Exploring Networks of Relations
in the
Graphic Design Profession
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
BY
Kate Ann Bukoski
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIRMEENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSPHY
Barbara Martinson and Carol Waldron, Advisers
August, 2006
© 2006 Kate Ann Bukoski
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and guidance of many
people. First, I would like to thank my advisors, Barbara Martinson, Ph.D., and Carol Waldron,
MA. This dissertation represents the culmination of five years of work with Carol, as my advisor,
and with Barbara, as my teacher and advisor. They dedicated endless hours to this dissertation,
taking time away from families, research, teaching, and vacations to help me define and refine my
ideas. From stunning visual diagrams to comments ranging from brief to extensive, this work is
deeply indebted to their knowledge and expertise. Carol and Barbara are excellent examples of
how a mentor gently pushes, prods, and encourages personal and professional growth. As I begin
my career as an educator, I hope that one day I can meet the standards they have set.
Second, I would like to thank committee member Thomas Wolfe, Ph.D., for introducing
me to the strange and magical world of Michel Foucault. Tom’s enthusiasm for intellectual
history is infectious, and was an initial inspiration for the path of this research. His comments
helped focus my enquiry, as I tackled the task of applying an abstract ‘theory’ to an applied
discipline. He was ever patient with my quizzical looks, providing guidance at the right moments.
Third, I would like to thank committee member Denise Guerin, Ph.D. From my work
with her at InformeDesign to advice on this research, Denise has been a mentor and role model as
a researcher and educator. Her dedication to interior design research and education is astonishing.
She has the ability to focus and direct projects large and small, and has been the voice of reason
and practicality throughout my education.
I would like to thank Caren Martin, Ph.D., for her mentorship and advice. Caren taught
me that graduate school was about finding my voice; a directive that I took to heart and that has
guided my journey in higher education. Her friendship and encouragement were irreplaceable.
This research would not have happened without the guidance of my undergraduate
professor at Iowa State University, Alan Mickelson, MFA. ‘Mickelson’ directed me to pursue a
Ph.D., advice that led me out of practice and into academia. I am forever grateful for his
instruction, and his enthusiastic, animated lectures about graphic design history; they sparked my
interest in the subject and eventually led to my studies in Minnesota.
I would not have survived the past five years without the advice, help, and support of
many people, including the staff, faculty, and graduate students (past and present) in the
Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel, especially Char Klarquist. This research was also
partially funded by a grant from the Department. My friends and coworkers at InformeDesign,
Emily Utoft Durand and Julie Brand, were a sympathetic ear, providing insight into situations and
chocolates at just the moments. Long-time friend, Patricia Jutz, MA, was a dutiful editor and
advisee in the final stages of this research; her daughter, Deborah Jutz, is a constant source of
inspiration. I am lucky that I was Deborah’s passenger when she was caught speeding!
The love, encouragement, and support of my friends and dear family – from my parents
and their spouses, to my siblings and their significant others – made this all possible; I thank you
from the deepest place in my heart. Finally, I would like to thank my dear husband, Paul LaMere,
who supported this research both financially and emotionally. He was patient over the years of
coursework, teaching, research, and writing; always providing a comforting shoulder and a source
of stability in my life. He provided a safe refuge from the trials and tribulations of graduate
school. I am forever grateful that he entered my life and am excited to continue our newest
adventure together as husband and wife.
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ABSTRACT
Thirty-three well-known graphic design practitioners, critics, and educators
signed the First Things First 2000 (FTF 2000) manifesto in the fall of 1999, adding their
names to a manifesto about the profession of graphic design. The discussion of FTF
2000, which connected professionals across the discipline, was used as an entry into
research exploring graphic designers’ perceptions of FTF 2000 and networks of
power/knowledge.
Open-ended interviews with nine graphic designers (FTF 2000 signatories,
prominent practitioners, and rank-and-file designers) living in the Minneapolis/St. Paul,
Minnesota, or New York City metropolitan areas were used to gather data. Preliminary
analysis revealed that tension is a dominant theme in the participants’ reactions to FTF
2000 and in their work lives. There was tension between professional status and attitude
toward graphic design practice; between the ethical responsibilities of graphic designers
and the sphere of graphic design’s influence; and between the perceived benefits of
experience versus youth. Debate, which was sparked by FTF 2000, was identified as a
pervasive aspect of graphic design practice and discourse.
Foucauldian, post-structuralist theory was used to analyze the data and
preliminary findings to evaluate networks of power/knowledge in graphic design
discourse. Graphic design power/knowledge is the inextricable binding of power with
knowledge that is visible and knowable as individual actions, processes, and struggles
that compose the graphic design profession. Power/knowledge was identified as the ways
in which graphic design discourse (and knowledge) invests graphic designers with the
ability to create change in the world. FTF 2000 was identified as a point of confrontation
in which power/knowledge relations become visible. Through self-surveillance, such as
the use of standards to evaluate work, graphic designers exert pressure upon themselves
as power/knowledge. Actions are produced when power/knowledge is asserted, such as a
decision to critique FTF 2000 or to pursue its goals. Graphic design power/knowledge is
enacted to pursue specific objectives, which include the pursuit of increased profits for
graphic designers and may include the implementation of a governing board (as was done
with RGD Ontario). Networks of power/knowledge are complex and multifaceted, and
compose the field of graphic design.
This research demonstrates how post-structuralist theory and Foucauldian thought
can be used as a new lens through which practitioners, educators, and researchers can
view the profession. To help the profession move forward, reevaluating the underlying
assumptions of graphic design discourse – the central project of Foucauldian analysis –
can guide future discussions and actions to help graphic design develop as a discipline.
For, power/knowledge empowers graphic designers to pursue interventions to challenge,
reverse, and change the structures that define the profession.
iii
Table of Contents
List of Tables ........................................................................................................................ viii
List of Figures ...................................................................................................................... ix
Chapter One: Introduction .................................................................................................. 1
The Problem ................................................................................................................... 1
Purpose ........................................................................................................................... 3
Research Questions ........................................................................................................ 4
Background of the Study – First Things First ................................................................ 4
Rationale of the Study..................................................................................................... 8
Research Design ............................................................................................................. 9
Scope and Delimitations ................................................................................................. 10
Significance of the Study and Conclusion ...................................................................... 10
Chapter Two: The Historical Context of the Graphic Design Profession ......................... 11
Technology...................................................................................................................... 11
Professionalization: Specialization at the Turn of the Twentieth Century..................... 22
Professional Organizations...................................................................................... 25
Education: Specialized Schools ............................................................................... 28
Code of Ethics .......................................................................................................... 35
Governmental Regulation ........................................................................................ 36
Summary................................................................................................................... 36
Capitalism....................................................................................................................... 37
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 43
Chapter Three: Related Literature ...................................................................................... 45
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 45
Tourism and Foucauldian Theory .................................................................................. 45
Cultural Criticism and Foucauldian Theory .................................................................. 48
Education and Foucauldian Theory ............................................................................... 51
Defining Physical Disabilities and Foucauldian Theory ............................................... 54
Summary ......................................................................................................................... 55
Chapter Four: Supporting Literature.................................................................................. 58
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 58
“To the Barricades” Chapter in Looking Closer Four .................................................. 59
First Things First, A Brief History........................................................................... 61
First Things First, Now More Than Ever ................................................................ 61
Just Say No…Quietly ............................................................................................... 62
Can Designers Save the World?(And Should They Try?)........................................ 63
The People v. the Corporate Cool Machine ............................................................ 64
A Manifesto with Ten Footnotes .............................................................................. 65
iv
A New Kind of Dialogue .......................................................................................... 67
The Spectacle: A Reevaluation of Situationist Thesis .............................................. 68
On FTF..................................................................................................................... 69
Observations about “To the Barricades” ................................................................ 69
“Manifestos” Chapter of Looking Closer Four ............................................................. 71
Jessica Helfand, Me the Undersigned...................................................................... 71
Bruce Mau, An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth................................................... 73
Tibor Kalman, Fuck Committees (I Believe in Lunatics)......................................... 74
First Year Students at Central St. Martins, Vow of Chastity ................................... 75
Observations about “Manifestos” ........................................................................... 76
Chapter Five: Theory ........................................................................................................... 78
Introduction to Post-Structuralism ................................................................................. 78
Foucauldian Post-Structuralist Theory – Power/Knowledge ........................................ 79
Power/Knowledge Acts upon Actions ...................................................................... 81
Surveillance, Systems of Differentiation, and Normalization .................................. 84
Power/Knowledge Pursues a Specific Set of Objectives.......................................... 87
Terminology Defined ...................................................................................................... 87
Discourse ................................................................................................................. 87
Hierarchize............................................................................................................... 89
Analytics................................................................................................................... 89
Assumptions .................................................................................................................... 89
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 89
Chapter Six: Method ............................................................................................................ 90
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 90
Ethnographic Methods Overview ................................................................................... 91
Data Collection............................................................................................................... 93
FTF 2000 Signatories .......................................................................................................... 96
Interview Methods .......................................................................................................... 99
Analysis........................................................................................................................... 101
Limitations ...................................................................................................................... 102
Researcher Bias .............................................................................................................. 102
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 104
Chapter Seven: Overview of the Participants...................................................................... 105
Dennis – Prominent designer that did not sign FTF 2000 ............................................. 105
Sarah – Prominent graphic designer that did not sign FTF 2000 ................................. 106
Frank – Rank-and-file designer...................................................................................... 107
Simon – Rank-and-file designer ..................................................................................... 109
Marie – Rank-and-file designer...................................................................................... 110
v
Bob – FTF 2000 signatory.............................................................................................. 112
Max – Prominent designer that did not sign FTF 2000 ................................................. 113
Emily – Rank-and-file or prominent designer ................................................................ 113
Claire – FTF 2000 signatory.......................................................................................... 115
First Observations .......................................................................................................... 116
Chapter Eight: Preliminary Analysis and Observations .................................................... 121
Overview of FTF 2000 Perceptions................................................................................ 121
FTF 2000 Signatories .............................................................................................. 122
Prominent Designers................................................................................................ 127
Rank-and-File Practitioners .................................................................................... 134
An Emerging Theme – Tension Permeates the Profession............................................. 140
Professional Rank and Attitude................................................................................ 141
Designers’ Ethical Responsibilities and Graphic Design’s Limited Sphere of Influence
.................................................................................................................................. 143
Experience Versus Youth ......................................................................................... 147
Dialogue, Debate, Discourse ................................................................................... 150
Concluding Thoughts...................................................................................................... 152
Chapter Nine: Post-Structuralist Analysis .......................................................................... 154
Internal Rationalities as Sites of Tension and Ambiguity............................................... 155
Power/Knowledge – A Definition and Its Qualities ....................................................... 157
What is Power/Knowledge? ..................................................................................... 158
How is Power/Knowledge Brought into Being? ...................................................... 161
Where does Power/Knowledge Occur? ................................................................... 161
Why does Power/Knowledge Happen? .................................................................... 162
Graphic Design Power/Knowledge ................................................................................ 162
What: What abilities does power/knowledge invest in the participants? ................ 163
How: How does it exert pressure upon them? ......................................................... 166
Where: Where and how is power/knowledge transformed by them and through them?
.................................................................................................................................. 169
Why: To pursue a specific set of objectives ............................................................. 171
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 176
Chapter Ten: Implications and Conclusion ........................................................................ 183
Summary ......................................................................................................................... 183
Limitations ...................................................................................................................... 188
Implications and Significance for the Graphic Design Profession ................................ 189
Directions for Future Research ...................................................................................... 190
Conclusion – Reconsidering Graphic Design ................................................................ 192
Appendix A: FTF 2000 Manifesto....................................................................................... 196
vi
Appendix B: Background on the Signatories...................................................................... 199
Jonathan Barnbrook ....................................................................................................... 199
Nick Bell ......................................................................................................................... 199
Andrew Blauvelt ............................................................................................................. 201
Hans Bockting................................................................................................................. 201
Irma Boom ...................................................................................................................... 201
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville .......................................................................................... 202
Max Bruinsma................................................................................................................. 202
Siân Cook........................................................................................................................ 202
Linda van Deursen.......................................................................................................... 203
Chris Dixon..................................................................................................................... 203
William Drenttel ............................................................................................................. 203
Gert Dumbar................................................................................................................... 204
Simon Esterson ............................................................................................................... 204
Vince Frost ..................................................................................................................... 204
Ken Garland ................................................................................................................... 204
Milton Glaser.................................................................................................................. 205
Jessica Helfand............................................................................................................... 205
Steven Heller................................................................................................................... 205
Andrew Howard.............................................................................................................. 206
Tibor Kalman.................................................................................................................. 206
Jeffery Keedy .................................................................................................................. 206
Zuzana Licko................................................................................................................... 207
Ellen Lupton ................................................................................................................... 207
Katherine McCoy............................................................................................................ 208
Armand Mevis................................................................................................................. 208
J. Abbott Miller............................................................................................................... 208
Rick Poynor .................................................................................................................... 209
Lucienne Roberts ............................................................................................................ 209
Erik Spiekermann ........................................................................................................... 210
Jan van Toorn ................................................................................................................. 210
Teal Triggs...................................................................................................................... 210
Rudy VanderLans ........................................................................................................... 211
Bob Wilkinson................................................................................................................. 211
Observations ................................................................................................................... 211
Appendix C: Interview Problem Discussion and Participant Recruitment Documents.... 217
Interviewing Problems.................................................................................................... 217
E-mail Recruitment for Signatories of the FTF 2000 manifesto: ................................... 219
vii
E-mail Recruitment for Prominent Graphic Designers: ................................................ 221
E-mail Recruitment for Rank-and-File Practitioners: ................................................... 223
Consent to Participate in Research Form ...................................................................... 225
Interview Research Questions ........................................................................................ 228
References............................................................................................................................. 231
viii
List of Tables
Tables
Table 1: Study Populations, Samples, and Participants ................................................... 96
Table 2: Summary of the Participants............................................................................ 117
Table 3: Internal Rationalities Identified in the Participants’ Responses ...................... 156
Table 4: A Summary of Power/Knowledge and Graphic Design Power/Knowledge ... 177
Table 5: FTF 2000 Signatories ...................................................................................... 200
Table 6: Associations Between FTF 2000 Signatories .................................................. 212
Table 7: Locations of the FTF 2000 signatories ............................................................ 216
ix
List of Figures
Figures
Figure 1: Power Acts Upon a Field of Actions................................................................ 83
Figure 2: Systems of Differentiation and Normalization................................................. 86
Figure 3: A Matrix of the Interactions Between Status and Attitude ............................ 144
Figure 4: Power/Knowledge: Individual Actions Connected in a Network .................. 160
Figure 5: FTF 2000 is a Point of Confrontation in the Network of Graphic Design
Power/Knowledge................................................................................................... 179
1
Chapter One: Introduction
…Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and
brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental
environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very
way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we
are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public
discourse.
There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented
environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural
interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions,
educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other
information design projects urgently require our expertise and help.
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.
(excerpt from First Things First 2000)
The Problem
In late 1999, the First Things First manifesto, originally published in 1964, was
revived and revised as the First Things First 2000 manifesto (see Appendix A, p.196).
The First Things First 2000 (FTF 2000) manifesto was published in seven graphic
design trade magazines; circulated in the United States (US), Canada, and Europe; and
called for a shift in the focus of graphic design practice (McCarron, 2000).
The premise of FTF 2000, that designers should shift their focus away from
commercial design work to non-commercial work, struck a chord with many designers.
In letters to the editor, graphic design practitioners, both well-known and unknown,
articulated their perspectives on the issues raised by FTF 2000 (Bowlby, 2000; Mabry,
1999; Macdonald & McCullagh, 1999; McCarron, 2000; Mosso, 1999; Ruga, 2000;
2
Staples, 1999; Vanderlans, 1999; Westvang, Elsner, & Neske, 1999; Williams II, 1999).
More than five years after its publication, debate about FTF 2000 continues to resurface
as a point of thought, confrontation, and consideration in design studios and classrooms
across the world.
Today, however, the internet and the proliferation of online forums have moved
the debate out of ‘letters to the editor’ to design blogs; and the topics for discussion have
expanded. Blogs such as Design Observer and Speak Up provide forums for graphic
designers to question ideas, present new thoughts, and connect.1 Issues, such as the need
for governmental regulation, the role of graphic design in society, and the benefits (or
problems with) award competitions are now publicly discussed. From well-known figures
in the profession to anonymous designers, graphic designers from across the US and
around the world can participate in public conversations about what graphic design is and
how to practice it.
Graphic designers can be, and are, better connected today than they have been in
the past. As the graphic design profession continues to grow, change, and refine itself, it
will be essential for graphic designers to enhance understandings of the nature of their
profession: what graphic designers do; how they work; what they know; what they think
of their work; how they define their roles and responsibilities; how they define graphic
design; and so on.
1
Design Observer’s URL is: www.designobserver.com and Speak Up’s URL is:
www.underconsideration.com/speakup.
3
Through the use of post-structuralist, Foucauldian theory this investigation is
intended to provide a different vision of the graphic design profession. Michel Foucault’s
theory of power/knowledge is used for the first time in research about graphic design
practice. FTF 2000, as a continuing point of debate, provides an apt entry into discourse
about what graphic design is and how to practice it. Responses and reactions to FTF 2000
by FTF 2000 signatories, other prominent graphic designers that did not sign the
manifesto, and rank-and-file practitioners will illuminate different perspectives on these
issues. In this research, networks of relations that compose the profession of graphic
design are examined through the investigation of designers’ perceptions of FTF and their
work using Michel Foucault’s theory of power/knowledge as a tool for understanding.
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to understand the current state of the profession of
graphic design through exploration of networks of relations via interviews with working
designers. Graphic designers’ responses and reactions to FTF 2000, as a point of debate
and conflict, are used to consider the nature of the graphic design profession. The final
product of this research is an exploration of nine graphic designers’ reactions to FTF
2000, focused on defining and understanding networks of relations that compose the
graphic design profession. This research is aimed at providing a new vision of the graphic
design profession that may help practitioners, educators, and researchers reconsider
underlying assumptions about what graphic design is and how it is practiced.
4
Research Questions
This investigation used qualitative, ethnographic methods to explore the research
questions. The research questions undertaken in this study are informed by the work of
Michel Foucault, and employ the Foucauldian concept of power/knowledge as a focus.
The research questions include: How did graphic designers (the participants: signatories
of the FTF 2000 manifesto, prominent practitioners, and rank-and-file designers) respond
to FTF 2000? How are the participants’ reactions and responses to FTF 2000 involved in
(or as) power/knowledge? What is graphic design power/knowledge? How are instances
of graphic design power/knowledge connected in a network? How does graphic design
power/knowledge compose the profession of graphic design?
Background of the Study – First Things First
The original First Things First manifesto (commonly referred to as First Things
First 1964) was authored by Ken Garland in England in November 1963 (McCarron,
2000; Poynor, 2002; Soar, 2000). During the 1960s, not only was a cultural revolution
occurring, but so was a revolution in the creative industries. With a booming economy,
new directions in advertising were emerging and working in advertising became a
lucrative job for designers (McCarron, 2000). Garland wrote FTF in opposition to joining
the Society of Industrial Arts – a professional organization in England whose purpose
Garland perceived as myopic and misdirected. However, despite the original intention of
the manifesto it became known for its position about the direction and nature of the
profession of graphic design (McCarron, 2000; Poynor, 2002; Soar, 2000). Garland
5
publicly read the manifesto at a meeting of the society and that evening 22 people signed
it. Among the signatories were many well-known designers, art directors, and
photographers. The oldest signatory, who was in his 40s at the time, was Edward Wright.
In January 1964, 400 copies of the manifesto were printed and distributed. Tony
Benn, a British (Labor) Member of Parliament, supported the manifesto and reprinted it
in The Guardian. This support led to a BBC appearance by Ken Garland. FTF 1964 was
also republished in design trade magazines; it was debated and translated into other
languages; and it received support from around the world (Poynor, 2002). However, the
manifesto soon faded from view in the design industries (McCarron, 2000; Soar, 2000).
In the mid-1990s, FTF 1964 was republished in Eye, Émigré, and Adbusters
magazines. The republication of FTF 1964 in Adbusters, a Canadian anti-advertising
magazine, resulted when the editors of Adbusters saw the manifesto in Eye. In addition to
publication of the magazine, Adbusters publicly sponsors culture jamming,2 creates spoof
advertisements, sponsors Buy Nothing Day, recruited protesters against the World Trade
Organization conference in Seattle in 2000, and more (McCarron, 2000; Soar, 2002).
The idea to update FTF came about when the art director of Adbusters¸ Chris
Dixon, and the magazine’s founder and editor, Kalle Lasn, met renowned graphic
designer Tibor Kalman in 1997 at the AIGA national conference in New York
(McCarron, 2000). According to Dixon and Lasn, Kalman said that perhaps it was time to
Culture jamming is public activism that uses the familiar signs, symbols, and vocabulary of brands and advertising to
critique the current state of popular culture. For example, the logo or a specific advertisement from a well-known brand
or company would be redesigned to change its message, creating a critique of consumerism and commercialism (Soar,
2002; Sturken & Cartwright, 2001).
2
6
update and re-launch the manifesto. Dixon and Lasn, along with Rick Poynor, design
critic and then-editor of Eye magazine (a British graphic design trade publication),
revised and updated FTF 1964 as FTF 2000. Prior to publication, Ken Garland was
contacted for his approval, which he gave. Dixon, Poynor, and Nick Bell (also a theneditor of Eye) began asking prominent graphic design practitioners, educators, and critics
if they would sign the manifesto; many signed, while some refused (McCarron, 2000;
Soar, 2000). About having signatories, Rick Poynor said,
The names were a way of helping to get the manifesto noticed in the countries
where it was published – in America, Britain, and The Netherlands. An
anonymous text is unlikely to have generated the same degree of attention. This is
an issue of personal conviction and it was important for readers to see the names
of real people who believe these things. Also, the manifesto was published in the
spirit of the original, and the original had named supporters, including Ken
Garland (McCarron, 2000, p. 22).
Upon publication, a poster of FTF 2000 was created and sent to design schools around
the world. Students were specifically targeted as the next generation of professionals that
could impact the design community. Rick Poynor, then a lecturer at the Royal College of
Art (RCA) London, asked Lasn and Dixon to speak at the RCA in 1999. Further, students
at the North Carolina State University and at the California College of Arts and Crafts
debated, responded, and completed projects concerning FTF 2000 (McCarron, 2000).
After its initial publication in Adbusters, FTF 2000 was republished
internationally in seven graphic design trade publications. In addition to the broad
publication of the manifesto at the turn of the twenty-first century, FTF 2000 was
7
republished in 2002, along with other manifestos and discussion of them, in the fourth
volume of a series of collections of essays and articles about graphic design – Looking
Closer Four.3
To put FTF 2000 in context, not all that read the manifesto agreed with its basic
premise, that graphic designers should shift their focus away from commercial design
(e.g. advertising) to non-commercial design. Letters to the editor in trade publications
such as Communication Arts, Print, and Émigré voiced opinions from both sides of the
issue (Bowlby, 2000; Mabry, 1999; Macdonald & McCullagh, 1999; McCarron, 2000;
Mosso, 1999; Ruga, 2000; Staples, 1999; Vanderlans, 1999; Westvang, Elsner, & Neske,
1999; Williams II, 1999). Even some of the signatories voiced concerns about FTF 2000.
