What is a manifesto?
By definition a Manifesto is a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer.
For this assignment I would like to focus on making my manifesto a simple statement that inspires me and drives me towards my goals. I want my manifesto to be a short, memorable statement that I can bring myself back to when I need it.
Before I began designing my own manifesto; I looked into how manifestos were used in relation to art movements, particularly the surrealist movement. This is an excerpt from a website that furthered my understanding of manifestos.
The Surrealist movement initially surfaced in 1924 when French poet André Breton published his “Manifesto of Surrealism,” influenced by the theories and writings on the unconscious mind by psychologist Sigmund Freud, the ground-breaking studies of Carl Jung, and the early 20th-century Dada movement. The Dada Manifesto is a short text that was written on July 14, 1916 by Hugo Ball; in which, Hugo Ball expresses his opposition to Dada becoming an artistic movement.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada_Manifesto
In his 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, Breton defined Surrealism as “Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express…the actual functioning of thought…in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.”
Surrealist artists—like Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, or Michael Cheval, among many others—seek to explore the unconscious mind as a way of creating art, resulting in dreamlike, sometimes bizarre imagery across endless mediums. The core of Surrealism is a focus on illustrating the mind’s deepest thoughts automatically when they surface. This thought process for creating art known as “automatism.”
Source: https://www.parkwestgallery.com/what-is-surrealism-art/
Source: https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/surrealism
My Chosen Manifesto
Before I began designing my manifesto on illustrator, I created a small mind map to briefly highlight what I wanted my manifesto to embody and how I wanted it to look.
From my mind map, I expanded on my ideas of keeping my manifesto rather minimal and basing it around an abstract theme, by looking at different graphic designers, illustrators, artists and art styles mainly on the platform Pinterest.
Below is a screenshot of the Pinterest board I created that was the main source of inspiration for my manifesto. I find abstract art very visually appealing; I like the sense of calmness that is provoked when looking at organic shapes/compositions and muted colours. I wanted to incorporate this style and feeling into my work because I want my manifesto to help me stay focused and centred when I face challenges.
I also looked at different styles of graphic posters to help shape how I wanted my manifesto to look, what kind of typeface I wanted to use and how I wanted to position it.
Typeface
I chose the typeface Cooper Black for my manifesto, as it is a beloved font that appears frequently in pop culture and advertising. I also chose this font as I feel familiarised to it, as it appears of many of my favourite album covers, which is an important factor that reinforces the calm, comforting emotions I want to provoke with my manifesto.
My Manifesto Design
My design for my manifesto incorporates all of the elements that I wanted to include, such as; muted earthy colour tones, an abstract/minimal style and a mantra that is memorable and light-hearted.
