What are manifestos?
Defining ‘Manifesto’…
“A written statement of the beliefs, aims and policies of an organisation, especially a political party.”
What is the purpose of having a manifesto?
The purpose of having a manifesto is to convey three things…
- Intent
- Views
- Motivation
By conveying each thing, it gives you the opportunity to confirm your intentions and ideas.
The key to writing a successful manifesto is that your message is clear. It should be simple and concise through the use of straightforward language. When designing the Manifesto poster, it should have an adequate choice of font size and style, with an appropriate colour palette to coincide.
What to manifestos mean to me?
Before beginning this project, I was never completely familiar with manifestos, but rather mottos and mantras, which are likewise short statements of intent and conviction. For me, writing a manifesto is going to help me to maintain focus and determination to fully engage myself in this course. It is the thing I will continue to look at during tougher times to remember why I started in the first place. It is like making a promise of commitment to the course, to myself.
Manifestos throughout the history of art movements
Surrealism
Surrealism was a cultural movement which developed in Europe during the 1920s, in the aftermath of WW1. The art movement is defined as, “A 20th century avant-garde movement in art and literature, which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, eg. by the irrational juxtaposition of images.”
Founded in Paris by André Breton with his Manifesto of Surrealism, the movement’s principal aim was, ‘to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dreams and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality.’
The major artists of the movement include….
Salvador Dali
Max Ernst
Personally I feel that the intent to deconstruct the mainstream surface of the rational world was very intelligent. Surrealism broke boundaries and still reflects on many parts of art today, especially in areas of marketing and fine art.
Dadaism
Dada was an art movement formed during WW1 in Zurich as a negative reaction to the horrors and recklessness of the war. The art created by Dada artists is often satirical and nonsensical in nature. The art always forms the characteristics of being humorous, spontaneous and irrational.
Dada artists felt the war called into question every aspect of a society capable of starting and then prolonging it, including it’s art. Their aim was to destroy traditional values in art and to replace the old with a new style.
Some major artists within the movement include…
Marcel Duchamp
Tristan Tzara
In my opinion their intentions to strip what everyone knew and assumed to be normal and to change this was another brave and intelligent approach on how to make the world see sense. The acceptance of violence and war is wrong and Dadaists tried to transform this.
De Stijl
The De Stijl movement based in the Netherlands embraced an abstract, pared-down aesthetic centred in basic visual elements such as geometric forms and primary colours. Similarly to Surrealism and Dadaism, De Stijl, which translates as “the style” in Dutch, emerged largely in response to the horrors of WW1 and the wish to remake society in its aftermath. Expressing the Artist’s search, “For the universal, as the individual was losing its significance”. This austere language was meant to reveal the laws governing the harmony of the world.
In my opinion, De Stijl visually, is the most interesting art movement as many of its best known artists challenge the mathematical theories, which even I myself found difficult to stray away from whilst creating pieces in the past. It makes for a very thought provoking collection of artwork.
Some major artists within the movement include…
Piet Mondrian
Vilmas Huszar
All of these art movements used art as a means of social and spiritual redemption
Modern day designer’s Manifestos
To help me put my own manifesto into words, I found it useful to look at some modern day designers manifestos. Some of my favourite include…
Phillipe Stark – “People should select for themselves and stamp their own identity on a place. We should mix and match everything to make our own cocktails.”
I really liked this as it states that a relaxed approach to design is how we’re going to allow our own personalities to shine through. Not everything has to match or go by the rules.
Verner Panton stated, “One sits more comfortably on a colour that one likes.” To me this is very informative as it reminds me of how everyones own personal taste is different.
Deciding on my personal Manifesto
To decide on my final manifesto I brainstormed using Miro, creating three bubble maps which state my intentions, beliefs and motivation for this course. From here I highlighted the things that were the most important for me and began scribbling different ideas.
For my final manifesto in decided on…
“I shall not settle for thinking outside of the box, when my dreams are outside of this world.”
Designing my Manifesto
To begin I made a bubble map and wrote down all of the words which inspired me
I took to Pinterest, where I began by researching different styles of poster designs. That is where I discovered two different design styles which I fell in love with. The first, “Psychedelic” and the other, “Minimalist and Flat”, both entirely different but both show two sides of my personal style.
(My Manifesto inspiration board on Pinterest)
From here I decided to work on a sketchpad to come up with different layouts. Here’s how they went…
Here is my first finalised idea. I tried to keep it as simplistic yet effective as possible. I think I will try changing the font next time.