Critiques of FTF 2000 stated that the manifesto’s position that audiences are being duped
and fooled by advertising and graphic design was simplistic. This might have been the
case in 1964 when the original was published, but may not be true today because
audiences are more accustomed to advertising and design (McCarron, 2000).
However, many applauded FTF 2000’s efforts and whole-heartedly were behind
the ideas presented in the manifesto. In a brief history of FTF, Rick Poynor engaged
some of the ideas set forth in the manifesto, saying that the issues raised in the 1964
document are even more pressing today. More designers have been working, according to
Poynor, on persuasive advertising (commercial) design and fewer on communicative
information (non-commercial) design (Poynor, 2002). Other signatories stated that they
3
For a complete discussion of essays supporting and critiquing FTF 2000 that were co-published in Looking Closer Four, see the
Chapter Three: Related Literature, p. 45.
8
signed FTF 2000 for various reasons. Jeffrey Keedy said that he signed FTF 2000 to
spark conversation and concern about the ethics of practice. Milton Glaser stated that he
signed the manifesto to alter the status quo and to raise social issues (McCarron, 2000).
These varied motivations for signing FTF 2000 begin to illuminate the fact that differing
perspectives, opinions, and philosophies about graphic design permeate the profession.
Rationale of the Study
This research is informed by recent critiques of graphic design history. While this
research focuses on current or recent events and is not historical in nature, the goals and
purpose of this study are informed by my recent explorations of graphic design history. In
the mid-1990s the journal Visible Language published a series of issues dedicated to the
critical exploration of graphic design history. Andrew Blauvelt (1994a), the editor of the
series, problematized graphic design history’s object of analysis (artifacts versus the
practice of design) and history’s legacy of service to the profession as a legitimizing
force, among other issues. Notably, Blauvelt recognized that the social history of graphic
design, which is concerned with the contexts and practice of graphic design, was largely
ignored. This essay called historians to consider their perspectives and contexts, and to
critically examine the limits of their own projects (Blauvelt, 1994a).
Further, Blauvelt discussed how in the graphic design profession there is disdain
for the use of theory, especially theory from outside the discipline (1994b). Along these
lines, my previous research documented a variety of conventions in the writing of graphic
design history and identified a trend – historical texts predominantly focus on either the
9
artifact or the practice of design (Bukoski, 2004). A primary finding was that each of the
three histories analyzed (Hollis, 1994; Meggs, 1998; Thomson, 1997) lacked an overt
framework or guiding theory for the exploration and documentation of history.
Underlying orientations were not explicitly described or mentioned (Bukoski, 2004).
In response to these critiques, this research directly engages a number of
Blauvelt’s concerns. First, theory was used directly, focusing on post-structuralist,
Foucauldian theory as a tool for analysis. Second, this research examined the practice of
graphic design rather than its artifact; the practices, behaviors, and discourse of graphic
designers were evaluated. Finally, while recent practices in the graphic design profession
were the focus, the findings of the research were not molded to glorify the practice of
graphic design. Findings that both promote or perhaps identify problems within the
profession were examined, considered, and reported equally so that this research does not
blindly serve as a legitimizing tool for the profession.
Research Design
As qualitative research, this study addressed a big question about the systems or
structures of the community of professional graphic designers (Creswell, 1994).
Ethnographic and qualitative methods were used to conduct open-ended interviews with
participants (FTF 2000 signatories, prominent practitioners, and rank-and-file designers)
and evaluate the participants’ responses and reactions to FTF 2000. Foucauldian theory
and the concept of power/knowledge were applied to provide insight into the networks of
relations that compose the profession of graphic design.
10
Scope and Delimitations
The scope of this research is limited to the participants’ reactions to the FTF 2000
manifesto. The primary focus of the research was the publication of FTF 2000 (fall 1999)
until the present. For analysis, data were gathered via open-ended, ethnographic
interviews with signatories of FTF 2000, prominent practitioners, and rank-and-file
designers. Discursive instances (language usage) and behavioral practices were analyzed
using Foucauldian theory.
Significance of the Study and Conclusion
This research responds to the call for critical, theory-driven analysis of the
profession of graphic design. This investigation adds to the body of knowledge focused
upon the practice of design, rather than graphic design artifacts. I directly employed
theory; the research entered new territory by critically engaging post-structuralist theory
not as a guide for form making (c.f. Lupton & Miller, 1996), but as a tool for
understanding the nature of the profession. This research addressed recent events to better
understand the various networks of relations that compose the profession of graphic
design.
In the next chapter, Chapter Two, I provide a brief overview of the history of the
graphic design profession. This history is parsed into three overlapping areas: graphic
design and technology; the professionalization of graphic design; and graphic design and
capitalism. Chapter Two situates FTF 2000 and the participants in various historical
narratives about graphic design.
11
Chapter Two: The Historical Context of the Graphic Design Profession
An understanding of the history of graphic design is essential to framing the
issues and problems that will be discussed in this research. The history of graphic design
is often understood and disseminated as a cannon of ‘great artifacts’ by predominately
white, European men. Some histories start with prehistoric cave paintings as the first
iterations of visual communication, and some choose much later timeframes, such as the
late nineteenth century, to work within. While social explorations of the history of
graphic design are available, this type of historical enquiry is much less common.
Rather than couch the history of graphic design in terms of the common
approaches of developments in style, the emergence of schools, or the lives of great men
(and a few women), this brief synopsis will parse the history of graphic design into three
overlapping areas: the history of graphic design in relation to technology,
professionalization, and capitalism (commerce). For the sake of brevity the following
discussions will begin with developments during the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, as at that time dramatic changes in printing and typesetting technology began to
impact the group of workers that would later be known as, and become, graphic designers
(Thomson, 1997). This framework is also limited primarily to events occurring in the US
and Western Europe, the locations of interest in this study.
Technology
Advances and changes in printing and image reproduction technology are
inextricably tied with the emergence of graphic design as a distinct activity in the
12
workplace. While the invention of movable type and Gutenberg’s press4 had profound
impacts on the production and dissemination of books and printed ephemera during the
fifteenth century, it was only at the end of the nineteenth century that fast and dramatic
changes in printing technologies began to impact the speed of printing and the group of
workers that would eventually become graphic designers.
The printing press changed little from the mid-fifteenth century until the
nineteenth century. Although innovations were added to presses that increased efficiency,
no dramatic changes to the basic letterpress were made. In the nineteenth century, new
inventions were introduced in both printing and typesetting that changed the nature of the
printing industry. In 1800 William Stanhope created the first press made of all iron parts,
rather than a combination of wood and iron. This press needed less force to impress
paper, resulting in the ability to print press sheets that were double the size of the
previous presses. In 1811 Friedrich Koenig invented the first steam-powered press.
Koenig replaced manpower with steam to do the heavy labor of impressing paper. This
new press increased the number of sheets of paper that could be fed into a press from 250
to 400 per hour (Meggs, 1998).
Also in 1811, Stanhope introduced the cylinder press in which paper, rather than
being pressed flat against the inked plate, was fit to a cylinder and rolled across the inked
surface. This allowed the printing plate to be re-inked regularly. While this invention
4
Johann Gutenberg is credited with bringing movable type to Europe. Movable type allows individual letters to be
assembled into words, phrase, and thus entire pages for printing, rather than carving each page of type out of a single
block of wood for printing (Meggs, 1998).
13
increased print production, it threatened the livelihood of pressmen and was feared by
many. The London Times introduced Stanhope’s steam-powered cylinder press in their
print shops and saved enough money on production to lower the cost of a daily
newspaper. As a result, almost any person could now afford to purchase a paper (Meggs,
1998).
As steam-powered cylinder presses came into wider use, the presses became
faster and more efficient with modifications, such as using four cylinders or combining
typeset blocks with images on press (rather than printing them separately). Eventually,
steam presses overtook letterpresses (Gutenberg-style presses) entirely. The cost of
printing decreased and the size of editions (e.g. books, pamphlets, newspapers, etc.)
increased (Meggs, 1998).
Improvements in paper-making technology were essential to the changes in
printing that occurred during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. A clerk in
a paper mill in France, Nicolas Louis Robert, developed a prototype for a paper-making
machine in 1798. In 1801 an English patent was issued to John Gamble for a similar
machine, which eliminated much of the manual labor associated with making paper. With
this machine a pulp mix was poured over a wire mesh on a vibrating conveyor belt,
creating one long, continuous sheet of paper. These sheets could be fed directly into a
press and cut to size after impress (Meggs, 1998).
In addition to advancements in the printing press and papermaking technology,
the nineteenth century also saw improvements in typesetting. A demand for new and
14
varied typefaces arose out of the increased speed of printing and resulting abundance of
printed material, much of which was advertising. New typefaces were desired for largeformat posters, however, large-size metal type posed problems as it was prohibitively
heavy. One three-inch capital letter could weigh up to a pound. Another problem was
keeping the metal used to cast type hot enough, for if it cooled unevenly the face of the
type would be uneven and provide a poor surface for printing. Large metal type was too
heavy, expensive, uneven, and brittle to be effective for large-format pieces (Meggs,
1998).
In response, Darius Wells began to experiment with hand-carved wooden type
and eventually invented the lateral router. This invention facilitated the mass manufacture
of wood type of all shapes and sizes. Wood type was lighter and half the cost of metal
type. William Leavenworth improved Wells’ router design by combining it with a
pantograph, so that virtually anyone could design, or make, a typeface. The invention
greatly impacted poster design; almost any variation in type size or design could easily be
produced (Meggs, 1998).
The use of wood type declined after 1870 when improvements in lithography
increased the ability to print color and better pictorial images. Previously it was difficult
to print images and type simultaneously, and sometimes images would be printed on a
separate sheet of paper and pasted onto posters pre-printed with type. With the increased
use of chromolithography, images and type could be printed simultaneously, as both
aspects of the design would be drawn directly onto the lithography stone to be printed
15
together. The increased availability of newspaper advertising space and limits on posting
also led to the decline of wood type (Meggs, 1998).
The process of setting type (selecting each individual character, spacing lines, and
then blocking an entire page) was expensive and labor intensive. While printing became
faster, typesetting was still a slow process. In 1886 Ottmar Mergenthaler, a German
immigrant working in Baltimore, perfected the Linotype machine. This machine used
small brass matrices with the letters, symbols, and numbers of a font. Ninety-eight keys
on the Linotype were used to control the matrices, which were released and lined up.
Molten lead was then poured into the matrix and a slug, or line, of metal type was cast.
In 1887 Tolbert Lanston created the Monotype machine. This machine worked on
the same principles as the Linotype, but instead of casting an entire slug of type,
individual letters were cast. This meant that if there was a mistake, one letter rather than
the entire slug could be replaced. These new typesetting machines could do the work of
seven to eight compositors and resulted in the loss of typesetting work for many men. As
a result of innovations in typesetting, the role of typesetter all but disappeared from the
printer’s office (Thomson, 1997). However, the increase in printing volume created
different job opportunities for these men (Meggs, 1998).
With the changes in typesetting technologies, type foundries began to have price
wars, dropping the price of the metal types and type designs, which ultimately led to the
consolidation of foundries. At this time, the American Type Founders (ATF) was created
(in 1892) through a series of mergers (Meggs, 1998).
16
In terms of image reproduction, until the early nineteenth century wood bock
engraving was the dominant process. Each image was hand carved into a wood block.
With the invention of lithography, a printing process where artists draw images directly
onto a stone for printing using a grease pencil, the nature of printed material changed.
Letterforms could take any shape and images could freely be combined with text,
breaking out of the rigid grid that was imposed by the horizontal and vertical structure of
the letterpress. With lithography, and eventually chromolithography, an explosion of fullcolor printing occurred. Large poster advertisements and announcements became
commonplace sights on hoardings: billboards attached to building facades. Colorful
images and lettering populated the urban landscapes of major metropolitan areas (Meggs,
1998; Thomson, 1997).
Image reproduction also advanced with the help of photography. As the ability to
capture an image from life with light moved from the use of wet plates to dry plates,
commercial printers in the late nineteenth century began to use cameras to scale images
for reproduction. An original artist’s drawing could be resized using photography and
would then be engraved on metal or wood for printing. However, photomechanical
advancements did not yet allow type to be printed simultaneously with images. It was
only with the commercial use of the halftone (tiny dots of varied sized used to compose a
larger image) around 1883 that both image and type could be printed simultaneously
(Meggs 1998; Thomson, 1997).
17
In the twentieth century as photographic technologies advanced, photomechanical
reproduction techniques became the standard in graphic design studios. Graphic
designers would determine the layout and design of a document and could paste-up the
final design using text galleys and photomechanical transfers (PMTs). A galley is the
copy used in a design that has been typeset in the appropriate font, size, and spacing.
PMTs are photo-mechanically produced copies of artwork. Both galleys and PMTs would
be pasted together using rulers, T-squares, X-acto knives, and rubber cement to create
camera-ready artwork (also called a mechanical). The artwork (or mechanical) would be
photographed using high-speed, high-quality emulsion on a polyester film base. The film
was then contact printed onto a printing plate (Pipes, 1992).
Alternately, graphic designers could provide a pre-press professional called a
stripper with the overall layout and elements of a design. The stripper would then strip, or
piece together, the elements and transfer them to film. The stripper assembled the
elements of the design (type, image, tints, etc.), imposed the pages for a book (assembles
the pages so that they are printed in the correct order), and provided a proof to the
designer. From the proof, the designer could evaluate the copy, check the image quality,
and, if a color proof was provided, check to ensure that color reproduction was accurate
(Pipes, 1992).
For typography, the previous printing tools of wood and lead type were discarded
in favor of the lighter and easier to use photo-reproduced typography. However, the
typesetter was still needed to set copy provided by graphic designers; the tools had
18
merely changed. With the introduction of the computer, however, the typesetter was
replaced with software that used pre-determined relationships between letterforms and
mathematical calculations to set copy. Computers replaced many skilled trades in graphic
design and enabled one person to fill many roles (Meggs, 1998; Pipes, 1992).
Even in the 1980s, typesetting was still a relatively expensive step in the print
production cycle. Until the advent of the computer, designing and creating new typefaces
was the domain of skilled drafts-persons, punch cutters, and letterform designers who
worked at perfecting the subtle curves, lines, and proportions of an alphabet. This process
could take months or even years. The pre-postscript Ikarus typesetting system was used
by typesetting machinery manufacturers. During the 1990s, programs like Fontographer
became available for use on desktop computers, dramatically decreasing the cost and
time needed to design type. As a result, both trained craftspeople and novices could
create and design type. This resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of typefaces.
New typefaces became available through large manufacturers as well as independent
designers and distributors (Meggs, & Purvis, 2006; Meggs, 1998).
In the early days of digital graphic design, Apple Computer Corporation released
software applications for word processing, drawing, and painting. Early bitmapped fonts
were designed by Susan Kare, who worked in the Apple Computer design department.
Letterform design was dictated by the matrix of dots in early fonts; screen fonts were
designed at 72 dots per inch. Susan Kare was responsible for the graphic appearance of
some of the first computer software. Kare teamed with Andy Hertzfeld, who was a
19
programmer involved with the original Macintosh development team. Unlike other early
computers, the Macintosh featured a bitmapped display with points of light, or pixels,
that were individually controlled by a single bit of computer data. Creating images on
screen was a matter of deciding which bits to turn on and turn off (Meggs, 1998).
The development of the PostScript programming language allowed type to be
designed in terms of its contours and shape, rather than via a matrix of dots. PostScript
fonts are composed of vectors that tell the printer (output device) how to ‘draw’ the letter;
the outline of the letter is then filled-in as a solid form. The Bezier curves that compose
letterforms can create complex shapes with smooth endpoints. Eventually, page layout
programs used the PostScript language, which enabled entire pages (layouts) to be
composed on screen and output for printing (Meggs, 1998).
In 1984, a 36-year-old former newspaper editor named Paul Brainerd formed a
company called Aldus to develop software that would permit newspapers to produce
advertisements more efficiently. In July 1985, Aldus introduced PageMaker software for
the Macintosh computer. PageMaker could alter type size, font, and the column length
and width of a block of type. PageMaker integrated text with images and visual elements.
The metaphor of a desktop enabled users to create elements on the computer screen and
position them on the page in an approach similar to the traditional way design elements
are pasted into position for printing. Brainerd coined the term “desktop publishing” for
this new method of creating page layouts. Desktop publishing saved significant amounts
of time and money in preparing pages for printing. Procedures including layout,
20
typesetting, and pasting elements into position were all combined into a seamless
electronic process (Meggs, 1998).
Desktop publishing decreased the time needed to create layouts, shortening the
schedule from idea to print. However, these new technologies still relied on the skills of
many pre-press workers to create a final printed document. While the process of creating
a page layout and setting typography had shortened with the introduction of the
computer, once files were ready, they still had to be output and prepped for printing.
Entire pages were composed and output as spot or process color film (CMYK), complete
with halftone dots. The film would be produced as a negative image on an imagesetter.
The negative images of the page or document were then transferred to printing plates in a
photographic process using light to expose photo-sensitive printing plates. Once exposed
and developed, the plates would be fitted to the cylinders on a press and used to print the
document (Johansson, Lundberg, & Ryberg, 2003; Meggs, 1998).
Printing technologies continue to advance. Since about 1998, new output
technologies enable printers to eliminate film from the plate-making process. In the
twenty-first century film has become less common, if not obsolete. Platesetters are able to
create printing plates directly from digital files, using light or heat to transfer digital files
to the plate. Computer-to-plate technologies minimize the risk of potential errors by
removing a step from the printing process (Johansson, Lundberg, & Ryberg, 2003).
In terms of computer software, most recently the dominance of the industryleading software program, QuarkXPress®, has been challenged. Adobe Corporation
21
makes the industry-dominant image manipulation (Photoshop®) and illustration
(Illustrator®) programs. During the 1990s, Adobe acquired Aldus Corporation and
PageMaker®. In the late 1990s, Adobe introduced a new page-layout program called
InDesign®. The Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign®, Photoshop®, and Illustrator®) has
begun to dominate the profession as the programs of choice.
In addition to Adobe’s dominance in the graphic design digital arena, the now
ubiquitous Portable Document Format (PDF) and its generator, Adobe Acrobat®, allow
documents designed in the Creative Suite to be read by any person with access to a
computer who is willing to download the free Reader program to view the document. The
PDF format also allows graphic designers to collect all the peripheral files (e.g. image
files and fonts) into one document that can be sent to a printer for output. Adobe
Acrobat® and the PDF have made it easier to share documents created by graphic
designers with non-designers.
Any discussion of the impact of technology on graphic design would not be
complete without a brief discussion of the advent of the internet and the rise of Web
design. Created in 1990 by physicist Tim Berners-Lee at the European Organization for
Nuclear Research, the internet began to become popular in 1993 with the introduction of
graphic browser Mosaic. Documents were linked across networks of files, facilitating
communication in a way never before possible. In the early years of the internet,
restrictions inherent in the HTML programming language limited the design possibilities
of Web pages. However, as the language evolved, more designers became involved in the
22
medium, proving that Web sites could be held to similar design standards as printed
matter. With the expansion of Web-based technologies, new roles and jobs have
emerged. Graphic designers adapted to the medium, developing approaches to design that
responded to the flexible, open-ended nature of communicating via the non-linear
medium of the internet (Meggs & Purvis, 2006).
In the most general sense, the history of graphic design and technology is a story
about how innovations have changed the processes of production. While the essential
nature of idea generation, form creation, and refinement (the design process) has
remained basically unchanged, the means by which designers create the printed matter of
design (books, posters, Web sites, signage) have changed radically. Designers have spent
their time reacting to these innovations. Graphic designers have learned about, responded
to, and adopted new technologies, in spite of of their impact upon the profession itself –
how designers work and create. From changes in printing processes to the invention of
the internet and the explosion of interactive media, the jobs of graphic designers have
changed and will continue to do so.
Professionalization: Specialization at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
While the work of the jobbing printer can be traced to Colonial America, existing
historical research states that the profession of graphic design began in the US during the
late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries due to the effects of various forces
(Thomson, 1997). Previously disparate activities associated with printing and advertising
merged as printing and typesetting technologies changed, advanced, and made some
23
activities obsolete. As the graphic designer emerged from the foray, trade journals and
professional organizations helped define the field and facilitate education and
communication among the new class of designers (Thomson, 1997).
As previously stated, advancements in printing, typesetting, and paper
technologies had a dramatic impact upon the printing industry in the late-nineteenth
century. The result of these advancements was unemployment for workers,
predominately men, who worked in a particular aspect of printing, such as typesetting.
Artisans were replaced by machine operators. Conversely, those still working in printing
began to specialize, leading to the separation of printing production and design activities.
Type designers became detached from the production (punch cutting) of type. Printing
apprenticeships no longer led to the job of designing type (Thomson, 1997).
The development of graphic design is also due, in large part, to changes in the
publishing industry from the 1850s until 1900. The rise in the number of magazines
published using advertising to supplement revenue from sales, publishers that provided
advertisements for clients, and the emergence of four-color (CMYK) printing all
impacted designers. In tandem with changes in publishing, advertising was undergoing a
revolution. An industry that began as a way to sell newspaper space became more robust
and mature. Advancements in manufacturing technologies and transportation meant that
businesses needed to promote their products nationwide, not just in local markets. In
response, advertising firms began to plan and create entire advertising campaigns,
including trademarks, around the turn of the twentieth century. As advertising grew, the
24
nature of the ad business changed; advertising shifted and became rooted in scientific
psychological investigations that led to the establishment of rules that ad ‘men’ followed
(Thomson, 1997).
While advertising and publishing grew, a new area of specialization arose. Ad
agencies, as well as publishers, began to hire art directors whose job was to coordinate
and direct advertising campaigns. Yet, the term ‘graphic designer’ did not emerge until
William Addison Dwiggins coined it 1922 in an article describing this new profession.
Previously the term ‘commercial artist’ had been used to describe graphic designers as
well as illustrators, and furniture, textile, and lighting designers. The distinct task of
‘designing’ printed materials separated from the means and methods of production as
printing technology expanded and changed. The unique, specialized skills attributed to
the graphic designer began to be demanded by the marketplace, publishing houses, and
ad firms. In response, those working in the new field began to organize and exchange
ideas (Thomson, 1997).
The development of professional organizations is one of the three markers Ellen
Mazur Thomson eloquently described in the process of graphic design’s
professionalization in the US during the early twentieth century (1997). The other two
markers are the creation of specialized schools and the development of ethical codes.
Late-nineteenth century industrialization led to the professionalization of a variety of
disciplines including medicine, law, and architecture. Thomson also pointed out that new
professions at this time pushed for governmental recognition through the implementation
25
of laws, codes, and regulations regarding the practice in their respective professions. This
was an effort to distance themselves from the craft origins of their professions. In the
following sections, the history of graphic design’s professionalization will be discussed in
terms of these criteria: the development of a professional organization, the creation of
specialized schools, the development of a code of ethics, and the push for governmental
regulation. As Thomson asserts, by the 1920s graphic design was incomplete in some of
the major markers of professionalization (1997). Today the profession still lacks some of
these milestones.
