The Importance of a manifesto

For this post I'm going to discuss the importance of a manifesto. Firstly I'll be discussing two well know ones:

First Things First Manifesto 2000:
http://www.emigre.com/Editorial.php?sect=1&id=14

Incomplete Manifesto for Growth (Bruce Mau): https://wiki.umn.edu/pub/DF2TA/Tutorials/MAU_Incomplete-Manifesto-for-Growth.pdf

Both of these manifestos seem to have have an underlining theme among other things. It is to take responsibility as both a person and a designer for the work we do and the things we create and design. It seems to be against the current role society has placed on Graphic Designers. That role being a cog in the machine that is commercialism. In other words designing for companies and people regardless of whether the over all message goes against our beliefs or not. Both manifestos enforce responsibility above this.

I can understand their message and personally it makes sense although I have to say that there are still times that as designers we all need to make an income. But that is still possible while refusing some less apealling jobs handed to us. I for one would never design something that promotes capitalism or the destruction of a natural environment and these manifestos only enforce that. I would hope that employers and or clients can come to an understanding of something like this, after all one does not go to a priest and ask him to sin or a doctor and ask him to inflict injury.

Below are some other manifestos I went through, I'll briefly discuss them.

http://www.holstee.com/pages/manifesto
http://expertenough.com/538/the-expert-enough-manifesto
http://www.karimrashid.com/manifesto_fr.html
http://www.core77.com/reactor/04.07_chochinov.asp

All of the above has good advice on both life and design and while it also encourages responsible design it also gives some good advise on how to grow as a designer. It is because of all of this that I believe formulating a manifesto for oneself is as important as reading those that others have. It allows you to clearly state goals, opinions and beliefs all in one clearly defined document/ poster etc.