter

* 1996 Viewer's Declaration of Independence

* 1998 Ne Pas Plier statement

* 1998 People's Communication Charter

* 2000 First Things First update - not just about advertising this time, but setting new values.

* 2000 Incomplete Manifesto for Growth, Bruce Mau (though I thought Dean Allen did a tidy job of demolishing this.)

* 2001 AIAP, diseno etica e comunicazione

* 2001 Socialist Designer's Manifesto - a series of ideologically driven limitations along the lines of Dogme 95.

* 2001 Designers Against Monoculture, Noah Scalin

* 2002 First Declaration of the St. Moritz Design Summit

* 2004 The Free Culture Manifesto

* 2006 The Public Role of the Graphic Designer

* 2006 Free Font Manifesto, Ellen Lupton

* 2006 Owner’s Manifesto, The Maker’s Bill of Rights

* 2007 The Designer’s Dilemma and subsequent Designers Accord

* 2007 1000 Words: A Manifesto for Sustainability in Design, Allan Chochinov

* 2008 White Night Before A Manifesto, Metahaven

* 2009 The Repair Manifesto from Platform21

Via: Social Design Notes