Professional Organizations
The creation of professional organizations in the US at the turn of the twentieth
century was prompted by the public’s perception of graphic design as being of little
value, which prohibited the development of the profession. However, it took decades for
a purely graphic design professional organization to emerge, as many organizations had
members from a variety of careers, and the work of graphic designers was often exhibited
through advertising clubs (Thomson, 1997).
Prior to the development of the AIGA (the professional association for design;
previously known as the American Institute of Graphic Arts), magazines and journals
provided a fruitful vehicle for printing, publishing, advertising, and, eventually, graphic
design professionals to communicate and learn about technology, techniques, and the
histories of their respective industries. Journals eventually began to include directions
about page layout and decoration. Some publications even offered to critique readers’
26
work; samples sent to the publisher would be publicly critiqued on the pages of the
magazine, for better or worse. Art printing journals emerged during this era and reprinted
good examples of printing, page layout, illustration, binding, etc. Then in 1911, the
journal Graphic Arts emerged. It blended content about printing, publishing, advertising,
and engraving; marking the emergence of graphic design as a profession (Thomson,
1997).
The predecessor of the AIGA was the Graphics Group, founded in 1911 in New
York City. The Graphics Group met at the National Arts Club, which eventually
encouraged the establishment of the AIGA to respond to the advancements in graphic
design. Members of the Graphics Group later held high positions within the AIGA. In
1914 the AIGA was founded and included engravers, etchers, a type association,
lithographers, illustrators, sign and mural painters, and more. At its founding the aim of
the AIGA was to promote and invite international and domestic exhibitions of graphic
design to inform public taste, to publish books and periodicals, to exchange ideas and
views about the arts, to promote participation in international exhibitions, and to promote
higher education in the various fields (Heller & Gluck, 1989; Thomson, 1997).
Upon moving out of the National Arts Club, the AIGA’s only requirements for
membership were that one paid ten dollars in dues and provided their own Windsor-type
chair. After eventually absorbing the Graphics Group, the AIGA began a national
campaign for membership. Members were recruited from across professions and included
artists, printers, publishers, etchers, photographers, lithographers, and electrotypers,
27
among others. These professions fell under the broad category of graphic art (Heller &
Gluck, 1989).
Initial interests in fine printing broadened as the organization grew. A newsletter
was developed in 1924, and in 1930 workshops led by well-known practitioners were
established. In 1948 the first issue of the Journal was published by the AIGA and efforts
began to raise funds for education, research, and promotion. After the Second World
War, the focus of the AIGA changed as graphic designers’ work shifted away from
printing toward corporate communications and packaging. Advertising, industrial design,
environmental graphics, and illustration eventually were included under the AIGA
umbrella (Heller & Gluck, 1989).
Lectures, workshops, and exhibitions continued at the AIGA headquarters, as well
as in other locations. However, it was not until 1981 that AIGA began to build a network
of chapters across the country, decentralizing some of the planning and activities that had
historically occurred in New York City. In addition to promoting graphic design to
business and hosting exhibitions and conferences, the AIGA awards medals each year to
outstanding professionals. These awards recognize a lifetime of commitment and
outstanding work in graphic design (Heller & Gluck, 1989).
Today, the US government estimates that there are 228,000 graphic designers in
the United States, 30% of which categorize themselves as freelancers (Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 2006). However, current AIGA membership is only approximately 18,000
28
(Membership Benefits, 2006). This means that only roughly eight percent of the national
US population of graphic designers participates in the AIGA.
Most recently, the AIGA has undergone a name change. The name “AIGA”
previously stood as an acronym for American Institute of Graphic Arts. Now the name
AIGA stands alone, with the tagline “the association for design.” According to the AIGA,
The organization has begun using the existing acronym along with a new tagline
that better describes AIGA, its members, and their interests instead of using the
full name of the organization. “AIGA, the professional association for design”
was chosen for its ability to help the organization create a greater understanding
of our members’ potential role, the value of their role and importance of their
contributions. Retaining the brand equity of the acronym “AIGA” has been a
priority, as it preserves a rich legacy of graphic design. By shifting the language
away from “graphic arts” and towards “design,” AIGA can achieve greater
recognition for design’s role in culture, civic society and business (AIGA Name,
2006).
The name change is a sign that graphic designers are, once again, reconsidering the
nature of their work, and trying to position themselves as essential participants in the
creation of designed artifacts.
Education: Specialized Schools
In terms of education there were, and still are, many paths to a career in graphic
design; as well as a general lack of agreement on schooling and skills. However, US
design education is rooted in late-nineteenth century taste hierarchies in which fine arts
such as oil painting and sculpture were revered over the applied arts. This hierarchy was
29
the result of wealthy individuals wanting to separate from the popular and vulgar arts and
associate themselves with the transcendental, spiritual fine arts. At the same time,
wealthy reformers sought to enlighten the lower classes by teaching them aesthetics and
spirituality. This task, they believed, was their ethical duty (Thomson, 1997).
Following, drawing and industrial arts education were introduced to American
schools. This was intended to create better skilled employees and to “ultimately advance
American products in the marketplace,” (Thomson, 1997, p. 108). John Ruskin’s notion
that drawing was integral to a spiritual, moral approach to art appreciation was also
important during this time. In the 1870s, design schools formed in the US to help with
manufacturing, which was much later than design schools that emerged in England
around 1836. Then, in the late-nineteenth century, art museums expanded around the US;
and with them, art schools. Simultaneously, other programs at universities developed,
including a Ruskin-inspired approach undertaken at Harvard. Yale and Syracuse
universities also created schools of fine and industrial arts. Correspondence schools and
small schools of art flourished as well (Thomson, 1997).
As the profession advanced through the early twentieth century, design in higher
education began to change due to the influx of European designers and educators fleeing
Europe; in particular, Nazi oppression in Germany. Bauhaus educators and designers had
a dramatic impact on graphic design education in the US – an impact that is still seen in
the design curricula of many US universities and colleges. Accordingly, this brief history
30
of graphic design in higher education considers developments at the Bauhaus in
Germany.
The Bauhaus began when Walter Gropius originally conceived a school where all
of the applied arts would be unified, as in the creation and construction of the Gothic
cathedral. A focus on understanding new modernist principles of art and design was a
radical notion in art and design education at the time. For, up until that time, the applied
arts were taught through a traditional system of guilds, apprenticeships, and master
craftsmen. The early years of the Bauhaus, too, followed this model. However, as the
school grew and progressed, the roles of apprentice and master were transformed into
those of student and teacher. Within this new model, form masters and technical masters
led design studios. This dichotomy between aesthetics and materials/construction was an
important contribution to the legacy of graphic design education (Fiedler & Feierabend,
1999).
Although the formal development of graphic design in higher education, defined
as a four-year university or college program, begins in the 1950s in America, the
foundations these programs were built upon lie in Germany at the Bauhaus (Meggs,
1998). The basic structure of Bauhaus design education begins with a broad-based
foundation of studies in form and materials. As students advance, their studies become
increasingly more focused and they begin to specialize in one material, leading to the
study of architecture, which Walter Gropius, the first head of the Bauhaus, saw as the
unification of all the arts. The lasting legacy of the Bauhaus model has been the
31
beginning or foundations course, as well as the eventual focus and specialization in a
particular medium or area.
The longest and clearest effect the Bauhaus had on graphic design education was
the concept of building upon core foundation skills and knowledge, then progressing to
more specialization and refinement. The foundations course, initially developed and led
by Johannes Itten, was based on earlier teachings of German and French artists and
educators. Indeed, the ideas adopted by the Bauhaus owed much to kindergarten founder
Friedrich Froebel, whose theories in turn were indebted to those of Heinrich Pestalozzai
who developed a concept of sensory education that was an application of the
Enlightenment ideals of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. These earlier models of education dwelt
on the idea of cultivating the mind of the student through the mastery of concepts and
skills. The direct application of these methods is apparent in the work of Bauhaus
students and masters (Lupton & Miller, 1991).
Itten brought these concepts and ideas to fruition and they were carried on by his
successor, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and later by Joseph Albers. Although each of the
foundations instructors approached the program differently, the essential idea of
developing a base of design skills, such as drawing, color theory, and construction
methods, in addition to the development of an aesthetic vocabulary and approach to
design, remained constant.
The tumultuous end of the Bauhaus in Germany due to the rise of the Nazi regime
brought about the flight of many key Bauhaus instructors, some of whom came to the US.
32
That helped disseminate the pedagogy and theory of the Bauhaus in the US. Walter
Gropius fled to New England and Harvard University where he taught architecture and
regional planning. Joseph Albers was recruited by the newly-formed Black Mountain
College in North Carolina where he spread ideas fostered at the Bauhaus. Herbert Bayer
fled to the US to pursue professional practice, as did Marcel Breuer. The last Bauhaus
director, Ludwig Meis van der Rohe also fled Germany and mixed a professional practice
in architecture with teaching. Bauhaus personalities such as Albers, Breuer, Gropius, and
van der Rohe had smaller roles in the development of Bauhaus graphic design and
typography, yet they played essential roles in brining modernism to the US, both as an
aesthetic and a concept, as well as in spreading the Bauhaus educational model (Fiedler
& Feierabend, 1999).
In 1938 a consortium of Chicago businessmen asked Laszlo Moholy-Nagy to
open the New Bauhaus in Chicago. The idea of the artist as scientist, as well as the model
of foundations classes leading to more specialized practice, remained intact in the initial
model of the New Bauhaus. The original investors and supporters withdrew funding after
only a year, believing that the school and its teachings were too far removed from
business. Walter Paepcke, then director of Container Corporation of America, reopened
and renamed the New Bauhaus as the School of Design a year later, 1939. The school
closed again and finally reopened in 1944 as the Institute of Design. In 1946, with the
death of Moholy-Nagy, the school lost its vision and only three years later was absorbed
33
by the Illinois Institute of Technology, van der Rohe’s school (Fiedler & Feierabend,
1999).
The last recognized manifestation of the Bauhaus legacy in design education was
at the Institute of Design in Ulm, Germany. Although the school only lasted from 1953
until 1968, it furthered the spread of Bauhaus ideas. However, the founders of the school,
including Max Bill, Tomas Maldonado, Max Bense, and Alexander Kluge, sought to
transform some underlying concepts of the Bauhaus education. A new emphasis on
technology, science, and rationalism evolved. This transformation might be viewed as a
continuation of the motto, “art and technology: a new unity,” used during the Dessau
phase of the Bauhaus (Fiedler & Feierabend, 1999).
In the US, while the 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Act established US colleges that
would later house art, advertising, and design programs, Yale University is credited with
founding the first degree-granting university graphic design program in 1950 (Kelly,
2001). Earlier American forays into design education relied heavily on the Bauhaus
model, with architecture as the culmination of study. The program at Yale, however,
brought graphic design to the forefront. During Yale’s many years of educating aspiring
graphic designers, many illustrious professionals, such as Paul Rand, taught in the
program. The integration of practicing designers into the teaching environment can be
viewed as an extension of Bauhaus models. Wasilly Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and others
were both respected professional artists, as well as designers, while they taught at the
Bauhaus. The program at Yale, however, shifted away from a focus on undergraduate
34
education to that of graduate-level students. Yale’s present educational model focuses
heavily on studio activity and seeks to cultivate both design skills and the mind of the
student.
Today there are hundreds of graphic design schools and programs in the US. In an
effort to standardize graphic design education, the AIGA and the National Association of
Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) developed guidelines for the accreditation of
college-level graphic design programs. NASAD identifies various types and levels of
design degrees and specifically demarcates the requirements for collegiate-level training
in graphic design. The AIGA Web site states that,
NASAD accredits approximately 240 institutions located throughout the United
States. To be an accredited member of NASAD, an institution must demonstrate
to peer reviewers that it meets and maintains basic threshold standards outlined in
the NASAD Handbook. Thus, NASAD institutional Membership provides an
assurance that each accredited institution has implemented all standards of the
Association applicable to the art and design programs it offers (Design Programs,
2006).
The documentation related to NASAD accreditation defines the BFA in graphic design,
advertising, and communication design, and the bachelor’s of graphic design, as the only
suitable degrees for entering practice. An institution offering these degrees must then
undergo a site visit to gain NASAD accreditation. NASAD and the AIGA point out that
two-year associate’s level degrees and liberal arts degrees do not meet the standards
necessary to enter practice. However, in the US there are far more than 240 programs
offering coursework and education in graphic design; the result being the existence of
35
many non-accredited programs. Further, a degree from a NASAD-accredited institution is
not necessary to practice graphic design.
As the field of graphic design matured, and as the act of designing became
separated from print production, the skills of the graphic designer were still largely
gained through practical training. Only with the creation of graphic design educational
programs did skills become codified and defined in higher education. Yet, the skills
needed to practice can still be gained through practical experience, even though today
most novice designers probably received some form of collegiate-level training.
However, only a fraction of the possible academic venues for learning graphic design are
accredited by NASAD. The definition and regulation of specialized education in the field
of graphic design continues to evolve.
Code of Ethics
The profession of graphic design does not yet have a singular code of ethics such
as the Hippocratic Oath taken by medical doctors. The AIGA published a Code of Ethics
in 1985 (A brief history, 2006). Today, in lieu of a code of ethics, the AIGA produced a
series of brochures aimed at educating clients about working with graphic designers.
Among the issues discussed are ethics. The brochures outline a designer’s responsibility
to the AIGA as a professional, to clients, and to other designers. Issues of copyright and
plagiarism are also discussed (American Institute, 2001). However, these documents do
not address the designer’s responsibility to the public, i.e., those that consume the
36
products created by graphic designers. This has been noted as a significant gap in the
profession (Nini, 2004) and continues to be a topic for discussion and debate.
Governmental Regulation
In the US, there is not governmental licensure or practice regulation of graphic
designers, indicating the government’s (and public’s) belief that graphic design does not
affect the health, safety, and welfare of the public and is, therefore, not in need of
oversight. Debates about pursuing regulation continue (Swanson, 2006), but the issue is
unresolved.
In Ontario, Canada, governmental regulation has been in place for almost ten
years. The certification of Registered Graphic Designer (RGD) has been a credential
conferred by the Examination Board of Registered Graphic Designers and the association
of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario since 1996. The credential of “RGD” is
conferred upon proof of sufficient years of practice and education, the successful
completion of an exam, and after passing a portfolio review (Privileges, 2006).
Summary
Ellen Mazur Thomson asserted that the notion that advertising art, and thus
graphic designers, could communicate visually to a mass public, while simultaneously
being entertaining, helped legitimize graphic design as a profession (1997). Yet,
following the four-pronged approach to professionalization – professional organizations,
specialized schools, a code of ethics, and governmental regulation – the ‘profession’ of
graphic design still lags behind other design disciplines. While the AIGA is strong today,
37
it does not offer formal continuing education, its advocacy for graphic design education is
limited to NASAD and some other efforts, and only a small fraction of graphic designers
belong to the organization. While specialized design schools exist, there are still many
varied pathways from graphic design education to practice. The slow development and
limited adoption of NASAD certification among higher education is a testament to the
fact that there are still differing opinions and perspectives about the correct path to
practice.
A code of ethics, and indeed governmental regulation, today are not within grasp
for the profession. While discussions of ethics abound, there is little consensus and much
argument. The Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario are an indication that in Canada,
or in Ontario at least, design professionals can enact regulation. Only the future will tell if
American graphic designers can meet the four markers of professionalization.
Capitalism
Graphic design as a profession has direct connections with capitalism, commerce,
selling, and the marketplace. Graphic design, as William Addison Dwiggins defined it in
1922, was essentially tied up with selling products (Thomson, 1997). As the FTF 2000
manifesto implies, many graphic design practitioners today are uncomfortable with the
relationship between design and commerce. And, indeed, many early-twentieth century
graphic designers were also uneasy with this relationship. We must, however, consider
the profession’s undeniable ties to the growth of capitalism, corporations, and commerce.
38
To fully understand the eventual marriage between modern design and commerce, one
must understand how the formal aspects of modernism emerged.
The early-twentieth century European avant-garde movements are the primary
sources of much contemporary design. They are, in fact, the roots for the formal as well
as the theoretical aspects of much contemporary design. As technology changed, so did
the nature of designed artifacts, as well as theories about design and its role in society. At
the turn of the twentieth century, with the flourishing of Art Nouveau in its many
iterations, graphics became visually flatter. Three-dimensional renderings of form
disappeared in favor of flat depictions of objects and people. The cluttered Victorian-era
graphics were disappearing. Pictorial modernism, a movement that followed Art
Nouveau, was a commercial manifestation of the themes of Art Nouveau – flat shapes,
bold color and typography (Meggs, 1998). In the 1920s, Cubism further challenged ideas
about form; and in Russia, as one example of movements occurring across Central
Europe, political revolution sparked changes in formal approaches to design.
Simultaneously ‘the ring,’ a group of like-minded designers and artists, formed and
advocated modern typography. They favored the typeface Futura over the traditional
German gothic Fraktur for its legibility and its signification of modernism. Herbert Bayer
and Jan Tschichold each produced universal alphabets without differentiations between
upper- and lower-case letters. Moholy-Nagy advocated experimental photography in the
form of “typofoto” that combined type and image through new methods of (printing)
composition that were otherwise unknown (Jobling & Crowley, 1996; Meggs, 1998).
39
Through all these changes, many designers were excited and interested in
bringing design to everyday life: out of the galleries to the streets. However, a major
dilemma for design advocates was whether to work for commerce or to work toward
social revolution. Many designers saw modernism as a project tied to socialist and
communist politics. For example, integrating type and image in graphic design, as did
Moholy-Nagy, was advocated to meet the demands of the era and to “prefigure a better
world where visual communication would enlighten rather than simply reproduce the
prevailing taste, attitudes, and conditions of the day,” (Jobling & Crowley, 1996, p. 143).
Yet, in the US, the use of rules for color, composition, and layout, although not the
formal elements of modernism, followed the emergence of scientific advertising based on
psychology research (Thomson, 1997).
The 1913 Armory Show in New York City introduced the work of the European
avant-gardes to the US. Shortly thereafter, American advertising artists and designers
began to imitate the formal elements of modernism. This exhibition also demonstrated
how art and design could coexist symbiotically. During The World War, the
governmental Committee on Public Information was created and advertisers were
recruited to promote war issues. As a result, advertising agencies became associated with
patriotism, community service, and sacrifice (Thomson, 1997).
According to Jobling and Crowley (1996), the exhibition of modernist design by
designers such as Jan Tschichold and El Lissitsky at the 1928 Pressa, the International
Press Exhibition in Cologne, presented “new styles of graphic design [that] seemed to
40
have much to offer business as a signifier of modernity and as a powerfully affective
mode of address,” (p. 138). The engineer and machine, and the products of new
technological advancements, signified modernity; particularly the sans-serif typeface.
Objectivity and rationalism in graphic design reflected industrial interests in
mechanization, rationalism, and efficiency, such as Taylorism. The Pressa presented
politically-radical, avant-garde graphic design in a conservative German printing
exhibition (Jobling & Crowley, 1996).
At the same time, businesses were growing beyond small, family-owned shops to
corporate enterprises that sought new management and production methods. Businesses
were eager to adopt new visual forms and styles to gain an advantage in the marketplace.
However, the tactics of advertising (adopting, perhaps exploiting, the visual forms of
modernism to sell products) were antithetical to the modernist notions against fashion and
trendy-ness in design (Jobling & Crowley, 1996).
But while some graphic designers struggled with the relationship between graphic
design and commerce, others embraced it. A.M. Cassandre, Jean Carlu, and E.
McKnight-Kauffer each used modernist elements in their work, yet these formal qualities
were detached from modernism’s social and political agendas. Cassandre, in particular,
saw himself as a communicator working in the style of modernism; advertising and
commercial graphic design were a venue for democratizing art. Commerce, regardless of
its consequences, was favored over political activism and agitation (Jobling & Crowley,
1996).
41
As modernism traversed the Atlantic Ocean and permeated the US, graphic
designers in America began to take positions on modernism, graphic design, and
commerce. By the late 1930s, modernism had taken root in the US, creating a hospitable
environment for European émigrés. M.H. Agha and Alexey Brodovitch were European
designers that immigrated to the US who worked in editorial design and publishing.
Agha, in particular, used modernist approaches in his work, but did not like the
theoretical – political and ideological agendas – of modernism. Paul Rand, now an icon
of graphic design, was inspired by the advertising of the 1920s and 1930s; and espoused a
blending of artistic aesthetics and the goal of selling products (Jobling & Crowley, 1996).
From 1945 onward graphic design became entrenched in US corporations.
Graphic designers often teamed with other types of designers to market a corporate image
to the corporation’s employees, stake-holders, and the public. These new visual systems
employed the tactics, principles, and methods of modernist design; and they brought the
many varied services of a corporation together under a unified, authoritative visual
identity. The adoption and promotion of new visual identity systems allowed corporations
to be recognized internationally and, eventually, compete and function in a global
marketplace. For example, Bauhausler and European émigré Herbert Bayer worked for
the Container Corporation of America (CCA) in the mid-twentieth century. Although
CCA did not have any products to market directly to the public, CAA used graphic
design to increase profits and position itself as a culturally-sophisticated commercial
enterprise. CCA’s promotion of, and attitude toward, Bayer exemplified the attitude of
42
many corporations – to support and be benefactors of culture. For Bayer, the promotion
of a large corporation may not have seemed contrary to Bauhaus notions, as his work for
CCA could be viewed as merging art and everyday life (Jobling & Crowley, 1996;
Meggs, 1998).
Blame for the detachment of the formal aspects from the radical, political aspects
of modernism is often placed on American culture; yet this phenomenon was already
occurring in Germany before the 1950s. Ladislav Sutnar’s work for Sweet’s catalog,
while it still adhered to the rational functionality and legibility of modernism, was
entirely detached from a political agenda. The ideology and formal aspects of modernism
did, however, continue in Switzerland as a movement commonly referred to as the
International Style, or the Swiss School (Jobling & Crowley, 1996).
At the Design Institute in Ulm, Emil Ruder identified the elements of good
design: legible, clear type; the importance of white space; the use of a grid; simple,
universal type; and photography (illustration) that provides visual contrast. The
proponents of the Swiss School believed designers had a duty to their audience to meet
the goals of good design. Swiss modernism and education became rooted in a new
scientism that eventually flowered into ‘design theory’ during the 1960s (Meggs, 1998).
As consumer culture began to thrive in West Germany and Switzerland, designers used
their ‘scientific’ design theories “as a kind of critical practice which sought to ameliorate
the worst affects of consumerism on society,” (Jobling & Crowley, 1996, p. 164).
43
Today, the Swiss approach to graphic design persists and is infused with postmodern approaches to graphic design. The institutions that brought the form, as well as
the theory, of modernism to US graphic design are now mainly defunct. Yet, the use of
modernist formal elements in the service of business continues. Formal connections
between capitalism and graphic design continued throughout the twentieth and into the
twenty-first centuries, remaining today. Designers continue to rationalize the relationship
between business and design; debating the nature of graphic design and the roles and
responsibilities of graphic designers.
