Ken Poynor – was released in 2000. According to Eye Magazine, it was published simultaneously in North America (Adbusters, AIGA Journal and émigré) Britain (Eye Magazine and Blueprint), The Netherlands (Items) and Germany (Form). Similar in structure to the original manifesto – from lists of consumer products to more worthy causes) “First Things First 2000” was no less urgent and possibly more pointed in its critique. Signed by “graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators,” it held that designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing, and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the way citizen consumers speak, think, feel, respond, and interact. To some extent, we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of conduct (FTF 2000). “First Things First 2000” also proposed a “reversal of priorities,” redirecting the skills and experience of designers from the “manufacturing of desire for things that are inessential at best,” to more worthy pursuits: “Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes, and information design projects.” “First Things First 2000” was criticized, notably by graphic designer Michael Bierut in “Ten Footnotes to a Manifesto,” for lacking substance, overstating the cultural power of designers, and for writing off commercial work in a way that Garland did not originally propose. “First Things First 2000” does not include Garland’s qualification that it is “not feasible” to abandon commercial work and therefore sets up an irresolvable opposition between it and pursuits deemed more worthy. Bierut challenges this clear distinction between social-minded and commercially-oriented graphic design. He ends “Ten Footnotes” by quoting text Garland wrote four years after the publication of “First Things First” in which he suggests that designers should identify “with our real clients, the public. They may not be the ones who pay us, not the ones who give us our diplomas and degrees. But if they are to be the final recipients of our work, they’re the ones who matter.” Bierut adds that “They deserve at the very least the simple, civic-minded gift of a well-designed dog biscuit package” (60). As Garland’s own designs show, commercial work can be civically minded. Bierut is right to point out that the original “First Things First” did not seek to discount commercial work, but to challenge designers to be more intentional with regard to their social impact. Another of Bierut’s critiques is that most of the 33 signers of the “First Things First 2000” manifesto “have specialized in [designing] extraordinarily beautiful things for the cultural elite.” Amongst these signers, “the prolific and populist Milton Glaser . . . sticks out like a sore thumb” (55). His work exemplifies the principles of design upheld by the original manifesto and speaks to the civic-mindedness Bierut highlights. Glaser’s most popular work is the iconic “I [heart] NY logo which, according to the Museum of the City of 92
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