Design and Identity Manifesto (First Draft)
Design Should Embrace Identity
Individuals embracing their individual identity allows for a more diverse community. The individuals then allow the community to grow as they learn from their differences and gain more understanding of who they are as individuals and how they fit in to society. By understanding and accepting differences it allows people to be more open minded and accepting to other cultures.
Design Should Connect People Within A Community
Whether it is through learning certain techniques while creating or simply discussing a design that is different (that opens up for conversation), design should encourage people to bond.
Design Should Demonstrate and Represent Culture
Design should connect to the rest of the world through the cultures being represented. Whether you are a part of that particular culture that is represented or an outsider looking in to another culture; the design should give the user a understanding of that culture.
Design Should Build Relationships Between People and their Belongings
Design should connect people to objects. people cannot relate to, therefore cannot connect to designs that have a universal aesthetic. Whether through the process of making or the objects meaning; design should create connections for the user.
Customisation Over Globalisation
People can't feel truly represented when designs have not been created with their identity in mind. By personalising design, individuals can feel satisfied in their belongings.
Culture Is Only Expressed Through Creating
Ideas, customs, social behaviours, and design have all been a created by humans and are always evolving - continuing to be created.
An Object Is Only Worth the Time You Put Into It
Whether you have put your time in learning techniques and creating something or whether you use someone else's knowledge/time; a design cannot exist without the input of someone's or something's time.
References
Convenor. (15/1/2013). (Affective) Craft Manifesto. Retrieved from http://journalofmoderncraft.com/articles/affective-craft-manifesto
Csikszentmihlyi, M. Rochberg-Halton, E. (1981). The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self. New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.
Mason, R. (2005). The Meaning and Value of Home-Based Craft. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 24(3), 263-264. Doi: 10.1111/j.1476-8070.2005.00449.x
Risatti, H. (2007). Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression. Chapel Hill, USA: University of North Carolina Press.