Conclusion
The history of graphic design is a story of change and adaptation. As new
technologies for printing, typesetting, papermaking, designing, and communicating have
been introduced, graphic designers have responded. Each technological advancement has
brought with it uncertainty about the future of graphic design; resulting in changes in the
daily tasks of designers, the elimination of certain roles, and the creation of new positions
to meet demands. Technology continues to change, and with it, graphic design.
As a profession, graphic design has a strong national organization in the US that
continues to advocate on behalf of graphic designers. Specialized education exists in
various institutions, but NASAD accreditation has yet to be widely adopted or sought.
While discussions of ethics in graphic design practice endure, the profession has only
adopted an ethical code that addresses graphic designers’ responsibilities to their peers
and clients. Designers’ ethical responsibilities to the public have yet to be codified across
44
the profession in the US. The profession also continues to debate the viability, role, and
benefits of governmental regulation and licensure. The RGD credential conferred to
graphic designers in Ontario, Canada, serves as an indication that this pursuit is possible.
As a community, graphic design does not meet the four criteria of professionalization: a
professional organization, specialized education, a code of ethics, and governmental
regulation.
Finally, graphic design history is a narrative about the uneasy relationship
between graphic design and capitalism. Throughout the twentieth century, the visual tools
of graphic designers have been used as mechanisms to promote and sell, in spite of the
fact that many graphic designers view their work as essentially one of communicating.
The role of design is debated constantly and is indeed the focus of the FTF 2000
manifesto, attesting to the profession’s unresolved attitude toward modern US capitalist
society.
In the next chapter, Chapter Three, I introduce and review four peer-reviewed,
scholarly articles that use the theory in this study: post-structuralist, Foucauldian theory.
The four articles that I review provide examples of how Foucauldian theory can be
applied to scholarly research. They illustrate that Foucauldian thought can provide
alternate perspectives from which to evaluate the underlying assumptions and ideas of an
academic discipline.
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Chapter Three: Related Literature
Introduction
The following review discusses literature related to the theory used in this study.
While literature and research about FTF 2000 has been published (see Chapter Four),
graphic design research using Foucauldian theory to evaluate responses and reactions to
FTF 2000 and networks of relations does not yet exist. Thus, in this chapter literature
from other disciplines that use Foucauldian theory, including Foucault’s theory of power
relations, will be explored in terms of the constructs used for investigation, methods
employed, and general findings.
The following articles are drawn from tourism and hospitality, cultural studies,
education, and sociology research. These four articles were chosen for review because
they illustrate various ways of integrating Foucauldian theory with academic research.
They provide contrasting approaches to defining the constructs of Foucauldian theory and
applying the theory as a method for analysis. This review is intended to help situate my
work within the broad scope of research that engages Foucauldian theory, and to provide
examples of how an abstract theory is tangibly applied to empirical research.
Tourism and Foucauldian Theory
In Power and Tourism: A Foucauldian Observation, Cheong and Miller (2000)
explore the implications of Foucauldian conceptions of power as applied to the discipline
of tourism. The authors position their work within the tourism body of knowledge by
challenging commonly held assumptions about tourism. Assumptions that tourism
46
negatively impacts society and is driven by the wills and whims of the tourist are
described and countered with new observations. Further, Cheong and Miller state that
tourism is often conceived of in terms of its impact upon local populations, with the
interactions between locals and tourists understood as primarily economic. These
assumptions provide rationale for an exploratory study that examines the various power
relationships at play in tourism, based upon the work of Michel Foucault. This referenced
position paper explores the central thesis that power exists everywhere in tourism, not
just in the hands of tourists.
After a brief literature review exploring the basic assumptions and foundations of
tourism research, Cheong and Miller begin to evaluate tourism through the lens of
Foucault. A central concept for this study is the Foucauldian notion of power. “Foucault
challenges what he sees to be a mainstream conceptualization of power as ‘a certain
strength’ with which people are endowed,” (Cheong & Miller, 2000, p. 374). Foucault’s
idea of power is described as more fluid than the strict workings of laws and rules
intended to dominate another person. Cheong and Miller state that Foucauldian power
moves throughout relationships, in multiple directions, and is wedded to knowledge.
The authors then move on to discuss specific functions or qualities of Foucauldian
power: that it is omnipresent, functions in a network of relations, employs the gaze, and is
both repressive and productive. The idea of power’s omnipresence directs one to
understand all relationships as imbued with power; and power’s presence in a network of
relations directs one to understand that power moves in multiple directions and must be
47
understood from particular locations within the network. The idea of power as enacted
through the gaze relates to the ability of vision and visual inspection to exert power; any
person can be watched or watch another. Finally, Cheong and Miller describe
Foucauldian power as able to both repress, as well as produce. The productive aspects of
power refer to its ability to spawn revolt or reactions to it (2000).
Cheong and Miller describe these four aspects of Foucauldian power before
delving into its application to tourism. It is worth noting that throughout the introductory
discussion of Foucault a variety of other concepts related to Foucauldian power are
mentioned, but not addressed in detail. Also, Cheong and Miller deploy the terms “target”
and “agent” to help clarify how power functions in relations; targets are those that power
is aimed at, while agents are those that enact the power (2000).
Findings include questioning the long-held assumption that tourism is a two-part
system, with hosts and guests (tourists). The authors propose a conception of tourism
systems as dynamic and mutable wherein the identities of tourists, locals, and brokers
(e.g. travel agents) are constantly changing. A local may become a broker by offering a
tour guide service or a broker may become a local when they live in the locale visited.
The ideas of targets and agents of power are used to redefine the tourist not as an agent of
power, but as a target (Cheong & Miller, 2000). As targets, tourists are vulnerable and
susceptible to the language and cultural mores of a society, and their visits are guided and
structured by guidebooks, tour guides, travel agents, etc. The gaze of locals also
structures the actions of tourists, e.g., telling them where to go (or not) and what is
48
acceptable (or not). Foucauldian concepts are used to reconsider the relationships and
power at play in tourism.
Cheong and Miller’s (2000) application of Foucauldian ideas of power is both
practical and illuminating. They use four specific concepts to challenge assumptions that,
presumably, much tourism research is based upon. References throughout the article
draw upon a wide breadth of Foucault’s work, while the application of the concepts of
‘target’ and ‘agent’ are quite specific. Cheong and Miller take a theory and concepts that
are extraordinarily abstract and oftentimes difficult to grasp, simplify them to facilitate
understanding, and apply them to research. While this may be antithetical to Foucault’s
original work, this research is engaging and provides a new understanding of tourism. It
is interesting for its exploration of concepts and assumptions; however, it is also a
referenced position paper. Each of the findings delineated could be strengthened through
fieldwork that uses the experiences of tourists, locals, and brokers to illustrate these
concepts. The type of meta-analysis that occurs in this article is perhaps intended to
provide a framework for further study of Foucualdian ideas of power in tourism.
Cultural Criticism and Foucauldian Theory
Hull’s article, Postmodern Philosophy Meets Pop Cartoon: Michel Foucault and
Matt Groening (2000), takes a decidedly different tone than the work of Cheong and
Miller (2000). The subject matter, the television cartoon The Simpsons and the book
School is Hell, is amusing, as well as engaging. Hull begins the article by contrasting
49
quotations from Foucault and Groening that help situate Groening’s work as a
Foucauldian critique of modern power.
The main Foucauldian concepts that Hull draws upon are those of discipline and
normalization, which she situates within Foucault’s larger conception of modern power.
This concept of power is stated in a manner similar to the work of Cheong and Miller
(2000). Power as existing through a network of relations, the localized nature of power,
the productive and repressive aspects of power, and power’s connection to knowledge
and the gaze are described. In addition to Cheong and Miller’s description of Foucauldian
power, Hull adds the concept of discipline. Discipline is the “primary mode of control”
for Foucauldian modern power (Hull, 2000, p. 58) and is used to create particular
realities. Essential to this concept is the body; how the body occupies space, can be
marked, or can be isolated, to name a few options. An additional concept that Hull
explores is normalization. Normalization involves the regulation, hierarchizing or
ranking, and defining of individuals and actions. In particular, the normal and the
abnormal or deviant are defined and delineated through a process of normalization.
Hull’s description of Foucauldian modern power is qualified by the statement that
Foucault believed that power does not have evil or sinister motives, but is rather
motivated to maintain society and social order.
After this description, Hull begins analysis of the work of Groening, positing that
Groening’s work includes evidence of the application of Foucauldian concepts. For
example, normalization and normalizing power are exemplified in School is Hell in
50
which a child advises her classmates to be creative and artistic now, before school sucks
the creativity out of them. Hull also identifies the use of records to normalize in
Groening’s work; school children in The Simpsons are advised that deviant behavior will,
and is, recorded in their ‘permanent records.’ School is also regularly compared to jail; a
comparison that Foucault often makes. Linkages between Foucault and Groening also
include Groening’s play upon the arbitrary definitions (according to Foucault) between
the sane and insane. Hull describes an episode of The Simpsons in which the family must
wear badges saying ‘sane’ when visiting an asylum, so as not to be confused with the
insane.
Hull concludes the article by recognizing that Goening’s work, while not the best
intellectual work of the day, provides humor as a tool for reaction and action against
modern power. Hull also points out that Groening’s work moves beyond that of Foucault
toward a Nietzchiean approach to power that uses humor as a reactive force. The cultural
theorist Hannah Arendt is also referenced to further contextualize Groening’s work.
This short article on popular culture and Foucault provides an example of
Foucauldian theory applied to contemporary daily life. Seemingly trivial aspects of
popular culture are reevaluated in terms of power, normalization, and other concepts;
providing new insight into how Groening’s work might be perceived as a deviant reaction
against a dominant power. Some of the concepts that Cheong and Miller (2000) applied
reappear in Hull’s article. Yet, it is worth noting that both articles use slightly different
references, define concepts slightly differently, and draw connections between concepts
51
in different ways. Hull’s article also is a little brief on analysis leaving much discussion
in footnotes. But, what it lacks in length and depth it makes up for in its originality and its
application of Foucauldian thought to everyday life. This article provides an interesting
example of a framework that could be applied to other analyses of comics or design.
Education and Foucauldian Theory
A much graver application of Foucauldian theory occurs in Webb, McCaughtry,
and MacDonald’s article (2004), Surveillance as a Technique of Power in Physical
Education. Once again researchers applied a Foucauldian concept of power to their study.
Webb, McCaughtry, and MacDonald’s study is framed by an understanding of the ‘health
lifeworld’ of physical education, which includes job satisfaction and the attrition of
physical education teachers. The purpose of this study was to investigate how
surveillance was used as a form of power to influence physical education teachers.
In addition to the work of Foucault, the researchers draw from the physical
education body of knowledge the concept of ‘health lifeworld,’ as well as feminist
theory. Central to the research are the concepts of identity and subjectivity: the idea that
identities are fluid and shifting; and are the result of lived, embodied experience.
Discussion then shifts to the work of Foucault, where familiar terms and concepts
resurface, including the concept of power as essential in all relationships. The bodily
nature of power, which was touched upon in Hull’s discussion of The Simpsons, also
reappears and becomes an essential tool for analysis. In particular, Webb, McCaughtry,
52
and MacDonald discuss Foucault’s point that the body is a “crucial site for the workings
of power,” (2004, p. 208).
Surveillance is then discussed as a technology of power: a means of regulating
bodies and citizens. The Panopticon5 prison and the self-regulatory effects of modern
power upon individuals are described. The effects of public disobedience or transgression
also become a powerful source of surveillance that helps normalize. This idea, the
authors point out, is especially applicable to physical education in public schools, due to
the centrality of the body in physical education and the roles of teachers in general. The
gendered gaze, male or sexual, is also described as a method of surveillance.
The authors applied these concepts to their research, which involved qualitative
observation and interviews with nine participants working in public schools in the US
and Australia. The participants were heads of their department or physical education
teachers who were interviewed and observed numerous times to collect data. Discourse
analysis was used to identify themes related to the concepts. Analysis focused on the
various ‘directions’ of power relations: top-down, bottom-up, and lateral.
Instances of top-down surveillance included heads of departments that observed
physical education teachers and teachers that observed their students. Bottom-up
surveillance included students observing and evaluating the diet and physique of their
instructors, as well as their methods of teaching. Lateral observation included classroom
5
The Panopticon was a prison design created by Jeremy Bentham in 1843. The structure was never built. The design contained cells
arranged in a ring pattern around a central tower. This tower allowed the guards to watch prisoners at all times. Lighting was also
employed so that prisoners could not see the guards, and could not tell when they were or were not being watched. According to
Foucault this had the effect of internalizing surveillance in the prisoners, such that they began to ‘watch over’ themselves by
monitoring and regulating their own actions (Foucault, 1995).
53
teachers observing physical education teachers and making assessments about their
capabilities as educators. The authors also discussed the effects of supervisors’
surveillance on the participants, specifically anxiety about appearance, health, weight,
and performance, as well as happiness, tension, and frustration. Anxiety is an example of
surveillance that has been internalized. The teachers internalized the critiques and
assessments of those that observe them, thus regulating themselves and creating anxiety.
This article provides an example of Foucauldian theory applied to fieldwork that
investigates the current state of a particular profession, physical education. Foucauldian
theory is clearly described and defined, and is blended with feminist theory of the gaze.
Observations and interviews provided empirical evidence that was analyzed to discern
findings. This example of Foucauldian theory is perhaps the most applicable to my
research. Specific aspects of power are defined that led to analysis that sheds new light on
the current state of a profession. However, the concepts are rather strictly applied, and the
discourse analysis does not tend to stray from the predefined notions of power as topdown, bottom-up, or lateral. However, I question if a looser interpretation of the nature of
power would have allowed for even more varied analysis and interpretations of the data.
Logically, if power functions in networks, its application would be from all directions
and angles, not just three. Regardless, the practical and tangible application of Foucault’s
work is interesting and fruitful.
54
Defining Physical Disabilities and Foucauldian Theory
Titchkosky’s article, Governing Embodiment: Technologies of Constituting
Citizens with Disabilities (2003) tackles the subject of how the Canadian government
understands, defines, and composes citizens with disabilities. In particular, one document
was evaluated using discourse analysis to explore the linguistic and epistemological
mechanisms used to categorize and define the disabled. Titchkosky’s work is based upon
the premise that the disabled are a category, type, or phenomenon that has been
specifically created and problematized through governmental discourse. Analysis of the
document is framed by the Foucauldian idea of governmentality. This concept emerged
in the later work of Foucault and focuses upon an interpretation of power bound up with
modern, governed society. Governing is not limited to those actions determined by a
government, but includes how individuals govern themselves, i.e., how they internalize
social mores, traditions, language, and behavior through self-regulation and monitoring.
Titchkosky frames the article with a discussion of the basic assumptions
surrounding the disabled. Namely how the disabled are excluded from society. This idea
is turned inward through a discussion and examination of how the Canadian government
includes disability as an excludable type. It organizes, structures, defines, and
understands disability as a problem that must be addressed and resolved. In particular, the
document analyzed by Titchkosky specifically problematizes disability as an “organic
and individual condition of abnormality which, according to these documents, results in a
lack of participatory citizenship and employment for ‘persons with disabilities’,” (2003,
55
p. 520). Disability becomes an individualized, bodily problem that can sometimes result
from abnormal or deviant actions.
The article continues by addressing how statistics about the Canadian population
play a role in constituting citizens with disabilities. Disability becomes an abnormal
variable within the general population of Canada. The able-disabled are also critical to
Titchkosky’s analysis. This ‘type’ is identified as those persons with disabilities that
reengage with society in a productive way. Thus, the problem of disability becomes
reconstituted, becomes normalized (2003).
Overall this article provides interesting insight into the idea of disability. The
Foucauldian concept of governmentality is applied through discourse analysis to
particular governmental documents to illuminate the situation. The concept of
governmentality, however, is quite complex and much of the language and jargon that
Titchkosky uses in the article are opaque. The voice is scholarly, which at times obscures
some of the findings. While this research is interesting, it is perhaps the most inapplicable
example of Foucauldian theory in action. Because governmentality almost essentially
necessitates the investigation of some type of governing, my research may not be the
most fruitful site for an investigation similar to this one.
Summary
In conclusion, this small sample of literature from different disciplines
demonstrates that Foucauldian theory can be applied in various ways. Taken together,
these articles demonstrate that it is up to the researcher to determine the best method of
56
application and the best concepts from Foucauldian theory to apply in a study. Cheong
and Miller (2000) and Webb, McCaughtry, and MacDonald (2004) demonstrated how
Foucauldian theory can be narrowed and how specific concepts or ideas can be
pinpointed for analysis. In contrast, Hull (2000) and Titchkosky (2003) took a broader
approach to the application of theory. Further, each of the articles applied a slightly
different variation of Foucauldian thought. Some researchers dwelled upon Foucault’s
earlier work, while Titchkosky (2003) applied ideas from Foucault’s later work, that of
governmentality. Clearly interpretations are broad; yet, in each article, the concepts are
clearly defined and applied.
These articles use a variety of research methods. Cheong and Miller (2000) relied
upon their expertise and reviews of literature to conduct a meta-analysis of the state of
tourism research. Discourse analysis was also used in Hull’s (2000) and Webb,
McCaughtry, and MacDonald’s (2004) articles. However, Webb, McCaughtry, and
MacDonald (2004) used fieldwork to gather data via observation and interviews. These
methods, although not specifically described as ethnography, fall closest to those used in
this research. Finally, Titchkosky (2003) used discourse analysis to investigate how
disability is constructed through Canadian law. These articles provide evidence that
Foucualdian theory is being applied across a wide array of disciplines and can provide
new and engaging insight that challenges the underlying assumptions in a particular
discipline.
57
From this review, I have learned that there are many ways to both define and
apply Foucauldian theory to research. Foucault’s work can be strictly read and applied to
research, or the complex work of Foucault can be simplified through definition and
applied. Both methods have limitations and benefits. Whether in a meta-analysis or
qualitative empirical research, the value of a Foucauldian approach is its ability to
illuminate underlying assumptions in a discipline and offer new insights.
In the next chapter, Chapter Four, I review literature about the FTF 2000
manifesto, as well as other manifestos published in the late-twentieth century to better
situate FTF 2000. I discuss the perspectives of essays published in response to FTF 2000,
as well as the dominant themes of other late-twentieth century graphic design manifestos.
These observations situate FTF 2000, the focus of this research, and provide context.
58
Chapter Four: Supporting Literature
Introduction
The following review discusses literature related to the First Things First 2000
manifesto. The literature includes an article written by Matthew Soar on the FTF 2000
manifesto and culture jamming (2002), as well as manifestos co-published in Looking
Closer Four (Bierut, Drenttel, & Heller, 2002). The review focuses upon topics and
themes discussed in the manifestos to help illuminate different approaches and
philosophies of graphic design and better situate the FTF 2000 manifesto within late
twentieth century graphic design publishing, scholarship, and writing.
Only one peer-reviewed, scholarly article has been written about the FTF 2000
manifesto and has a different focus than this research. Soar evaluated the FTF 2000
manifesto and culture jamming using the theory of cultural economy (2002). Soar
interviewed signatories of the manifesto as well as practitioners, educators, and critics.
While some of his findings are interesting in terms of the purpose of my research, his
analysis focused upon differences between advertising and graphic design, and the role of
graphic design practitioners as cultural intermediaries that create messages and artifacts.
Soar found that graphic designers exert some control over their practice and the
artifacts they create. This was especially evident in non-commercial design projects, as
opposed to the relatively little control they exerted over commercial work. These noncommercial projects provided a vehicle for self-expression and “creative fulfillment”
(Soar, 2002, p. 571).
59
Interestingly, Soar’s article (2002) used cultural theory, which relates in some
ways to this study. However, Soar engaged the theory of cultural economy based on
recent work in cultural studies. Essential to his research is the idea of cultural
intermediaries, which Soar used to classify graphic designers. These intermediaries create
cultural forms of communication using specialized skills and expertise. Advertising
creatives are also grouped into this broad category and are discussed, especially because
FTF 2000 specifically targeted advertising as problematic, and because culture jamming
was a focus of Soar’s research.
Soar’s use of cultural theory provides a precedent for using a cultural studies
perspective for investigating the practice of graphic design. The article demonstrates that
the issues I investigated are of interest to graphic designers, as well as to the academic
community and that my research will add to the body of knowledge about graphic design
practice. However, there are not, as yet, any Foucauldian studies of the networks of
relations that compose the profession of graphic design focused on the FTF 2000
manifesto as an entry into discourse about the graphic design profession. While poststructuralism has been used as a tool to guide the formation of designed artifacts (Lupton
& Miller, 1996), this theory has not been used to study the practice of design.
“To the Barricades” Chapter in Looking Closer Four
The following review evaluates essays that discuss and critique FTF 2000, as well
as manifestos contemporary to FTF 2000 that were co-published in Looking Closer Four
(Bierut, Drenttel, & Heller, 2002). Looking Closer Four is a volume of essays, the fourth
60
in a series, and is largely devoted to republishing, discussing, critiquing, and debating
manifestos penned by graphic designers.
To frame Looking Closer Four, in the introduction Steven Heller stated that the
editors of the fourth volume specifically sought writers that did not contribute to the other
volumes (2002). He also discussed the decline of critical writing about graphic design,
which he attributed to five factors: the decline, or cool down, of late twentieth-century
deconstruction in graphic design; polarized discourse about graphic design that resulted
from the publication of FTF 2000; a declining economy in the early twenty-first century
that resulted in decreased interest in graphic design (compared with the late twentieth
century); designer-critics receded to conduct business and professional critics emerged;
and the profession was expanding, pushing criticism to broaden into cultural criticism,
not just graphic design criticism (Heller, 2002). With these interests and factors in mind,
it is clear why a substantial section of Looking Closer Four was devoted to manifestos,
specifically FTF 2000.
As stated, FTF 2000 is republished in a chapter titled “To the Barricades” along
with essays that explore, contest, and support the basic idea of FTF 2000 – that designers
need to shift their efforts to non-commercial projects, away from commercial work.
Following, each of the accompanying essays in the “To the Barricades” chapter is
summarized and discussed.
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First Things First, A Brief History
The chapter opens with republication of FTF 2000, followed by Rick Poynor’s
article, “First Things First, A Brief History” (2002).6 Poynor, a vocal advocate of FTF
2000, provided a history of FTF, both 1964 and 2000 versions, as well as commentary
about the state of graphic design practice. Poynor pointed out that there was, indeed, an
imbalance between the two paths for practice; too much effort was spent on persuasive
design, and not enough on communicative design.
Among the issues Poynor discussed was the lack of focus on socially-responsible,
communicative design in undergraduate design studios, the graphic design trade press,
and in professional organizations. Designers’ lives and consciousness, Poynor stated,
were at stake in the debate about practice. “At its root it’s about democracy. The
escalating commercial takeover of everyday life makes democratic resistance more vital
than ever” (Poynor, 2002, p. 10). According to Poynor, graphic designers have a
responsibility as both consumers and creators of design (2002).
