To sum, they are reminders instead of rules that serve our purpose, reassuring us as designers. I enjoyed seeing different perspectives of my peers, walking rounds in the class have, everyone’s manifesto is unique and has a friendly approach. One of my favourite lines include ‘Always save your work’ as I find that it’s unspoken of - how we can’t rely on the services all the time and serves as a reminder to take responsibility for our own work. If I came up with my own manifesto, it would include ‘save your work upon every change, Your greatest competitor is yourself, ‘Design for people by, the people’, Design for the ancestors who paved our roads’.. So on and so forth. I would include visuals representative of each manifesto for those who are more visual readers with dyslexia or other impairabilities.
To make it playful, there will be a balance between rules and reminders depending on the tone of speech upon reading and extent of seriousness. Placed in a class/office/company setting, I’d imagine a manifesto that doesn't bore people off its staleness, lack of colour, plain elements and lack of style. I picture with complimentary colours comforting to the eyes, with a mix of two typefaces put together in a clean layout setting. As designers, we tend to get sick of seeing the same, occasional posters we walk past each time as we are critical - at times we wonder what could be added or discarded, judging upon the posters. However, utilizing fun, unconventional approaches whilst playing with design principles respectively, people would enjoy looking at it and have fun dazing at it.
In short, design doesn’t always have to be stuck in a box, it could be scrambled in fragments to make sense out of it!
By approaching the design process with a sense of curiosity and playfulness, we can create designs that are engaging, exciting, and fun to use. This post from Tye Obrien, design student at that time, speaks about the design process and how he made his design mindset/manifesto unique. It took me a 6 minute glance through, and I absorbed many important lessons out of it. His ideology of ‘Human Centered Design’ speaks upon his empathy, sympathy towards potential clients, even towards me!.
Personally, being a designer is the ability to multitask, we need to learn from other designers, peers, lecturers or resources around us; making use of what is given to be better each time! It’s the challenges we go through exploring complex approaches that sharpens our saw in this field. A little bit of optimism is needed as encouragement, thus working with others in CTS B has taught me how to be more optimistic, empathetic, understanding the mindsets of others and learning how to communicate with our peers. Thus, abiding by a manifesto set by myself and by others will keep me going upon pursuing design communication.
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Citations/references in MLA style:
Obrien, Tye. “Design Manifesto: A Mindset. What Makes My Thought Process as A… | by Tye Obrien | Medium.” Design Manifesto: A Mindset, 1 May 2023, medium.com/@tyeobrien/my-design-manifesto-943bf73be74.