Study Task 4 - Triangulating and Harvard Referencing

For this task, I have decided to test a new method of research recommended to me by a friend. While reading through the manifestos selected for this task, I will proceed to take notes as well was mark the citations and references as I go. With citation and referencing taken care of from the start, I am then able to more efficiently pick out the quotes I intend to use in triangulating my writing. Here we go!


Fuck Committees

Tibor Kalman 

• (Faceless corporate committees are) creating a thought-free, passion-free, cultural mush that will not be hated nor loved by anyone.
• (Creatives have been) relegated to a role of corporate servitude, carrying out corporate strategies and increasing stock prices. 
• Film studios out films in front of focus groups to determine whether an ending will please target audiences. All cars look the same. Architectural decisions are made by accountants. Ads are stupid. Theater is dead.
• Corporations have become the sole arbiters of cultural ideas and taste in America.
• Creative people have their work reduced to ‘content’ or ‘intellectual property’.
• There are a very few lunatic entrepreneurs who will understand that culture and design are not about fatter wallets, but about creating a future.

First Things First 2000

Adbusters 

• The profession’s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best.
• To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse.
• Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention.
• We propose a reversal of priorities in favor of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication – a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning.
• The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design.

First Things First

Ken Garland 

• We do not advocate the abolition of high pressure consumer advertising: this is not feasible. Nor do we want to take any of the fun out of life.
• We hope that our society will tire of gimmick merchants, status salesmen and hidden persuaders, and that the prior call on our skills will be for worthwhile purposes.

 ____________

Being a creative in the commercial industry is not as rewarding as one would hope. As Tibor Kalman put it in his manifesto, Fuck Committees, "(creatives have been) relegated to a role of corporate servitude, carrying out corporate strategies and increasing stock prices." Even though we were raised as designers with the belief that our problem-solving skills would do some good in the world, we instead find ourselves "manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best" (First Things First 2000). According to the authors of First Things First 2000, we "are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse". The solution to challenge consumerism by presenting "other perspectives" (First things First, 2000) and look at design as more of "creating a future" than used for the benefits of a "fatter wallet" (Tibor Kalman, Fuck Committees.)

Tibor Kalman and Ken Garland both argue that creating work of art and design for commercial purposes takes out the artistry and creativity from the creative process. When a designer is commissioned to create an ad with a very specific script and selling point some of the creativity gets lost and what we are left with is awkward and uninspired animations. Some good examples of this are the CGI Rock Auto commercials. The scripts are cliche and uncreative and the animation is equally as poor. However, a counter example would be the Freeview Play TV commercial in 2015. The story is creative and sentimental, the character design is great and after only two minutes you grow to care for a small and misunderstood television in a dictatorial world. This type of animation is meant to influence sales however it is clear that there was a lot of development and consideration in the design process.

The First Things First 2000  manifesto was created by a group of Graphic Designers who were unhappy with the direction that the commercial industry was carrying design. They believed that their skills were put to use towards the manufacturing of inessential things as opposed to using their super powers to influence and create a brighter future with something like  "cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects." The solution was to shift focus by creating a "reversal of priorities in favor of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication – a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning."  


Tibor Kalman, the author of Fuck Committees refers to the faceless corporate committees that strip away individuality and "Jaggedness" from what he refers to as the "Lunatic" entrepreneurs. According to Kalman, "corporations have become the sole arbiters of cultural ideas and taste in America" (Tibor Kalman) and our culture has become that of a corporate one.Not so long ago our culture was exactly the opposite: wealthy entrepreneurs invested in useful things like libraries, museums and global foundations because they thought it was "their responsibility was to use their millions to support culture" (Tibor Kalman). Kalman suggests we find these "creative lunatics", these people that understand that "wealth is means, not an end" and to treat them well and use their support to better the world.

Bibliography:

• Kalman, T. (1998) Fuck committees. Available at: http://www.manifestoproject.it/fuck-committees/ (Accessed: 10 May 2016).
• Garland, K. (no date) First things First. Available at: http://www.manifestoproject.it/ken-garland/ (Accessed: 10 May 2016).
• Adbusters (no date) First things First 2000. Available at: http://www.manifestoproject.it/adbusters/ (Accessed: 10 May 2016).