First Things First, Now More Than Ever
Following Poynor’s history is an article by Matthew Soar, “First Things First,
Now More Than Ever” (2002).7 Among the topics Soar discussed was the role of
professional standing in FTF 2000. Soar identified the signatories as the ‘upper class’ that
speaks down to the rank and file of practitioners. The middle class is the general
6
7
Originally published in the Fall 1999 issue of Adbusters
Originally published in the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, 1999.
62
membership of the AIGA, and the majority of designers; those doing anonymous design
work that is considered uninspired or uniformed are the proletariat. Soar pointed out that
perhaps what FTF needed to do most was to resonate with the design proletariat, not the
upper class. However, the proletariat generally responded to FTF 2000 with disdain,
according to Soar. He noted that Michael Beirut pointed out that FTF 2000 caused
alienation among the rank and file, and the manifesto was criticized for taking a moral
high ground and being preachy. In fact, students at North Carolina State University
investigated the backgrounds of the 2000 signatories and criticized them as the ‘usual
suspects’ – well-known figures that compose the upper echelon of graphic design
professionals. This issue, however, was somewhat resolved when Dixon and Lasn put
FTF 2000 on the Adbusters Web site and allowed anyone to sign the document by adding
their names.8
Just Say No…Quietly
The next article, “Just Say No … Quietly”9 was written by Monika Parrinder, a
design and cultural theory educator at the London College of Printing, the Royal College
of Art, and Central St. Martins in London (2002). The thrust of Parrinder’s critique of
FTF 2000 was that its idealism was impractical. She also stated that the purpose of the
manifesto was unclear. Was the ideal outcome of the manifesto for designers to reject
advertising work or to awaken the consciousness of designers? She commented that the
8
9
FTF 2000 has now been removed from the Adbusters Web site.
Originally published in Eye, Spring 2000.
63
positions stated in FTF 2000 were reductive in their juxtaposition of socially-responsible
design work and advertising work, as socially-responsible work functions in the same
sphere as advertising.
The public discussion of FTF 2000 was sidetracked into discussions over
responsibility that often, according to Parrinder, devolved into discussions about political
affiliations. Additionally, the manifesto was critiqued for not providing tangible solutions
to the problems presented. As a solution, Parrinder advocated intervention in all spheres
of design, including the often denounced sphere of corporate design. The reaction of
choice for Parrinder was refusal or inaction, which can be purposeful and deliberate, can
be silence, or can be loudly saying ‘no.’ Inaction was the response of choice for Parrinder
because it challenged consumerism without adding to it (2002).
Can Designers Save the World?(And Should They Try?)
The next article is Nico Macdonald’s “Can Designers Save the World? (And
Should They Try?)” (2002).10 Macdonald, the founder of the think tank Design Agenda
and a London-based writer and consultant, focused on issues of politics, the lack of
vehicles for creating social change, the profession of graphic design, and the ethical
design movement. Discussions of politics in design, Macdonald stated, are really more
about tactics than politics that result from designers’ perceived sense of political
powerlessness. Today, while graphic designers are more self-critical than in the recent
past, the profession, as compared with the early twentieth century avant-gardes, doesn’t
10
Originally published in New Design, September/October 2001.
64
have a unifying set of beliefs. Rather, it is held together today only through a shared set
of skills and professionalism. Macdonald stated that the ethical design movement –
graphic design concerned with the ethical implications of final products – over-estimated
the power of design to influence people by underestimating the autonomy and critical
perception of the audience. As a result, the craft of design has been deemphasized.
Solutions to some of these issues were provided by Macdonald, and included focusing on
the design process rather than the product, focusing on the agency of an audience, and
better understanding the world (Macdonald, 2002).
The People v. the Corporate Cool Machine
Following Macdonald’s article is an essay by Kalle Lasn, editor of Adbusters,
titled “The People v. The Corporate Cool Machine” (2002).11 As the title, and previous
mentions of Lasn might suggest, the article focused upon the various negative forces at
play in the world today that adversely influence the mental environment. Lasn lays the
blame for these negative forces directly at the feet of corporations.
Lasn opened the essay by stating that World War III will be waged in people’s
heads; only culture jammers will be equipped to do battle. If citizens are not vigilant in
self government, then they will be manipulated and controlled by society, much like the
drug ‘soma’ manipulated the characters in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. As in
Brave New World, only outsiders will be able to see that ‘soma’ induces a dystopia, not a
utopia, according to Lasn. Outsiders were characterized as those that don’t watch much
11
Originally published in the Émigré, Winter 1999.
65
TV, read a few good books, and had a moment of clarity while hiking in Mexico, India,
or similar locale. As the article continued, Lasn stated that the battle against the
corporations must begin by killing the pseudo-science of economics, which will result in
a paradigm shift. Further, a court ruling that gave corporations personhood must be
reversed (Lasn, 2002).
A Manifesto with Ten Footnotes
Michael Bierut’s critique of FTF 2000, “A Manifesto with Ten Footnotes,”12
follows Lasn’s attack on corporate design in Looking Closer Four (2002). As the title
suggests, Bierut identified ten sections within the FTF 2000 manifesto and made detailed
comments. Some of Bierut’s critiques echoed earlier essays in the Looking Closer Four
chapter, including the notion that the signatories of FTF 2000 are among the elite of the
profession whose work is generally already among the cultural, communicative type; and
whose projects likely would be unknown to the general public. Additionally, Bierut
reinforced the issue that non-commercial design used the same tactics and techniques as
persuasive commercial design. In fact, Bierut pointed out that many graphic designers
probably envy advertising for its acknowledged impact on a client’s products, whereas
graphic design has not been identified as contributing to the economic success of a
product or service (Bierut, 2002).
Of the list of products defined as poor venues for graphic design in FTF 2000,
Bierut pointed out that these items (e.g. dog biscuits and butt-toners) are familiar to most
12
Originally published in I.D., March/April 2000.
66
people. And, posters and other design ephemera about such mundane products have
become part of graphic design history. Yet, the list of ‘good’ products for sociallyresponsible, non-commercial design is notably vague; Bierut noted that the phrase
“cultural interventions” is Adbusters code for culture jamming. About the products of
graphic design practice Bierut noted that it is much easier to gain accolades for pro-bono
design work, rather than an advertisement for a mundane product. Yet, do designers
know if these pro-bono pieces actually work? Everyday design that is effective, such as
nutrition labels, fails to gain accolades from the design profession. Adbusters and Rick
Poynor never recognize these projects as good design because they are boring and not
sexy, Bierut remarked (2002).
In a pointed critique of Tibor Kalman, beloved icon of Lasn and Dixon, Bierut
noted that Kalman despised consumption yet collected packaging from everyday products
in China and India, as if saying that bad graphic design is fine if undertaken anonymously
and in a third-world county. In response to the manifesto’s call for truth, which was
inspired by Kalman, Bierut asked, isn’t graphic designers’ fault not in lying, but in not
doing commercial design better? And, rather than creating a “new kind of meaning”
shouldn’t graphic design work simply have meaning (Bierut, 2002)?
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A New Kind of Dialogue
The next article in “To the Barricades” is Andrew Howard’s “A New Kind of
Dialogue,” (2002).13 Howard, an educator at the Escola Superior des Artes e Design in
Portugal and a professional designer concentrating on cultural and educational work,
focused on a critique of the market and the contemporary graphic design profession.
Howard opened the article by discussing the fact that the issues raised by FTF 2000,
excess and graphic design, are not new to the profession. While designers may be drawn
to the visual, creative nature of design, the final products may seem trivial in the greater
scheme of things. Howard critiqued capitalism’s need to manufacture desire to increase
demand for products.
Howard also pointed out that there are a variety of books that examine this issue
by looking beneath the surface of normality to the various desires that fragment daily life.
Designers must look beyond the internal logic of the profession to an external logic
(Howard, 2002). As did Bierut, Howard specifically discussed FTF 2000’s idea of
creating a meaning; rather than a new meaning, Howard suggested a new dialogue that
doesn’t replace car billboards with Greenpeace billboards, but removes the billboards
altogether. This would result in a slowing down of life that abolishes the “cult of the
instant” that hampers imagination and creativity.
13
Originally published in the September/October 2001 issue of Adbusters
68
The Spectacle: A Reevaluation of Situationist Thesis
In Veronique Vienne’s article, “The Spectacle: A Reevaluation of the Situationist
Thesis,”14 the ideas of spectatorship, spectacle, and the Situationist International were
discussed (2002). Vienne, author of essays and articles about culture and design,
discussed her experiences participating in Situationist International (SI) activities, such as
purposefully doing nothing – wasting time to be able to enjoy time and space. Among the
SI activities that Vienne discussed were the notions of derive (a purposefully unplanned
travel through the city) and detournement (purposefully creating new meaning for images
through the juxtaposition of text). Vienne saw Adbusters as carrying on the legacy of the
SI through the use of complex captions for simple imagery. The SI and Adbusters
responded to the society of the spectacle that induces a state of numb, brainless,
spectatorship for viewers.
Vienne also distinguished between French and American notions of happiness: for
Americans, happiness is fun; for the French, happiness in a euphoric prankish state.
These sentiments were exhibited in the 1968 French student rebellion that was fostered
by the SI. The 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) riots, according to Vienne, echoed
the SI and the mood of the 1968 rebellion, yet many graphic designers are largely
unaware of the WTO.
14
Originally published in Communication Arts, March/April 2000.
69
On FTF
The last article in “To the Barricades” is Loretta Staples’s “On FTF”15 (2002). To
discussions of FTF, Staples added the idea that the profession of graphic design, as a
whole, does not engage complex topics and generally avoids self-critique. Staples pointed
out that graphic design is the problem, not the solution. And, many professional designers
believe in the myth of graphic design. Further, Staples critiqued the general premise of
FTF 2000 – that non-commercial design work needs the attention of graphic designers.
Staples proposed that because these projects are socially aware and responsible they do
not need the services of graphic designers; the unpolished nature of these publications
and ephemera are exactly what sets them apart from the wealth of other graphic design.
Further, the cultural position of graphic design precludes critical introspection and selfexamination, according to Staples (2002).
Observations about “To the Barricades”
In summary, the essays that were republished with FTF 2000 in Looking Closer
Four cover a variety of topics. Poynor’s article (2002) openly praised FTF 2000, while
Lasn’s article (2002) praised the general theme and ideas of FTF 2000 without
mentioning the manifesto directly. Many of the essays were neither for nor against FTF
2000. Soar (2002), Parrinder (2002), Macdonald (2002), Howard (2002), and Staples
(2002) took positions that were critical of FTF, but did not denounce the manifesto as
completely flawed, problematic, or erroneous.
15
Originally published in Émigré, Fall 1999.
70
Among the issues discussed by these authors were the themes of refocusing the
idea of creating new meaning in graphic design toward the creation of either a dialogue
about graphic design (Howard, 2002) or simply ‘meaning’ in graphic design (Bierut,
2002). While Bierut’s essay was unabashedly critical of FTF 2000, his critique provided
options and different solutions to the issues identified in the manifesto (2002). Other
alternatives to those proposed by FTF 2000 were offered and included inaction –
purposefully doing nothing – (Parrinder, 2002); focusing on the design process, users,
and larger contexts (Macdonald, 2002); and critical self-examination (Staples, 2002).
Themes in the essays included graphic design’s relationship with capital and
capitalism (Howard, 2002), the role of corporations and corporate design (Parrinder,
2002), social class within the profession (Soar, 2002), politics and design (Macdonald,
2002), and the state of the profession (Macdonald, 2002; Staples, 2002). Each author took
a different standpoint when responding to FTF 2000. Their positions appear to be
informed by their previous experiences, professional and otherwise. While themes appear
throughout the essays there is not a general cohesive thread that permeates the group.
Perhaps surprisingly, only one article is outright against FTF 2000 (Bierut, 2002).
While many authors critiqued the ideas offered in the manifesto, almost all
applauded in some manner the effort or ideas presented in FTF 2000. Poynor’s and
Lasn’s articles are the most admiring, which is not unpredictable, since both authors
played a significant role in the writing and publication of FTF 2000. In total, these
articles provide an interesting snapshot of opinions and reactions to the manifesto that
71
situate it within the context of Looking Closer Four and late twentieth century design
writing.
“Manifestos” Chapter of Looking Closer Four
Jessica Helfand, Me the Undersigned
Helfand’s manifesto16 opened with an essay providing a brief definition of
‘manifesto’ and a history of the manifesto in early twentieth-century design that was
aimed at understanding why this form resurfaced during the late twentieth century.
Following these sections, Helfand referenced a variety of contemporary manifestos,
pointing out that many are forgettable and overly preachy, while a few stand out as
documents infused with irony and critical thought. The essay finished with a discussion
of how the Web has spawned self expression via online publishing that has helped shape
audiences’ general disdain for long bodies of copy. And last, the manifesto is included,
which is a short, trademarked list of ten items with extensive footnotes (Helfand, 2002).
Helfand’s trademarking of the title “Manifesto” seems to be a jab at the tendency
to copyright and trademark ideas, regardless of their originality or uniqueness. In each of
the successive numbered items Helfand took satirical jabs at different groups of
designers, and different ideas prominent in practice, such as “Information Architecture is
not Architecture” and “Less is a Chore” (2002). For the statement “Information
Architecture is not Architecture,” Helfand took aim at the late twentieth century surge in
new titles that graphic and Web designers were adding to their business cards, notably the
16
Originally published in Eye, Winter 2000.
72
term “information architect.” This critique ended with a statement that design, unlike
architecture, probablywill not kill you if it falls on your head. Similarly, in the section
“Less is a Chore,” Helfand discussed how editing is key to good design, and how the
notion of ‘less is more’ is key to design.
Helfand’s manifesto continued in much the same way as discussed above; she
used humor, questioned and opposed the design status quo, and posed solutions. In form,
the manifesto opened with an essay, followed by a short numbered list of items, and
closed with extensive footnotes. Her prose was frank and oftentimes used phrases and
colloquialisms common in popular culture or design practice. Helfand’s tone was overtly
skeptical of the manifesto as a forum for discussing graphic design, but in the end she
clearly found an entry into the discussion that she favored. While Helfand did not
differentiate between different paths for design practice, she did take positions that
articulate a particular design philosophy. She is clearly anti-establishment, is for
experimentation and questioning, and blends a design philosophy with reflections and
positions about the world in general. Specific positions were directly pointed at design
practice, while others were aimed, perhaps, at the importance of making design relevant
to larger world issues.
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Bruce Mau, An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth
Bruce Mau’s “An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth”17 (2002) primarily speaks to
issues with life in general. Written in a third-person voice, the manifesto tells its reader
what to do, providing brief rationales for each declaration. This manifesto blended a
philosophy of life with a particular philosophy of design. As a result the manifesto is
focused more on the practice of design, or living design. Specifically ethical issues,
personal goals, morals, and society in general are discussed under broad headings such as
“Process,” “Growth,” “Stay Up Late,” “Don’t Clean Your Desk,” “Make New Words,”
“Imitate,” and “Listen Carefully.” Mau referenced a variety of well-known people, such
as communication theorist Marshall McLuhan, architect Frank Gehry, author Dr. Seuss,
musician Ella Fitzgerald, and early twentieth-century (Vienna Secession) designer Hans
Ulrich Olbrist. Names are mentioned in the brief explanations that follow the numbered
headings in the manifesto.
In terms of content, the manifesto mainly dealt with the practice of design,
touching upon issues such as not entering design competitions, being wary of computer
applications, and the culture of a design studio. The name-dropping that occurred
sporadically throughout the manifesto could be perceived as providing legitimacy to
Mau’s declarations. The fact that Mau referenced designers as well as popular culture
icons makes a statement about Mau: that he does not perceive or want to be perceived as
only being involved in the profession of design. Citing figures from outside the
17
Originally published in Life Style, by Bruce Mau, New York: Phaidon Press, 2000.
74
profession showed that Mau is, potentially, a well-rounded individual with broad-ranging
interests. To follow this thought, Mau perhaps made a broader statement about balancing
one’s life and not allowing design to overtake other interests, or that design must engage
broader interests to remain relevant. This design philosophy did not distinguish between
paths; rather, a blended, broader approach to practice is advocated.
Tibor Kalman, Fuck Committees (I Believe in Lunatics)
Tibor Kalman was known for his subversive perspective on graphic design and
his questioning of the status quo.18 The manifesto “Fuck Committees”19 is as critical of
design as the title suggests. In large, the manifesto criticized the dominance of corporate
design and the corporate smoothing-over of the messiness of life. This has affected
“creative people” by forcing them to work for the “bottom line” (Kalman, 2002, p. 113).
Kalman took aim at the proliferation of committees that decide upon television
programming, editing, design, and other cultural phenomena. As a caveat, Kalman
qualified the previous statements with the sentence, “But to be fair, the above is only 99
percent true” (Kalman, 2002, p. 114). His solution, however, was to seek out similarly
minded business people – the lunatics – to help change the world.
Kalman’s manifesto was very short, and written in paragraph form. He was
simultaneously serious about the various problems faced by creative professionals and
poked fun at the perceived domination of corporate culture. His solution was short and
18
19
Kalman died in 1999.
Originally published in Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, edited by Peter Hall and Michael Bierut, London: BoothClibborn Editions, 1998.
75
blunt – he proposed working from within to shatter the structures that prevent creativity
and originality in design. Kalman’s design philosophy provides a clear path that opposed
the status quo, particularly corporate work and design; and perhaps he sought to invoke a
type of revolution from within.
First Year Students at Central St. Martins, Vow of Chastity
Contemporary to FTF 2000 the first year students at Central St. Martins, London,
signed the “Vow of Chastity”20 in 2001 (First Year Students, 2002). The manifesto was
short, with an opening salutation, brief numbered items, and an area for students to sign.
In the opening to the manifesto, the author noted that the design rules espoused below
were in response to “certain tendencies” (First Year Student, 2002, p. 114) among the
design students at Central St. Martins. This manifesto can be read as a satirical take on
the role of students and their educators at Central St. Martins. As Steven Heller pointed
out in the introduction to the section (Bierut, Drenttel, & Heller, 2002), the manifesto was
a statement of the students’ skepticism about their education, namely that there are
particular formats and approaches to graphic design that dominate the work of Central St.
Martin’s students and educators.
This manifesto was about both the practice and artifact of design and included
statements such as avoiding superfluous imagery, strictures for using only black and red
inks, avoiding fancy printing techniques such as varnishes, and avoiding historical
pastiche in the design, which the students sarcastically identified as the dominant trends
20
Originally published in Dot, Dot, Dot, Summer 2001.
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in graphic design work at Central St. Martins. Their declaration to “eschew good taste”
spoke to the practice of design, but also rang of skepticism. This manifesto was based on
Dogma 95, a manifesto for filmmakers by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg that
was created to “purify” the practice of making films. The Vow of Chastity, as was Dogma
95, was written in a plural voice; the voice of John Morgan, the manifesto’s typesetter,
was dominant, as if commanding the students to follow the rules, mocking the dogmatic
approach they perceived at Central St. Martins. The notion of students as obedient
disciples of design is a theme that the numbered statements spoof, tease, and question.
Observations about “Manifestos”
To summarize, the manifestos republished simultaneously with FTF 2000 in
Looking Closer Four spoke to both the practice and artifact of design; took a variety of
literary forms (paragraph to numbered list); and were written by educators, students, and
practitioners. There was a tendency in the manifestos to reference the past – even to cite
historical figures – to perhaps provide legitimacy to the ideas declared in the documents.
These documents were public and used a variety of literary devices to communicate their
message, from short numbered items to elegant, poetic paragraphs. A common thread
throughout each of the manifestos was the identification of a design philosophy.
Helfand laid out a set of rules that can be followed or questioned; some ideas
loosely pertained to ethical concerns while others addressed the techniques of practice.
Her voice was strong and unwavering (Helfand, 2002). Mau’s manifesto was shorter; its
snappy titles and brief explanations provided words to live and design by, defining a
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design philosophy that is exploratory, unclear, and seemingly exciting (2002). In contrast,
Kalman’s manifesto began with a rather serious tone and denounced the domination of
corporate culture. Toward the end the tone lightened, as if inviting designers in, and
offered some unclear, yet seemingly tangible solutions to the problems he defined (2002).
The Vow of Chastity had a skeptical, satirical tone that questioned the dominant style of
Central St. Martins (2002). Each of these documents described an approach to graphic
design practice as well as different issues faced in practice. The issues these manifestos
defined range from the overtly ethical to the comical, defining particular approaches, or
paths, to graphic design practice.
The article by Matt Soar, responses to FTF 2000, and manifestos illuminate the
context of the graphic design profession in the late twentieth century. Taken together,
these essays and manifestos demonstrate that there are contrasting perspectives about
what graphic design is and how to practice it. Some agreed with FTF 2000, others
provided alternate solutions to the problems identified in it, and some denounced it as
elitist. This review shows how the late twentieth century was a period of questioning and
examining graphic design. Graphic designers, critics, and educators entered the debate to
discuss graphic design and reconsider the nature of the profession.
In the next chapter, Chapter Five, I introduce post-structuralist theory, providing
background about the general project of the post-structuralists. I then discuss the work of
Michel Foucault and provide analogies to explain complex theoretical constructs. Finally,
the constructs employed in this research are described.
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Chapter Five: Theory
Introduction to Post-Structuralism
In this study, Foucauldian theory is used as a framework for evaluating the
participants’ reactions to FTF 2000 and networks of relations in the graphic design
profession. Foucauldian theory can be loosely categorized as ‘post-structuralism,’ which
arose out of French literary theory circles circa 1960 with such prominent philosophers
and theorists as Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, and Michel Foucault (Carrier, 1999). At
its most broad, post-structuralism is simply concerned with addressing the problems
posed by structuralist theory, its predecessor.
Of the varied issues addressed by post-structural theorists, the natural structures
that structuralists identified in language were particularly problematic. While poststructuralists believe that there are structures in society and language, they hypothesize
that these structures are not closed, finite, natural, or universal, but are governed by ruled
systems (Carrier, 1999; Green & Troup, 1999). To put this idea into action, in an analysis
of language, structuralists would consider the relationship between a signifier (the word
‘dog’) and the signified (the canine creature, dog), focusing on and interpreting this
relationship in terms of the meaning inherent in the language, not the meaning created by
those speaking or using the language. In contrast, post-structuralists, in analysis of the
same phenomenon, would evaluate language in terms of its specific usage, such as the
word ‘dog’ used as a derogatory comment versus use of the same word to refer to the
canine creature. Post-structuralists would evaluate how use of the word ‘dog’ came into
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being, would not take the creation of the term or word as a natural, unquestionable
occurrence, and would evaluate how the structure of language creates knowledge.
