Design Ethics (Triangulation) Study Task 5

Using the texts Garland, K. 'The First Things First Manifesto (1964); Poyner, Lasn et al (2000) ' The First Things First Manifesto 2000'; Poyner, R. (2000) 'First Things First Revisited' and Beirut, M. (2007) 'Ten Footnotes to a Manifesto' write a triangulated critical analysis of two media images (works of graphic design / advert / TV commercial / publicity poster / magazine cover / news story).

         A number of authors within the First things first manifesto have considered how Graphic Designers have influenced and are influential in the advertising industry. Within the First things First manifesto (1964) they talk about how designers use there talents for good but also for bad, advertising things to make them seem good, 'we have been bombarded with publications devoted to this belief, applauding the work of those who have flogged their skill and imagination to sell such things as: cat food, stomach powders, detergent, hair restorer, striped toothpaste, aftershave lotion, beforeshave lotion, slimming diets, fattening diets, deodorants, fizzy water, cigarettes, roll ons, pull ons and slip ons'. Here they are fed up of design for trivial purposes, they feel design should have a purpose. Within the manifesto in 2000 they back this up by stating the fact that consumerism is growing and its changing from cat food to things like diamonds, an example of which is shown below. This statement is then backed up the the revisited manifesto, again talking about how we are made to think things and feel things that are not true, 'we imagine that we engage directly with the content of magazine, the TV commercial, the pasta sauce, or perfume, but the content is always mediated by design and its design that helps direct how we perceive it and how it makes us feel'. Although this feeling changes in the ten footnotes to a manifesto, where by there is a different feeling that to make money they have to do the commercial work, its easy to have ethics if you have a good job, its much harder if you have little money and need to earn for the family, the designers who wrote in the First things first manifesto are described as 'cultural elite', they have never worked in the cultural industry and so they wont know what its like and don't like it. It also mentions that design is what makes a culture, if it goes what would be there, what would we do? 

         There is however designers who use the advertisement industry to try and promote a message and combat the consumerist society and designers/companies who put of these adverts. Adbusters take adverts from large corporations and try to show what they really mean, such as the advert below where they use a the Loreal name and image to create something that tells the consumer whats really going on, creating design that is for good and tells a true story, adbusters hope for 'a new style and way of being, a sustainable agenda for Planet Earth'. But these motives are put under scrutiny in the 13 footnotes to a manifesto, who claim this revolution is 'replacing mass manipulation for commercial ends with mass manipulation for cultural and political ends'. 

         There is many different and varying views on this problem throughout the manifesto, it is clear though that over time the consumerist society has changed and there is becoming more and more of a problem despite what is said in the 13 footnotes, which is becoming uncomfortable as said by Beirut M (2007) "many of us have become uncomfortable with this view of design" and something has to be done.