Seminar 5 - Ethics

Seminar 5 - Ethics

In todays session we were looking at what the Lecture was going to be on, but was the last of the kind. 

We were split into 5 groups and were each given a section or version of the either First things First (1964 + 2001) Manifesto and the Revisited version, along with The footnotes to a manifesto.

My group was allocated the 2000 version of the First things First manifesto. 
The main points and differences we had found compared to the original were:

• The items which were being sold were no longer things which would be seen as necessities, they were luxury things or items would could live without.
• The previous one was broader in terms of who was actually designing the adverts, this one had changed as over time specific roles had been created for this sort of thing, such as visual communicators and art directors, along with graphic designers.
• We also picked up on the fact that they thought that people would improve and not give in but had only got worse.
• The blame is now more directed at the actual designers and not the adverts or companies they are promoting
• Designers now also know that they could be doing a better job or something else, but are happy to do these sort of jobs for the money.

We then as a whole, went over the points we got from each of our allocated sections,here are what the other groups got:

First Things First 1964

• Growing sense of Youth Culture
• Anti-War movements
• More Useful to use skills elsewhere such as to benefit society or contribute towards national prosperity instead of trivial purposes, 
• Design to Inspire
• Mainly a reversal of Priorities

First Things First 2000

• Consumerism has grown, developed and the overall situation has worsened
• Change of time, more pressing times
• Anti-Consumerism
• Self-Perpetuating system
• A call to Action

R.Poymer

• Consumer system develops
• Synergy between advertising and design
• Lack of Diversity in Design
• Published by AdBusters

Michael Beirut (2007)

• Who can be against all of this?
• Designers are used as Stylists for hire
• Over-Emphasized
• What happens if designers opt out?