The idea that language’s structures are governed by ruled systems is a bit more
complex. Returning to the ‘dog’ example, a post-structuralist might examine how the use
of the word ‘dog’ differs across languages and cultures. For example, in Culture A, the
word ‘dog’ might be used as a derogatory term to refer to person, as well as to refer to the
canine creature. However, in Culture B, the word might only be used to refer to the
canine creature. Each culture has a (governing) system of rules and conventions (a system
of knowledge) that guides the use of language. While these basic ideas guide the work of
post-structural theorists, there are extensive interpretations and uses of the theory. There
are so many variations, and even contradictions, that many theorists labeled “poststructuralists” would not identify themselves within this category, including Michel
Foucault.
Foucauldian Post-Structuralist Theory – Power/Knowledge
The following description of power/knowledge is not exhaustive of the work of
Michel Foucault. The ideas about power/knowledge described below are a brief
description of some of the most commonly referenced themes from the work of Foucault,
are some of the ideas that recur throughout his work, and are aspects of Foucauldian
theory that are applied in this research.
The concept of power/knowledge is based on the Foucauldian idea that power
essentially involves knowledge. Foucault wrote that,
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We should admit, rather that power produces knowledge…; that power and
knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the
correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not
presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations….
(Foucault, 1995, p. 27)
In power relations, knowledge is created; knowledge essentially involves power relations.
In power/knowledge, power and knowledge are inextricably bound together. This
conception of knowledge contradicts the idea of knowledge as residing outside of power
relations. Further, power/knowledge both composes, and takes as an assumption that
there is, a “field of knowledge.” In this study, graphic design power/knowledge composes
and assumes the existence of the field of graphic design: what it is; how one produces it;
what is ‘good’ and ‘bad;’ and so on.
Further, power/knowledge is relations that are processes and struggles wherein
the nature, essence, and scope of what can be known about a particular subject (e.g.,
graphic design) are entangled in confrontation, producing knowledge (and power) via
reactions, inactions, and behavior. Power/knowledge is friction, tension, and interactions
out of which knowledge specific to a particular discourse is produced. Thus, when we
discuss power/knowledge we are always at the same time considering power/knowledge
relations.
“These ‘power-knowledge relations’ are to be analyzed, therefore, not on the
basis of a subject of knowledge who is or is not free in relation to the power system, but,
on the contrary, the subject who knows, the objects to be known and the modalities of
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knowledge....” (Foucault, 1995, pp. 27-28). Thus, in an analytics21 of power/knowledge,
one considers not the unknowing citizen who is ostensibly acted upon, but rather the
active participant, the knowledgeable contributor. For, the knowledgeable (such as
experts) exert power by creating knowledge and reinforcing their own knowledge or the
knowledge of others through an exertion of power.
Foucault also discusses the ‘objects to be known’ as essential for understanding
power/knowledge. In this case, power/knowledge constitutes objects and what can be
said and known about them. Statistics, for example, make phenomenon visible; they
create and constitute objects of knowledge. Consider how statistical data about a
population makes particular properties of that group of people knowable. Forms or
questions using pre-determined criteria limit the possible responses (e.g. Caucasian,
African-American, Pacific-Islander, Native-American, Asian-American, and Other as
categories of race); they exert power by limiting choices, thus rendering a particular
group visible and defining what can be known about race or ethnicity.
Power/Knowledge Acts upon Actions
A critical idea behind Foucault’s theory of power/knowledge is that
power/knowledge exists when it is put into action; when it is put into action it acts upon
actions, not people. The action of power is to structure the possible field of actions; it can
expand or contract that field of actions. This complex idea can be understood by
21
The term “analytics” is borrowed from Foucauldian approaches to the analysis of power. It specifically means a type
of study concerned with an analysis of how particular ways of doing and thinking emerge, exist, and change (Dean,
1999).
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considering how a roadway structures one’s field of action. For the person driving a car,
the presence of a road provides a specific set (field) of actions: driving down the correct
side of the road in the correct direction; driving down the wrong side of the road in the
wrong direction; swerving across lanes; driving on the shoulder; or not driving on the
road at all. If the road were not present, the field of actions would be different: driving
toward a tree, away from a stream, across a field, doing donuts, moving from one
destination to another, etc. If we compare these two sets of possible actions we can begin
to see that the person driving the car faced with the presence of a road is involved in a
power relationship. This power relationship has created a specific set of actions that can
be undertaken. Thus, the actions, not the person, are acted upon (see Figure 1).
To extend the idea of acting upon actions, according to Foucault, power
relationships are “… nevertheless always a way of acting upon an acting subject or
acting subjects by virtue of their acting or being capable of action. A set of actions upon
other actions” (Foucault, 1995, p. 220). Returning to the example of the road, the
power/knowledge relationships that the road implicates can only be enacted when the
autonomous, thinking driver sees the road and decides which action to take. The driver
may decide to drive down the correct side of the road or drive in an adjacent open
meadow. Either way, the driver’s field of actions has been shaped by the presence of the
road. For the driver, as with anyone involved in a power relationship, the possibilities of
action or inaction, reaction, intervention, etc., open up when the road appears.
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Figure 1: Power Acts Upon a Field of Actions
84
Surveillance, Systems of Differentiation, and Normalization
The set (field) of possible actions acted upon in power/knowledge relations are
brought into being through surveillance, systems of differentiation, and normalization.
The methods of implementation, or brining power/knowledge relations into being, can
include the threat of arms or warfare, surveillance (such as monitoring progress, visual
observation, etc.), or differences in economic standing (e.g., class), to name just a few
(Foucault, 1995). As an example, a school system may use surveillance that includes the
teacher watching over the students, students (e.g., ‘hall monitors’) watching over
students, the principal watching over the teachers and students, and the superintendent
watching over teachers, students, and staff to ensure that the objectives of the school
system are maintained. In addition to these visual methods of surveillance, standardized
testing and the use of grades are methods of watching over students and teachers by
monitoring their progress toward the goals identified by the school system.
Systems of differentiation are a form of surveillance. Examples of systems of
differentiation include laws, traditions, economic conditions, linguistic or cultural
differences, and differences in competence, etc. (Foucault, 1995). For a driver facing the
road, laws such as speed limits, insurance liability for accidents, and off-roading
restrictions structure the actions that may be undertaken. The driver may interpret the
choices as those that are lawful (correct side, correct direction) versus unlawful (offroading or wrong side, wrong direction). The laws, a system of differentiation, define
85
what is lawful from what is not lawful or illegal. Thus, the laws (a system of
differentiation) help define the set of possible actions that the driver can undertake.
The concept of normalization goes hand-in-hand with systems of differentiation.
Systems, such as traffic laws, delineate the normal from the abnormal, the legal from the
illegal. Other tactics that ‘normalize’ include standardized tests, grades, and definitions of
different conditions and types, such as sane versus insane or abled versus disabled.
Foucault has said that power relations compare, differentiate, hierarchize,22 homogenize,
and exclude – “In short, it normalizes,” (Foucault, 1995, p. 179). By differentiating and
contrasting one condition or type against another it makes the ‘other,’ which is oftentimes
an undesirable, visible. Consider, for example, the case of the sane and the insane. Prior
to modern psychiatry and medicine those people who had conditions that are now
classified as ‘insane’ at one time were understood in different ways, as simply being part
of ‘the poor.’ At a point in history, the idea of ‘insanity’ became normalized, which
meant contrasting it with an opposite, the ‘sane.’ At that time, the newly constituted
population of the insane became visible; and they became a social problem that had to be
addressed. Through normalization a society includes that which it excludes. The insane
are included in society in that they are problematized as an excludable type (see Figure
2).
22
The term ‘hierarchize’ means “to arrange in a hierarchy or gradation of orders” (Simpson & Weiner, 1989). This
term is used extensively by Foucault and in Foucauldian-style analysis (c.f. Foucault, 1995; Dean, 1999).
86
Figure 2: Systems of Differentiation and Normalization
87
Power/Knowledge Pursues a Specific Set of Objectives
Power/knowledge relations are put into action to pursue a variety of objectives.
These may include maintaining privileges, gaining profits, bringing an authority into
operation (such as a governing board, political ruler, etc.), or exercising a financial
transaction. As such, “Domination is not the essence of power,” (Foucault, 1995, p. 168).
Power is not about assuming a position of supreme authority, but rather pursing a specific
set of objectives. Identifying the objectives of power relations is a critical aspect of a
Foucauldian analysis of power. These goals could be as minute as gaining greater
financial compensation for a business service (such as graphic design) or as grand as
electing a person to national office.
Terminology Defined
Understanding the underlying terminology employed in this research is essential,
because this research employs familiar words in very specific ways, as well as specialized
terminology related to Foucauldian analysis.
Discourse
The term discourse is loosely defined as a set of “recurring statements that define
a particular cultural object and provide concepts and terms through which such an object
can be studied and discussed” (Cavallaro, 2001, p. 90). Discourse – including forms of
representation, conventions, and habits of language, especially practices – associated with
a particular institution or community form truth and order for a society (Brooker, 2003).
Through discourse, distinctions between objects (e.g., a well designed tool versus a badly
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designed tool) and ideas (e.g., right versus wrong) establish the normal from the
abnormal.
It is critical to understand that on the surface discourses appear to have an internal
rationality. This rationality oftentimes prevents one from questioning underlying
assumptions. For the person driving the car, thoughts may focus on which action to take
when confronted with a road. The person may not ask why it is illegal to speed or drive
down the wrong side of the road since the answer seems rational – to prevent killing
someone or causing an accident. However, when analyzing discourse, it is essential that
apparent rationalities are scrutinized and dismantled (Foucault, 1995). So, when
evaluating the discourse of the road and traffic laws, one must consider why avoiding
accidents and preventing deaths are viewed as rational; this implies a value placed upon
the smooth, unhindered movement of people via cars. Movement of people may enable
business and avoiding accidents may, again, enable business (specifically insurance
business) by avoiding costs associated with traffic accidents. This discourse may place
value upon the unhindered movement of people via cars and on human life for a variety
of reasons, ranging from the economic to the moral. In the end, the discourse of the road
and traffic laws may be founded upon an internal rationality that is not cohesive: it must
be evaluated as an incongruous, fractured system (Foucault, 1995).
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Hierarchize
The term ‘hierarchize’ means “to arrange in a hierarchy or gradation of orders”
(Simpson & Weiner, 1989). This term is used extensively by Foucault and in
Foucauldian-style analysis (c.f. Foucault, 1995; Dean, 1999).
Analytics
The term “analytics” is borrowed from Foucauldian approaches to the analysis of
power. It specifically means a type of study concerned with an analysis of how particular
ways of doing and thinking emerge, exist, and change (Dean, 1999).
Assumptions
This research and Foucauldian theory are premised upon the post-structuralists
belief that there are multiple readings of a text, language, society, culture, etc., and there
is not one truth (Green & Troup, 1999). Discourse constructs what can be said and known
about an object. This assumption limits the findings of the study to application in other
similar circumstances.
Conclusion
Foucauldian, post-structuralist theory is applied in this research. Foucault’s
concept of power/knowledge is used to understand how the participants’ reactions to FTF
2000 are power/knowledge, and thus compose the profession of graphic design. In the
next chapter, Chapter Six, I provide an overview of qualitative and ethnographic
methods. Data collection and analysis are described, as well as an overview of the
participants.
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Chapter Six: Method
Introduction
This research used qualitative methods to collect data, explore the research
questions, and develop findings. Qualitative, ethnographic methods allowed for a holistic
analysis of a complex issue, through detailed interpretation (Creswell, 1994). Signatories
of the FTF 2000 manifesto, prominent practitioners, and rank-and-file designers to FTF
2000 were investigated. Qualitative methods were selected because of their
appropriateness for this study due to the nature of the theory that is used for analysis.
Since post-structuralist theory is based upon the assumption that there are not universal
structures or truths and that there are multiple systems present in any culture or
phenomena, quantitative research methods would be a poor fit. The underlying premise
of quantitative research that there are universal laws or systems that can be discerned
through rigorous scientific experimentation is counter to post-structuralism and
Foucauldian theory (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995).
This research is empirical in nature. Interviews with FTF 2000 signatories,
prominent practitioners, and rank-and-file designers were collected. The analysis includes
preliminary identification of themes and threads in the participants’ reactions to FTF
2000 and discussions of their work. The Foucauldian notion power/knowledge is applied
in a post-structuralist analysis of networks of relations that compose the graphic design
profession.
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Ethnographic Methods Overview
In its most general sense, ethnography involves the study of culture: behaviors,
practices, beliefs, and linguistic formations of a community of people. The goal of
ethnography is to illuminate the particular situation(s) under examination. Ethnography
examines and analyzes a group of people, ranging from a broad culture (nation) to a
subculture (small group) to a family, in their environment (e.g., historical context,
physical environment, social environment, etc.; Fetterman, 1998; Hammersley &
Atkinson, 1995).
A basic premise of ethnography is that there are multiple realities. Ethnography
involves participant observation as a core practice. Researchers, as participant observers,
are able to document, interpret, and uncover thought and practice in action. Language and
methods of communication, written and un-written conventions and documents,
traditions, beliefs, etc., are all documented and analyzed. When ethnographic research is
conducted, each situation is investigated as multi-layered and must be contextualized by
looking at the larger picture. This provides a deep, detailed understanding of the culture
(or situation) through rich and complex description. This description, the ethnography,
strives to be holistic: a depiction of the culture or situation that is as complete as possible.
This allows for the development of an overall picture of how the system or culture works
(Fetterman, 1998; Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995; Plowman, 2003).
Ethnographers gather data using a variety of methods and tools. Participant
observation is a core method that focuses on immersion in the culture. Fieldwork,
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oftentimes involving participant observation, is conducted using a specific sample.
Participants are purposely and specifically identified to provide the best possible insight
into the situation and research questions (Creswell, 1994). Interviews may be conducted
to provide a context for field observations. Ethnographic researchers must be sensitive to
the timing and tone of interviews. Researchers oftentimes use contacts to gain access to a
culture or group. Questionnaires may also be employed to gather data. However, a
rigorously structured questionnaire distances the researcher from the participants, limiting
the researcher’s understanding and potentially leading to the misinterpretation of data
(Fetterman, 1998).
Ethnographers also use a category of data called outcroppings. These data are
physical evidence of a culture, including buildings, artifacts, and objects. Written
documents are also collected and analyzed. Almost any combination of data sources can
be used in ethnographic research. Since researchers strive to gain a holistic picture of the
culture, multiple data sources are not only likely but often necessary (Fetterman, 1998).
Ethnographic data is analyzed throughout the research process. As data are
collected, they are analyzed in an on-going, reflexive process. As the research progresses,
the research question, as well as the focus of the research, become more refined. This
process is called funneling and allows the researcher to move from description of a
situation to analysis and testing of a theory or framework. The research questions are reevaluated and the internal structures of the problem are refined (Hammersley &
Atkinson, 1995). During analysis, the researcher must use her imagination and creativity,
93
as well as rigorously read and interpret the data. Theories employed to guide the research,
whether well defined or loose, are used during analysis to understand both the ‘what’ and
‘why’ of a situation. Theories can be used to create a strategy to evaluate and analyze
collected data (Fetterman, 1998; Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995).
Testing one interview against another provides internal validity for ethnographic
research and allows for a deeper, more holistic understanding of the situation under
study. Patterns of thought and behavior are identified, compared, contrasted, categorized,
and sorted. For ethnographers the patterns that emerge are understood as interwoven
strands (or threads), one emerging upon another. Key events identified during
investigations within the context of a situation (e.g. election of a new leader, a war, a
natural disaster) allow for the creation of a concrete picture of the situation (Fetterman,
1998; Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995).
Finally, ethnography relies heavily on the abilities of the researcher to construct
and write an account of the phenomena and culture under study. Researchers must
constantly consult data, and analyze and develop ideas to construct the ethnography.
While writing, researchers must read data and consider broad contexts and possibilities.
Thus, a method of ‘wide reading’ enables the development of a written account
(Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995).
Data Collection
For this study, the selection of a purposive sample of best candidates for
interviews was based on the potential participants’ backgrounds, availability and
94
willingness to be interviewed, and the ability of the researcher to visit or contact the
participants. Purposive sampling allowed for the selection of three different types of
informants: prominent graphic designers who are FTF 2000 signatories; prominent
practitioners who did not sign FTF 2000; and rank-and-file designers. Two populations
were selected to provide participants who may be working in different situations, as well
as to include participants working in different geographic locations. Recruitment criteria
were intended to provide diversity to the sample and identify the best candidates for
interviews to gather varied responses to FTF 2000.
The New York City metropolitan area was selected based on the fact that many
signatories of the FTF 2000 manifesto reside in the area (see Appendix B: Background on
the Signatories, p. 199). Further, New York City has historically been a center of graphic
design activity. As the profession of graphic design emerged in the United States, New
York City was a locus of innovation and growth. Ideas from European artistic and design
avant-garde entered the American design world through exhibitions, shows, and creative
circles that were located in New York. Further, as advertising grew, it was also first
focused in New York City. The development of this allied discipline fostered the young
profession of graphic design during the 1940s to the 1950s. And finally, the AIGA began,
and is still headquartered, in New York City. New York continues to be a focus, although
not the only focus, of graphic design professional practice.
The second location, the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area is sampled based
on a variety of reasons. First, one signatory of FTF 2000 resides in the area. Second, the
95
cities and region have, and continue to support, a vibrant graphic design profession.
Various design firms and designers located in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area have gained
national and international notoriety. Some have been recorded in graphic design history
texts, indicating their importance to the profession (c.f. Meggs, 1998). The Minnesota
chapter of the AIGA (headquartered in Minneapolis/St. Paul) is known for its size and
prominence and has hosted a variety of regional and national conferences. Finally, this
location is convenient to the researcher.
Open-ended, ethnographic interviews with FTF 2000 signatories (2), prominent
practitioners (4), and rank-and-file designers (3) residing in the New York City or
Minneapolis/St. Paul (Twin Cities) metropolitan areas were conducted. The study was
initially designed to recruit and invite one participant to participate from each situation
(see Table 1). The participants represent two populations: prominent graphic designers
with national or international reputations; and rank-and-file designers who may have
regional, but not national or international reputations. The prominent practitioners sample
is stratified to include signatories of FTF 2000 and other prominent designers who are
aware of, but did not sign, the FTF 2000 manifesto. The rank-and-file designers sample
includes practitioners working in either the New York or Minneapolis/St. Paul
metropolitan areas who are aware of the FTF 2000 manifesto and who have been
practicing for at least eight years. The two populations and the subsequent stratification
were intended to provide an array of potential responses to FTF 2000 so as to better
understand networks of relations that compose the profession.
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Table 1: Study Populations, Samples, and Participants
Population
Sample
Participants
Planned
Actual
Residing in the New York City Metropolitan Area
1
2
Residing in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Area
1
0
Residing in the New York City Metropolitan Area
1
2
Residing in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Area
1
2
Residing in the New York City Metropolitan Area
1
0
Residing in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Area
1
3
1 – Prominent Graphic Designers
Planned
Actual
4
6
Stratification:
FTF 2000 Signatories
Prominent Designers who did not sign FTF 2000
2 – Rank-and-File Graphic Designers
2
3
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Prior to beginning participant recruitment, I applied for and was granted an
exemption from the University of Minnesota’s Internal Review Board (IRB; study
number 0601E80566). The IRB approved the recruitment methods described below and
initially granted permission to interview six participants in person. The number of
participants was increased from six to nine after I encountered technical difficulties and
began the recruitment process (for a full discussion of this issue see Appendix C, p. 217).
Participant recruitment involved two methods. First, for potential participants
whose E-mail addresses were publicly available (e.g., via a Google search or a Web site),
I contacted them via E-mail using the recruitment E-mail copy approved by IRB (see
Appendix C, p. 219). Rank-and-file and prominent practitioners that did not sign the
manifesto were prescreened for 1) their awareness of the FTF 2000 manifesto and 2) their
experience (a minimum of eight years) as a graphic designer. These participants’ degree
of ‘participation’ with FTF 2000 was explored during the interviews.
The first criterion (awareness of the manifesto) ensured that the participants
‘participated’ at some level in the dialogue that surrounded the publication of FTF 2000.
Their ‘participation’ could range from simple awareness of the manifesto to deeper
involvement, such as letters to the editor or posting in online forums about the manifesto.
The second criterion, a minimum of eight years experience as a graphic designer,
screened for recent graduates or individuals who have recently entered the graphic design
profession. Since the manifesto was distributed to design schools and was (and continues
to be) a topic for discussion in many upper-level, collegiate design courses, students’
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exposure to the manifesto could be influenced by the views of their classmates and
educators. While these people would have observations and ideas worthy of
investigation, the experience criterion ensures that participants were working as graphic
designers when the FTF 2000 manifesto was published and that they were professionally
employed at least two years prior to its publication.
For recruitment of FTF 2000 signatories, participants were contacted using E-mail
addresses that I gathered via the Internet. For prominent practitioners and rank-and-file
designers, I used my familiarity with the Minneapolis/St. Paul and New York
metropolitan areas to cull E-mail addresses from design firms’ Web sites and sent Emails using the IRB-approved wording to make initial contact. From this point, my Emails were either not answered (a frequent occurrence), were answered and potential
participants declined, or potential participants notified me that they did not meet my
minimum qualifications (e.g., had not been practicing for at least eight years or were not
aware of the FTF 2000 manifesto). This method of recruiting participants led to two
interviews, one with a FTF 2000 signatory in New York City and one with a rank-andfile designer residing in Minneapolis/St. Paul. One FTF 2000 signatory was contacted
and declined to participate.
Potential participants for whom I did not have E-mail addresses were contacted
through colleagues, peers, and friends whom I informed about my research. Per the IRB’s
stipulation, the intermediary then contacted the potential participant, and the potential
participant was directed to contact me. This recruitment method led to the remainder of
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the interviews. One professional contact yielded three interviews; another yielded one
interview, which snowballed into an additional two interviews; and another yielded one
interview.
Interview Methods
The interviews were conducted from an ethnographic standpoint, using openended questions and probing for responses and reactions. Interview methods were
adapted from hermeneutic phenomenology. Specifically, while I used interview questions
to help guide the conversation, I probed the informants’ answers, listened carefully to
responses, and tried to gain a deeper understanding (van Manen, 2001). As a result, each
interview was unique, responding to the informant’s reactions to obtain better data and
responses.
Prior to beginning any interviews, and for the IRB process, I developed a set of
questions that could be used during my interviews (See Appendix C, p. 228). Questions
were also tailored to the type of participant (their work situation and their professional
status). I found that in each interview the opening question had to be modified to respond
to my initial reactions to the participant and to respond to their position within the
profession. For example, for the signatories I began my interview by asking them to talk
about their involvement with the manifesto; how they learned about and were asked to
sign it; and their impressions of it now. For other participants, prominent practitioners
and rank-and-file designers, I often opened with a general question, asking them to tell
me about their work and how they came to work in their current situation. While I had
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some knowledge of each designer’s work situation, this allowed me to gain more
information about each designer’s professional status and show them that I, too, am a
graphic designer.
Follow-up questions oftentimes responded to the participant’s answers; asking
them to explain or explore an idea more so I could better understand their viewpoint.
Through the course of interviewing, I also developed a variety of follow-up questions that
I found both personally interesting and relevant to my research. A few examples are:
“What do you love about your job/graphic design? Where do you think the profession has
been recently and is going in the future? When you get to the end of a project, how do
you evaluate your work and say ‘thumbs up’ or ‘I could have improved that?’”
