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06/21/2001 "bladerunner is now"

from 1964's First Things First Manifesto

"Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse."

That a set of individuals-- any individuals-- owned up to being partially to blame for creating a world in which we are "citizen-consumers" makes me tingle with excitement... responsibility! Ownership! Willingess to clean up after your own mess!

but I am sad to read the addendum, created when the manifesto-- worthy manifesto-- was signed by recent designers...

"22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use."

"Put our skills to worthwhile use"? What are you waiting for? Put your own goddamn skills to worthwhile use. Control your fate. Make a difference, don't make a difference, make your own trouble... too good for advertising? Make advertising better. Too good for product design? Make the products better.

Make the world better one toothbrush at a time.

(no, I am not kidding)

in other news
I can't remember the last time the news moved me to tears. A blog has never moved me to tears. But Mike's recent blog entry on a news article-- a news article I might have read and just shrugged at, helpless again at the horror of the world-- Mike allowed me to feel the horror of the news and cry. Maybe that is the job of art sometimes, to make us feel again.

, from oldest to newest:

Christina posted:
"Make the world better one toothbrush at a time."

Some designers are focusing their efforts on making things better:

WorldStudio Foundation [ http://www.worldstudio.org ]: Socially-conscious design org with a for-profit arm that donates 10% of profits, and a foundation that provides scholarships and sponsors design-oriented activities for the underprivileged.

Posted by ct @ 06/22/2001 03:48 PM pst

~~~

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