In some situations, I found that the person I was interviewing was very talkative
and excited to tell me about their work and ideas. As a result, building a rapport was easy
and I gathered copious amounts of data from the interview. In some interviews with male
participants, their answers were quick and short and they directed me to tell them,
“What’s next?” In one situation, the interviewee and I never reached what I consider a
good rapport. As a result, that interview was much shorter than the other interviews by
comparison (approximately 45 minutes long). For another participant who kept directing
me to ask another question, I managed to develop a good rapport with him after asking
probing questions about his work. This allowed him to share what he enjoys about his
work. Regardless of how I perceived the rapport of the interview, I gathered interesting
and fruitful responses to the questions I asked.
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The interviews were usually conducted in the participants’ offices. One was
conducted in a café, one in the participant’s home, and one was conducted at a social club
in a conference room. The interviews lasted between 45 and 120 minutes. The interviews
began by introducing the participant to the informed consent process and often included
some small talk about my research, my education, and my career. After the informed
consent process began, I began recording the interview and asking questions. Some
participants had time constraints and informed me when they needed to end the interview,
while others allowed the interview to conclude naturally (e.g., when my well of questions
was exhausted). I usually concluded the interview by asking the participant if he or she
had anything to add. Oftentimes the participant would have a final thought that was
shared, but sometimes he or she would simply say “no.” Each participant was also
thanked for their time and willingness to participate in my research. The interviews were
transcribed within seven days of the original interview (with the exception of the
interview lost due to technical difficulties).
Analysis
Data analysis was guided by the ethnographic premise that data are analyzed in
concert with data collection, on an on-going, reflexive basis throughout the research
process. In general, analysis focused on discursive instances (language usage) that were
then used to identify themes in the participants’ responses to FTF 2000. Patterns of
thought and behavior were identified, compared, contrasted, categorized, and sorted
through the careful reading and re-reading of the interview transcripts.
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All observations and analysis have been placed in the larger context of the state of
the graphic design profession in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Comparison was used to test one interview against another and provide internal validity
for the research. After the situations of the graphic designers were described, Foucauldian
theory was used to evaluate power/knowledge networks in the graphic design profession.
Foucault’s writings and the theoretical constructs identified in the theory chapter
(Chapter Five) were consulted. For data reporting in this study, and qualitative,
ethnographic methods in general, I relied upon my abilities to construct and write a story
of the phenomenon or circumstance under study. Throughout the writing process the data
were read, re-read, consulted, and analyzed.
Limitations
This research is limited by the overall assumptions of post-structuralist theory that
there is not one truth. Thus, the findings of this research must be understood within, and
are limited as, one researcher’s interpretation amongst many potentially valid
interpretations of the circumstances and issues under analysis. In addition, the research
and its findings will be specific to the FTF 2000 manifesto not generalizable to other
manifestos or other communities of graphic designers, limiting its external validity and
reliability.
Researcher Bias
Ethnography requires that researchers insinuate themselves into the worlds and
situations of those they are investigating. For this study, this process was easy for me
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because I consider myself a member of the group of professional graphic designers even
though I have not practiced professional graphic design on a for-profit basis for over five
years. This allowed me to use language, terminology, and references that were familiar to
my participants; and also allowed me to make personal connections, such as relating to
recent happenings in the design press or in the profession as a whole. My familiarity with
the profession allowed me to gain access to the community. During the interviews, I used
plural, first-person terminology (e.g. ‘our community,’ ‘where do you think we are
going,’ etc.) to gain allegiance with the participants and to show that I identified with
them and the profession as a whole. This was entirely genuine and honest, as I feel I have
a personal stake and strong background in the practice of graphic design.
However, this also creates bias, as my familiarity with the profession and practice
of graphic design may cloud my ability to discern certain things. Additionally, one of the
participants is a close personal friend of mine. My familiarity with this person may have
swayed her interest in participating in my research, as she might see participating as
helping out a friend. Additionally, some of the participants in this research are graphic
designers who have very prominent, strong careers whose work I was previously familiar
with and admire. I found it necessary to stay on task during interviews with these
participants, as their responses to my questions often led to questions that I had on a
personal level, but which would have been inappropriate to ask within the framework of
my research (e.g. questions about balancing work life with raising a family).
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Conclusion
This research uses qualitative methods and draws from both ethnography and
interpretive research to determine the sampling method, sample subjects, collect
interviews, and evaluate the data. Open-ended interviews with nine graphic designers
residing in the New York City or Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan areas were
conducted. Data were analyzed by comparing and contrasting the interviews to develop
preliminary findings and in the post-structuralist analysis. This research is limited by the
underlying assumptions of theory and methods employed, as well as researcher bias.
In the next chapter, Chapter Seven, I provide an overview of the participants. A
brief history of each participant’s education, career, and perspectives on graphic design
are included if they were discussed by the participant. The chapter concludes with
preliminary observations about similarities and differences between the participants and
an evaluation of the sample as a whole.
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Chapter Seven: Overview of the Participants
Of the designers I interviewed, perhaps the most apparent aspect of their lives
was that their work and stories defied my predetermined categories of graphic
designers. While these categories were established to help define what I believed were
broad ‘types’ of designers from across the profession, they proved less useful that
originally intended. The participants’ situations and experiences were more nuanced,
subtle, and complex. I discerned that there was not a dominant culture among the
group, although dominant themes (see Chapter Eight) were present. Below I describe
the backgrounds and work of the nine participants.23
Dennis – Prominent designer that did not sign FTF 2000
My first interview was with Dennis, who founded a design studio with his wife,
also a graphic designer. Dennis’s wife left the practice a few years ago; however, he
continues to work, focusing on small, entrepreneurial clients. Dennis said that he
specifically seeks and selects clients based on access to the people making the
decisions. His experiences working with innumerable levels of bureaucracy to get
decisions about projects made in large corporations led him to pursue clients that were
accessible, all the way to top management.
As a result of working with clients that have small businesses that are
oftentimes growing, Dennis finds that his work is expanding beyond the traditional
23
I have assigned new names to each of the participants to conceal their identity. Other references that may lead to
their identification have been changed to maintain anonymity.
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two- and three-dimensional aspects of design. He now helps clients define or redefine
their needs, establish company goals, and develop strategic plans. While not
specifically trained in this type of work, Dennis finds it very rewarding, because he is
allowed access to all levels of the company and can delve into the daily processes,
work flow, and ideas of a company.
Beyond the office, Dennis has been very involved with the AIGA. He has been
past-president of the Minnesota chapter, has helped plan Design Camp24 and the
Insights Lecture Series25, and he is now a national board member of the AIGA. Dennis
has been practicing design for about twenty years and studied graphic design as an
undergraduate in Wisconsin.
Sarah – Prominent graphic designer that did not sign FTF 2000
My second interview was with Sarah, a creative vice-president at a large (about
50 person) design firm in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Sarah originally studied
landscape architecture as an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota. She
then decided she didn’t want to be a “bush pusher” and went back to school at the
Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). From there Sarah worked in large
design and advertising firms, worked on her own for a while, and eventually ended up
at the large firm in which she is now employed. In her current position, Sarah oversees
24
AIGA Minnesota Design Camp is a three-day retreat sponsored by AIGA Minnesota. The event is usually held at a
lodge in up-state Minnesota. The event has well-known speakers and workshops that focus on a theme related to
graphic design practice (Design Camp, 2005).
25
The Insights Lecture Series is a series of week-night lectures at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
which is sponsored by AIGA Minnesota. The series draws nationally-known names from the profession to
Minneapolis to speak about their work (Insights, 2005).
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a number of junior designers. Unlike other creative directors at her firm, Sarah told me
that she stays engaged by working on a few design projects a year.
In addition to her work at the design firm, Sarah also teaches at a Minneapolis
design college. She teaches typography and upper-level graphic design classes, which
she believes help her stay connected with younger designers in the profession. Sarah
sees a lack of a well-rounded, liberal-arts background in many of her students, which
she believes is a problem.
You know you really need to be able to read and understand your clients, and
read what’s going on in the world, what your clients are doing, what the world
they live in is like, and those skills cause you to be a better designer in the end.
However, Sarah expressed continued amazement at the work of both students and
junior designers in her office. She said she was always excited to see junior designers
present work that was innovative, exciting, and fresh.
Frank – Rank-and-file designer
Frank, the third designer that I interviewed, works at a large advertising firm in
the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. In his 50s, Frank is a senior-level design manager
overseeing a number of junior designers and other employees. Like Sarah, Frank does
not do much design work in his current position. He still keeps his “hands on” some
projects, such as standards manuals for identities because they are “very methodical
and most people don’t care to do them.”
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Frank also maintains a limited freelance practice outside of work, focusing on
identity work to sustain his interest in design. Frank tends to do projects for clients he
finds through friends and acquaintances. Some clients are former coworkers that are
starting their own business. For this work, Frank noted that he takes a reduced fee
compared to how he is compensated as a creative director. He does this to let his clients
know that his services – graphic design – have value, even if he provides design
services at a reduced rate. He informs clients that they are receiving a reduced rate for
his work.
Frank has also taught some classes at local universities and colleges and
expressed interest in doing more teaching. He also is an avid reader. “Probably more so
than most, I would guess,” he said. He reads primarily about graphic design and has
been collecting quotations from his readings that he is developing into a series of small
books called chap books.
Frank has already published four chap books and has plans to finish another
two or three. He finds these projects both challenging and rewarding; and told me he
has enough quotes to do more books if he wishes. In addition, Frank collects graphic
design ephemera. He has a large collection of work from an early twentieth century
avant-garde graphic designer that he is hoping to sell to a museum. In addition, he has
just begun collecting pieces by a mid-twentieth century designer. Collecting is a hobby,
and Frank has found that the internet has made acquiring pieces much easier.
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Simon – Rank-and-file designer
Simon, the fourth graphic designer I interviewed, started his own firm in the
Minneapolis/St. Paul area almost ten years ago. It has grown now to a three-person
design team, plus office staff. Simon, in his 40s, graduated from the University of
Wisconsin, Stout in the late 1980s and directly started working in graphic design. His
career began at a non-profit agency on the University of Minnesota campus and from
there he went to work for a large banking firm as an in-house graphic designer. Simon
then worked at a small advertising agency. This proved to be a poor fit. He then went
to work at a large corporation in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area as a packaging designer.
From there, Simon started his own firm as a part-time venture, eventually leaving the
corporation to devote his time entirely to his private practice.
Much of the work that Simon’s firm does comes from connections he has
maintained with the companies at which he previously worked. In addition to work
from former employers, Simon’s firm focuses on letterpress printing and historical or
period typography. Simon grew up in a printing office and was given his father’s
letterpress at about the time he was starting up his practice. As a result, Simon’s firm
now seeks out work that is related to historical typography. He has worked with a
wood type museum to revive and develop typefaces; he has sought and been given
grants to do historical typography research for a music ensemble that performs period
music; and he has worked with Hatch Show Print in Nashville, Tennessee to revive
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typefaces. Simon described this aspect of his work as the firm’s “jelly” because it
makes them happy.
So we’re basically a one-fourth jelly, three-fourths bread-and-butter work diet,
if you will. And we really like that mix. We’d like to do more research, more
projects that give us the opportunity to dig into what we are trying to do, but we
also have this pay-the-bills part of the practice as well.
So, Simon strives to balance paying the bills and meeting payroll with the firm’s
collective desire to work on historical typography projects. When Simon first started
the business, he said he would follow his heart, working for whichever client or on
whatever job he desired. In the last five years, however, he brought in a business
manager to help the office determine how to better meet their fiscal obligations. As a
result, the office can now track how many hours they can devote to pro bono or
reduced-fee work, such as the historical type work, without worrying about how it will
affect their bottom line.
In addition to running his practice, Simon also teaches at a Minneapolis
university. He teaches typography and uses the school’s extensive library to expose
students to examples of historical typography. He has also employed students on
grants; giving them access to research and, also, allowing them to work on graphic
design projects such as branding.
Marie – Rank-and-file designer
My fifth interview was with a personal friend and former undergraduate
classmate, Marie. While each designer’s story in this research is unique, Marie is the
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only designer that I interviewed that has worked in both locations, the Minneapolis/St.
Paul area and New York City. Marie graduated from Iowa State University in the mid
1990s and moved to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area to begin working as a graphic
designer. Marie worked in two different large firms in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area,
both advertising agencies. One of the firms Marie worked for in the Minneapolis/St.
Paul area was a particularly bad fit because she did not have direct contact with the
clients. She and perhaps as many as 14 other designers would work on a logo.
Ok, we have all got to come up with a logo. All right, so go to your little box.
Work with your blinders on. Crank it up. Do some work. Pin them up on the
wall and then mister art director comes in and says, ok, this one, this one, this
one.
She said that the firm felt like a “design factory.” She wanted contact with the clients,
because she didn’t think that the second-hand information she was given about a
project was sufficient to do good work. Consequently, she left and found work
elsewhere.
While living in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, Marie married and her new
husband was planning to return to graduate school. Marie had always wanted to return
to New York City after she spent a semester studying there during college. Luckily her
husband’s choice for graduate school was in New York, so they moved. Marie found
her first, and only, job in New York City (where she worked for five years) through
research. The firm, a moderately-sized design practice focusing on industrial design,
was listed with other New York offices in a book identifying the “top 22 firms” in the
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city. While working in New York, Marie often teamed with researchers, industrial
designers, engineers, and others on projects that she found both rewarding and
interesting.
From New York, Marie and her husband decided to move back to the
Minneapolis/St. Paul area to start a family. At that time, Marie began working parttime as a freelancer, usually attracting clients through contacts she had from her work
in New York. Marie, too, has begun teaching at a local college and finds the work very
rewarding.
Bob – FTF 2000 signatory
For my sixth interview, I traveled to New York City where I interviewed Bob, a
signatory of the FTF 2000 manifesto. Bob started his career in the 1960s. He has a
degree in English from New York University and started out working in editorial
design. His interest in the history of political and satirical art eventually connected him
to graphic design, and then to graphic design history.
Bob is a prolific writer and editor and publishes frequently on contemporary
and historical topics. Today, and for the past three decades, Bob has worked in editorial
design at a newspaper. He also teaches, and started and chairs a graphic design MFA
program at a New York City college. Bob finds his teaching very rewarding and sees
his students as part of his family.
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Max – Prominent designer that did not sign FTF 2000
Max is a designer working in New York City as a partner in an internationallyknown design firm. Max grew up in a suburb outside a large city in the Midwest and
went to school at the University of Cincinnati. Like Simon, Max’s father was in the
printing business, so Max grew up around printers, although he did not know any
graphic designers until college. Max learned about graphic design as a high-schooler
from a career publication called “Aim for a Career in Graphic Design/Commercial
Art.” Max found that his perpetual fascination with advertising could be turned into a
career and pursued graphic design in college. Out of college, Max worked for a large
television station under the tutelage of a strong mentor and then moved to New York
where he began working for a well-known designer.
In New York, Max describes his early work as that of “a peon in the precomputer era of graphic design.” Max persevered and worked his way up in the firm.
Eventually, he was invited to join the firm where he works now. He oversees a team of
about six designers. In his current poison, Max does not have account executives
seeking and selling work. Rather, his reputation, and that of the firm, is sufficient to
draw in potential clients. Max has the luxury of then accepting or declining to work
with these clients. Max, too, teaches in the New York area in a graduate program.
Emily – Rank-and-file or prominent designer
My eighth interview was with Emily, a creative director for a branding agency
in New York City. Emily went to school in New York state and studied English,
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focusing on journalism. Emily worked at the school newspaper in college and was
always drawn to the design and layout of the section she edited (arts and
entertainment), spending much more time on the design. From college, Emily went to
work on a magazine where she specified type and drew picture boxes for page layouts.
From there, she went to work for a real estate company during the real estate boom in
New York City. Although she described this work as dry, she enjoyed working with
the advertising agency and working with projects that had large budgets. Then, Emily
began freelancing and supplemented her income with temporary work in a variety of
different jobs. She later pursued a variety of editorial design projects.
Eventually, Emily opened a graphic design practice with a colleague and friend.
She later left the practice because she felt she wasn’t living up to her potential; she felt
she could do more. After a short stay at a well-known advertising agency, a headhunter
recruited her to work for a branding firm. From this agency, she then moved into the
firm she is at now. When Emily started working in branding, she discovered that it was
the aspect of graphic design she really loved. She is the daughter of a pharmacist,
explaining that she grew up behind the pharmacy counter and had very early, intimate
experiences with brands.
I remember my first packaging experience/epiphany was looking at the
FudgeTown cookie box when I was a kid…And the character was holding a
box of cookies – the box of cookies – which meant that on the box of cookies
was a picture of him holding the box of cookies. So that fascinated me for hours
– endless hours trying to find the start-point of infinity of where the character
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and the box began. But, I was fascinated with the girl on the StayFree
packaging, you know the girl on the beach, and would I ever be as beautiful and
glamorous as that and the girls on the Goody barrette packaging?
Emily also loves the way that branding combines many disciplines, from cultural
anthropology to behavioral psychology to creativity.
In addition to her work in the office, Emily also teaches graphic design at a
New York City college. Emily focuses on teaching upper-level students about the
practical side of graphic design, from how to get a job to how to build a portfolio to
how to do a presentation for a client. Emily also participates in a mentoring program
through the AIGA where she works with a high school student to prepare her for and
see her through college. Emily believes that she learns more from these experiences
than her students do, and they are an important aspect of her work life.
Emily also interviews important graphic designers working today, producing
shows that are distributed via iTunes and iPods. She is also an avid blogger and
publishes writings about graphic design. Recently, Emily also became involved with
the AIGA after years of feeling uninvited from the organization due to her work with
branding. Emily’s work today focuses on fast-moving consumer goods such as those
sold in grocery stores.
Claire – FTF 2000 signatory
My last interview was with Claire, a FTF 2000 signatory. Claire works in the
greater New York metropolitan area and runs a small practice with her husband, who is
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also a graphic designer. Claire went to school at an Ivy League university where she
studied architectural theory and graphic design. She felt the need to augment her studio
education in art and design with theory, so the she added the architectural theory
emphasis. From college, Claire became a television writer and then returned to school
to get an MFA in graphic design. Claire then went into editorial design, working for a
large east coast newspaper designing the Sunday section.
As she finished up her work at the newspaper, the internet, new media, and
interactive technologies were just beginning to come mainstream and Claire was
interested. She became one of the first people working in this new medium. After
designing many Web sites for nationally-known companies, Claire started a family and
opened a studio with her husband. In their practice, Claire and her husband work with
both digital and traditional print media, and they take a decidedly anti-branding
approach to their work.
Claire, too, is an educator, teaching at a university in the area part-time. In
addition, Claire is an avid blogger and writes and publishes about graphic design
regularly. She is also has a strong belief in the need for graphic designers to write. She
writes constantly and tries to foster writing as a life skill in her students and through
her practice.
First Observations
Each of these designers had a unique story about how they came to design and
their paths to and through practice. They represent a swath of the profession, from
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Table 2: Summary of the Participants
Name
Location
“Population”
Dennis
MSP26
Rank-and-File or Prominent
Runs his own small practice focusing on entrepreneurial clients; on AIGA national
board
Sarah
MSP
Prominent?
Works in a 50-person firm as a creative director
Frank
MSP
Rank-and-File
Works as a design director in a large advertising firm
Simon
MSP
Rank-and-File
Runs his own three-person design firm; focuses on historical typography
Marie
MSP (prev. NYC)
Rank-and-File
Part-time freelancer; worked in both NYC and MSP previously full-time
Bob
NYC
FTF 2000 signatory
Works at a newspaper doing editorial design
Max
NYC
Prominent Practitioner
Works as a partner in a national-known firm
Emily
NYC
Prominent or Rank-and-File?
Works as a creative director in branding agency; podcasts and avid blogger
Claire
NYC
FTF 2000 signatory
Works in a small firm with husband on print and digital media; anti-branding
26
MSP represents the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area, and NYC represents the great New York City
metropolitan area.
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mature designers with national (if not international) reputations to younger designers
that are beginning to make their mark. In terms of the categories of participants I
predetermined for the study, they loosely fall into the groups listed in Table 2.
However, some of the participants clearly defied the categories I created – for example,
Dennis. While he works with smaller clients on smaller projects, he sits on the national
AIGA board, giving him a level of visibility to AIGA members that other designers
working in small firms may not have. Sarah is a senior-level designer and has been an
avid participant and leader in AIGA Minnesota, but I do not think that she has a
national reputation. However, she likely has a strong regional reputation. And then
there is Emily, who is now becoming more involved with the AIGA in a leadership
role and may or may not have a national reputation even though she creates podcasts
and writes and publishes on the internet. Yet, even with these dramatic differences, the
participants are essentially bound together as a group of working individuals with
similar interests in creating graphic design in its many forms. My interviews did,
however, uncover some similarities among their situations.
The first commonality between the participants that stands out is that each of
them has or is teaching in some capacity. None of the participants is a full-time
educator, but each has taught classes in graphic design. This is probably largely due to
the sampling strategy that I used in this study. The friends, acquaintances, and
colleagues through which the participants were recruited were themselves educators in
some capacity. However, the fact that each of the participants teaches also reflects the
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reality that collegiate-level graphic design education is considered a professional
degree. And, for universities located in metropolitan areas (such as the Minneapolis/St.
Paul area and New York City), colleges and universities have the luxury of drawing
upon the working population of graphic designers to teach. The participants’ educator
status may also be indicative of the legacy of graphic design as a trade that was
previously learned through a master/apprentice relationship in a printing office.
Nevertheless, while I knew that some of the participants had or did teach, I was
surprised by the fact that all of them were educators in some capacity.
Another aspect of these designers’ lives worthy of brief discussion is their age.
In a couple interviews, the participant suggested that I interview graphic designers just
emerging from school or just a year or two into practice. However, my pre-determined
criteria for participation eliminated this possibility to ensure that all of the participants
became aware of the manifesto while practicing (rather than as students). Interestingly,
I also found that it was difficult to recruit graphic designers with around eight years of
practice (e.g., those in their early 30s, if they entered college directly out of high
school). Many potential participants were not aware of the manifesto or, if they were
younger, they did not have the requisite amount of practice (eight years), indicating
that they may have learned about the manifesto as a student. As a result, Marie is the
only participant that is in her 30s. The remainder of the participants are in their early
40s and older. The age and level of seniority (e.g. senior-level designer, design
manager, or firm owner) was also similar, with Marie standing out as the youngest
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designer and perhaps the only graphic designer that was not involved at some level in
managing junior graphic designers. Overall the participants represent the mature,
seasoned, and experienced aspect of the graphic design profession.
Each of the participants’ comments indicated different perceptions about their
work and graphic design. Themes emerged from our discussions that illuminate how
they perceived FTF 2000. In the next chapter I discuss their impressions and ideas of
the FTF 2000 manifesto and themes that emerged during our conversations. The
Foucauldian concept of power/knowledge is used to evaluate networks that compose
the graphic design profession.
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Chapter Eight: Preliminary Analysis and Observations
FTF 2000 was a document that publicly connected graphic designers from
across the profession in a dialogue about the ethics and the nature of graphic design
practice. The nine participants in this study responded and reacted to FTF 2000 in
various ways. As such, the participants’ responses to the manifesto are an apt entry into
the discourse on graphic design practice. In the following section, I summarize,
discuss, and analyze the participants’ perceptions of FTF 2000 and relate their
comments to the supporting literature (see Chapter Four, p. 59).27 Themes that emerge
are further evaluated using the FTF 2000 manifesto as an interpretive lens to link
overarching concepts to the participants’ responses.
Overview of FTF 2000 Perceptions
During the interviews, discussion of FTF 2000 was initiated with an opening
question or was woven into the middle of the conversation. I asked participants how
they learned about the manifesto, what their perceptions of it were, and if they
followed the ensuing discussion of the manifesto that transpired in the trade press and
online. The following preliminary analysis of the participants’ perceptions of FTF 2000
begins with the two signatories, follows with reactions from the other prominent
designers, and finishes with the rank-and-file participants.
27
Only the responses of the eight participants whose interviews were documented and transcribed in their entirety
are included. Dennis’s comments and views are not included due to the limited documentation of his interview.
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FTF 2000 Signatories
Beginning with the most prominent practitioners of the sample, the signatories,
interviews with Claire and Bob started with a discussion of the manifesto that then
unfolded into related areas. Our conversations about the manifesto also included a
discussion of their motivations for signing. When asked about how they became
involved with FTF 2000, both Claire and Bob said they were approached by Rick
Poynor, one of the authors of the revised manifesto, to become signatories. Bob was
approached and asked to sign the manifesto, as well as reprint it in the trade magazine
he was editing. He said he agreed to sign because he “…felt that anything that kind of
stimulated discussion on ethics, or social responsibility was responsible.”
Bob also framed FTF 2000 within the context of other historical artists’
manifestos (e.g. the Bauhaus manifesto or the Futurist Manifesto) and said that there
had not been a new graphic design manifesto disseminated in some time. According to
Bob, FTF 2000, like other manifestos, would be a catalyst for changing the ways
designers think. He believed that “…all in all, the critical mass is what we wanted to
get across,” and “What I ultimately was pleased about was all the response.” For Bob,
FTF 2000 brought together graphic designers who, as a community, have broad and
varied interests. The dialogue around FTF 2000’s ideas, which was often hot debate,
marked it as a significant moment in recent graphic design history. Bob’s use of history
as a device for understanding FTF 2000 is not, however, surprising since he writes
books about graphic design history. Still, he was the only participant that overtly
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discussed the historical implications of FTF 2000. His motivation to sign FTF 2000
was to help start conversations about ethics in graphic design by publicly showing
support for the manifesto, thus becoming involved in a significant moment in graphic
design history.
Bob discussed another motivation for signing: recognition from his peers as a
supporter of the manifesto. He said, “frankly, [signing it was] not a huge investment. I
wasn’t going to lose anything by signing it. And I might have gained something by
signing it – just the respect of certain peers that I respect.” This comment indicates
Bob’s awareness of his position of prominence within the profession. He is a wellestablished, senior-level art director/designer who has made his mark on the profession
via writings and criticism, and is recognized by the graphic design community,
especially among other prominent designers. The public nature of the manifesto, and
thus Bob’s participation, help maintain this status and perhaps elevate him in the eyes
of his peers: other like-minded, prominent graphic designers.
While Bob’s motivations for signing FTF 2000 may not have been completely
altruistic, in the interview he was candid about any potential benefits to signing. His
comments revealed an awareness of perceived strata within the profession: a hierarchy
of prominent and rank-and-file practitioners. His comments pointed out that prominent
practitioners are comfortable in their careers, both financially and in terms of
professional status. They are therefore free to make pledges, such as FTF 2000’s, in
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which the signatories promise to devote more energy to non-commercial projects,
which would be a risky financial endeavor for a rank-and-file designer.
Even with various motivating factors for signing FTF 2000, Bob said he was
well aware of its shortcomings. He said, “I signed it knowing that aspects of it were a
little blue sky – a little too idealistic. In fact some of it just seemed like, you know, the
writers never really experienced the design process.” But he also felt that signing it
gave him license to criticize it, which he did. Participation in FTF 2000 as a signatory
was both a mechanism to initiate debate and a door through which he entered the
debate about ethics in practice. By signing the manifesto Bob assumed a role is which
he had the agency to help ignite, intervene, and contribute to community-wide
discussions about ethics and practice.
The second signatory I interviewed, Claire, said she was aware of the 1964
manifesto by Ken Garland, and that FTF had come to her attention as something that
should be revisited and reexamined. In her opinion, graphic design practice in the late
twentieth century was in need of consensus in logic, theory, and philosophy. The
manifesto came
…at the end of the really big explosion of new media and design tools being
offered to civilians, and I think that the design community felt a little
disenfranchised at the thought of that. So the idea of putting pen to paper and
revising some pledge to use design in the interest of the public good and not
just to do dog-food labels was really in order. So I was happy to support that.
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Claire perceived the community of graphic design as detached, dispersed, and losing
control over the production of designed artifacts. The tools once only used by, and
available to, graphic designers were now in the hands of any person able to purchase a
Macintosh computer and the requisite software. Just as Bob indicated, Claire perceived
the ‘pledge’ of FTF 2000 as a binding force, bringing together the graphic design
community. Claire, however, related FTF 2000 to graphic designers’ responsibility to
the public by means of creating artifacts that consider, question, and challenge blind
consumerism.
In our conversation Claire framed her participation in the manifesto in terms of
the signatories’ professional status. However, she described the signatories and their
status in different terms than Bob did.
I know that for people that did not sign it there was some sort of hemming and
hawing about it being a kind of popularity contest…I’m sort of opposed in
general to the hierarchy of famous designers versus – I think it was really a
bunch of serious people that got together and thought that this was a serious
message that we would all support.
While Claire identified the signatories as a group of “serious people,” other critiques of
the manifesto have been quick to point out the signatories relative notoriety and
prominence within the community (e.g. Soar, 2002). Claire did not identify with this
upper echelon of graphic designers, but she clearly felt allied with them as a group of
peers that hold the same values. Perhaps “serious” is a replacement for “prominent.”
Claire disdained this hierarchy, but she is nonetheless bound up in it. Conversely,
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Claire may want to be appreciated and considered based on her “seriousness.” Or,
perhaps she would rather that all prominent graphic designers be appreciated for their
seriousness, or their ideas and demonstrated ethical practice, rather than their sheer
visibility.
Claire’s motivation for signing FTF 2000 was also its perceived potential to
specifically help younger graphic designers think critically about consumption, so
…that design students wouldn’t just receive their curriculum and understand
that they were supposed to design a shampoo bottle and kind of go blindly on
their way and contribute to this culture of consumption and not stop and think.
Claire’s position as a prominent educator framed her interpretation of and motivation
to sign FTF 2000. Her interest in the impact of the manifesto on students mirrored Rick
Poynor’s comments about a lack of focus on communicative design in undergraduate
design studios (2002). In Poynor’s essay on the history of FTF, he stated that design
students and younger generations of designers largely believe that political and social
issues are extraneous to or inappropriate in graphic design (2002). FTF 2000, Claire,
and Poynor hope to reverse this trend by providing an ideological roadmap that will
spur discussion. It is as if Claire and Poynor, as well as Bob, view themselves as
liberators or directors, freeing practitioners (especially young practitioners) from the
‘misconception’ that graphic design is only about consumerism and commerce. In this
light, it is easy to see why FTF 2000 and the signatories have been characterized as
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elitist and high-brow; in some ways the signatories I interviewed do see themselves as
enlightening the masses of rank-and-file practitioners.
Prominent Designers
Max, a prominent New York designer, knew about FTF 1964 before he learned
of FTF 2000. While vacationing Max received the graphic agitation issue of AdBusters
that contained FTF 2000 in the weekly shipment of mail from his office. About reading
the manifesto while on vacation he said,
…I remember the first time I saw it, I was kind of really shook up a bit. But
then I agreed with the impulse [of FTF 2000], and knew nothing about it in the
making, and I have to admit that part of me was hurt about that.
Max’s reaction against the manifesto also was fueled by the fact that at that time he
was intimately involved with planning the forthcoming AIGA annual conference in
LasVegas. The 1999 Las Vegas conference was intended to express a sense of revelry,
decadence, and excitement that he believed fit with the zeitgeist of the design
community in the late 1990s. FTF 2000 was published just prior to the conference and
indicated, in Max’s mind, that the mind-set of the profession was becoming more
somber and sober. And thus, the direction he and the planning committee chose for the
conference may not be in keeping with the mood of the community.
At the time FTF 2000 was published, Max was in a prominent position in the
AIGA. Max also revealed that some of his work colleagues were signatories on the
manifesto.
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…I think part of my position of opposition was having not been asked to sign it,
I was sort of like, well, fuck you. So, I don’t want to sign your stupid thing.
And had I been asked to sign it, I am still not sure – I would probably have
signed it. Flawed and all its heart was still in the right place, actually. But not
having been asked to sign it I was given an opening to create some dialogue
around it.
He saw himself as part of the group of prominent designers. Because he was excluded,
Max entered the FTF 2000 dialogue – participated – as an outsider and assumed the
attitude of a rank-and-file practitioner, sparked conversation and debates, and published
a response to FTF 2000 that was highly critical of its central ideas. About the
manifesto’s central thesis he said,
…the manifesto itself I though was profoundly flawed, you know, the actual
argument that it avowed. But I sort of felt like the impulse behind it which was
sort of calling for designers to look more critically at what it was they were
doing before they did it.
And the dichotomy that the manifesto appears to establish between non-commercial
design and commercial design was a new addition to the 2000 version.
…it bases itself on this division, which I don’t think was there in the original
one…at least I sort of discerned this division they were trying to make between
doing commercial work and doing non-commercial work. And the idea would
be that no one should do commercial work and that all right-thinking people
should do non-commercial work. And I just think that…it sort of ignores the
role – a really powerful role – that design has had in society for years, and
certainly in America, certainly during most of the twentieth century.
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‘Right-thinking people’ are the upper-echelon of prominent graphic designers and the
rank-and-file are those doing the less favorable, often unethical (in the viewpoint of
FTF 2000) commercial work. Max thus attributed the “powerful role of design in
society” to rank-and-file practitioners, because they produce most of the designed
ephemera that is consumed by the public. In Max’s view, FTF 2000 doesn’t resonate
with rank-and-file practitioners because the ideas it sets forth are divisive and need to
be more nuanced in their ethical positions. As Bob discussed, the daily situational
ethics that rank-and-file graphic designers face when working on commercial projects
are not addressed in FTF 2000 because its ideology eliminates this type of work as
‘unethical.’ Max’s comments illuminate the tension between a desire to be ‘ethical’ and
knowledge that graphic design operates in a gray ethical area where decisions are more
complex than ‘yes’ and ‘no.’
Yet while Max critiqued the manifesto’s underlying ideological standpoint, he
was also supportive of the effort to create dialogue about practice. About the
manifesto’s timing, he said, “I thought it was exactly the time for that and was required
at that moment. And it still is. It has never quite gone away.” This comment echoes
Bob’s and Claire’s perceptions that the state of the profession in the late twentieth
century necessitated an event, such as FTF 2000, that would raise designers’ awareness
of ethical issues related to graphic design practice. In total, Max saw FTF 2000 as a
flawed document that nonetheless sparked needed dialogue about graphic design
practice.
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Sarah, a prominent designer who works in Minneapolis, could not recall exactly
when she first heard about the 1964 version of FTF, but that it happened sometime in
the early part of her career, the late 1970s and early 80s. She became acquainted with
FTF 2000 and reacquainted with FTF in general when one of her students was working
on a thesis project. This student used the manifesto as a guiding principle for a
packaging project, relating choices and decisions back to FTF 2000, which she found
interesting and thought provoking.
While Bob, Claire, and Max saw FTF 2000 as a vehicle for initiating debate
and dialogue about ethics and practice in the graphic design community, Sarah viewed
it as an “undercurrent thing that has gone on…and every now and then somebody
brings it up and refers back to it.” The ideas of the manifesto, which Sarah described as
“what you do and how you do it,” have always been “an issue in graphic design.”
Sarah said,
I’ve certainly never done anything with it – it’s been an awareness issue…the
whole thing is just a nice ethical idea…it’s well thought out. They are some
well thought out words that cause you to ponder and think about what you do;
and I imagine for some people they really affect their lives and for some people
they don’t affect their lives because they are already thinking in those terms.
For Sarah, there are varied approaches to graphic design practice, but the sort of ethical
behavior advocated by FTF 2000 is the correct way to practice. She said this positive
view of FTF 2000 was due to the fact that graphic designers “inform people and
educate people about things…[and] try to influence behaviors. And if you’re going to
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influence behaviors let’s do it in a way that you can really live with…” Sarah wants
graphic design to be beneficial to the population and to have meaning.
…I would rather make something that is meaningful to me and affects the
population in a way that is beneficial and is not just consumerism and it’s not
just material, and it’s not just the idea of the moment, but it has meaning.
She is aware that graphic design has a public life, and believes graphic designers are
responsible for positively affecting the public – it is their calling. Benefits accrue
through the creation of products that are meaningful both to the graphic designer and to
those that use the artifacts. “Meaning” is moving beyond basic consumerism and
consumption, and in Sarah’s perspective, involves an interaction between designer,
artifact, and user. Graphic designers are responsible for making beneficial artifacts that
create these connections.
Sarah also expressed that the manifesto embodied ideas and an approach to
design that she was already pursuing. She said, “… and so I don’t necessarily think I
need a manifesto. We’re already thinking about things.” Sarah then described a couple
different work situations in which her design team was confronted with ethical issues –
such as deciding to work on tobacco products or with a politically and socially
conservative client – and responded to them appropriately. For Sarah, ethics cannot be
added as an afterthought, but are intimately bound up with the daily decisions graphic
designers make. And while it is important to make appropriate ethical decisions that
affect the public positively, making these sorts of decisions is somewhat natural and
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intuitive. FTF 2000 reinforced ideas about ethics and practice that Sarah supported and
pursued in her daily work.
The third prominent practitioner, Emily, is a senior-level designer in a New
York branding agency. When I asked how she first learned about FTF she said that she
was aware of the 1964 manifesto, and probably became aware of FTF 2000 through the
internet via online sources. Like Max, Emily wrote and published an essay about FTF
2000. Her understanding of FTF 2000 was framed by her work – branding. Although
the manifesto largely reads as a condemnation of branding and the general type of
work that Emily does, she agreed with it in a general sense; the main theme of the
manifesto was something she could take to heart. She said,
…and part of what I’ve found so compelling about both First Things First
manifestos was, in as much as they might have been critical of some of the kind
of work that I do, there still was a call for…work being done with a certain
authenticity, which is something that has always moved me.
However, her interpretation of its core meaning and values was unlike any of the other
participants. Emily viewed the manifesto’s message as a call for honesty in graphic
design practice that is directly expressed in artifacts. She was adamant that honesty be
applied to branding as well as other types of graphic design. She said,
…I find that if we relegate the fast-moving consumer goods, products outside
of the First Things First manifesto, we’re really losing a very important
opportunity for a call to action for brand consultants that need to force their
clients to try to portray those products as honestly as possible, and to know that
no one’s going to be a cooler person deep-down because they wear Nike
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sneakers, or drink Starbucks, or any of the things that these brands can
sometimes perpetuate.
The idea that designed artifacts need to be honest through the messages they convey is
related to Sarah’s concept of designers’ responsibility to the public. Emily views
branding professionals as key players in the process of consumption and wants them to
bring the ethical standards applied to non-commercial design to commercial design.
Working from the inside out as agents of change, branding professionals can raise the
ethical standards of fast-moving consumer goods.
Emily also discussed the fact that graphic design, and branding, function in a
gray ethical area, where decisions about clients, project, and message are not clear.
About working on a tobacco product she said,
I wouldn’t want to perpetuate something that would knowingly kill somebody,
but where do you draw the line then? I wouldn’t do that personally, but I
couldn’t criticize somebody else for doing that. So does that mean you don’t do
liquor because there’s alcoholics? Does that mean you won’t work on a
clothing brand because they work in leather and kill cows?...do you not work
on a cookie project because there’s trans fat in it? Then, do you not work for the
Brooklyn Academy of Music because they accept money from Philip Morris?
Not only do the lines between ethical and unethical become blurry, but so do the lines
between commercial and non-commercial graphic design in Emily’s view. The
Brooklyn Academy of Music is an example of a non-commercial project that calls into
question the black-and-white distinctions between good and bad graphic design. But,
Emily is not ready to condemn those that choose to work on such projects, or tobacco
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projects for that matter. Her vision of the profession provides a gray area wherein each
designer is charged with negotiating the ethics in a situation and making decisions.
Yet while Emily was an advocate and supporter of FTF 2000, she saw how
adhering to its ideological standpoint was something that not all graphic designers
could afford to do. She said,
I thought it was profound and I thought it was incredibly meaningful but I
thought that…it’s easy for a successful graphic designer to sign that – really
easy. It’s a lot harder for somebody that’s first starting out and needs to make
their mark or pay their rent. You know, forget making their mark, paying their
bills.
The hierarchy between prominent and rank-and-file designers mentioned by Bob,
Claire, and Max is again raised. The lack of financial stability in the lives of young,
rank-and-file designers limits their ability to work on non-commercial projects. Their
concerns are more immediate – paying bills and making a living. Once financial and
professional stability is achieved, graphic designers are able to commit more time to
non-commercial projects, and more importantly, they are perhaps better able to adhere
to the ethical standards presented in FTF 2000. Overall, Emily’s perceptions of FTF
2000 were framed by her position as a branding professional, yet she believed in the
underlying message of the manifesto.
Rank-and-File Practitioners
When asked about FTF 2000, Frank, a rank-and-file, senior-level
Minneapolis/St. Paul graphic designer working in an advertising agency, couldn’t
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recall when he first heard about it. He was, however, the most critical of the
manifesto’s ideas, which correlated with his career in advertising. He said, “…but I
mean it’s kind of taken design away from the common man in a sense. It’s high-brow
kind of stuff. It’s not me – what I have to do day-in and day-out.” In these comments
Frank grouped himself with rank-and-file practitioners (the ‘common man’) even
though he is a senior-level designer at a large agency and has published writings on
graphic design. Illustrating this point he said,
But, not everybody can be doing that [type of information design work]. And
someone has to do the butt toner and the dog biscuits and, I mean…I don’t
necessarily think that’s wrong. Do I think that we could help some of that stuff
be better? Yes.
Frank’s comments reiterate the point that rank-and-file practitioners are concerned with
gray ethical issues due to the overtly commercial nature of their work; it demands
different situational ethics that FTF 2000 either ignores or condemns. This idea may be
related to the perception that FTF 2000 signatories, and perhaps other prominent
graphic designers, view advertising, specifically, as an arena where the gray ethical
area of graphic design becomes darker. He showed awareness of this when he said,
And what I have to do isn’t necessarily right, because a lot of time the clients
direct you on what they really want, whether it’s right or wrong; but we do get a
say in what our feelings are.
Frank viewed FTF 2000’s ideas as a set of black-and-white ethical distinctions when
gray areas are more dominant in the daily lives of other rank-and-file practitioners.
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While he is aware of the need for improvement within advertising, Frank also called
for interventions that are in keeping with that type of work, rather than abandoning it
all together as advocated by FTF 2000.
Later in our conversation Frank returned to the issue of ethics in practice,
discussing how he separates work ethics from personal ethics.
…I remember back when I was doing a lot of annual reports, I would have had
no problem doing the Northrop annual…But, not that I’m a hawk either; I keep
that separate. It’s not who I want to vote for, but I would still do work for some
of these companies…
Frank’s separation of personal viewpoints from workplace ethics was unique among
the participants. By delineating between work and personal ethics, Frank is able to
reconcile the ‘negative effects of consumerism’ that are denounced by FTF 2000. He
equated this approach with, “keeping religion out of government.” He negotiated the
arena of practice by removing personal preferences and ideas.
Frank’s negative view of FTF 2000 was countered by Simon’s support for it.
Simon, a rank-and-file practitioner working in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, first
heard about FTF 2000 through AIGA Minnesota and participation in planning the
Insights Lecture Series. Simon said the Walker Art Center views design on a much
broader, international scale than did many of his local peers. Through the planning
committee, Simon learned about Rick Poynor and FTF 2000. He was excited about the
manifesto’s ideas and said, “I thought it was really exciting that designers were trying
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to be a little less commerce-y and have a little more of a conscience. It was a good set
of goals to stand behind.”
Simon discussed how local, senior-level Minneapolis/St. Paul area graphic
designers were setting examples for younger designers to aspire to. These role models
planted seeds of social-responsibility in the minds of junior-level practitioners. They
were “doing work that didn’t pay the bills, but that fed their souls.” Unlike Frank,
Simon closely connected personal viewpoints and ethics to his work as a graphic
designer. This extended to the point that actions performed in the work place can
provide a vehicle for personal “salvation.”
The religious metaphor is powerful in this case. Where Frank kept ‘religion and
government’ separate, Simon bound them. As one would present a tithe to a church,
Simon said that, “…it was great to do the paying work, the for-profit work, but you
also had an obligation to give back in some way,” by doing the less profitable noncommercial design projects. Simon then followed with an example of how he was
pursing this type of work.
I…got tapped by a local photographer, who said the St. Paul Boy Scouts need
someone to do their annual report, would you consider doing that? So we said,
sure, we’ll be happy to do that. We can give them a really good rate because we
believe in the work that they do. And that was really interesting from a socialconscious standpoint.
Simon’s approach, connecting personal ethics to work ethics, is in keeping with the
ideas presented in FTF 2000. The manifesto embodied ideas that Simon was already
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pursing in practice. When the manifesto came along his “…head was already going up
and down. They just sort of embodied what I was going to pursue. It wasn’t a
revolutionary thing that came out of left field. It was more like, oh, yeah, great idea.”
The issue of professional rank and hierarchy also surfaced in my conversation
with Simon. He said that he recognized many of the names of the signatories which
elevated the status of the manifesto in his eyes.
And people who signed it, you know you kind of got excited about that,
because I was familiar with Bill Drenttel’s work, and Jessica Helfand, and Rick
Poynor. There’s a handful of really good people on that, and I said they’re
lending their names to it, sure, why not?
Because Simon knew of some of the signatories, he respected their ideas and
viewpoints. This fostered a sense of trust that led him to support the manifesto and its
ideas. In total, for Simon the ideas espoused in FTF 2000 were not revolutionary for
him, but impacted the profession by providing a goal.
In my discussion with Marie, a rank-and-file practitioner in the Minneapolis/St.
Paul area, she said that she only learned about FTF 2000 in the last couple of years
from her colleagues at work. About its ideas she said that it was easy for senior-level
designers, like the signatories, to sign such a document and commit to its ideas. This
sentiment was echoed in my discussion with Emily, who said that as designers mature
into their work and gain financial flexibility and freedom then perhaps they are better
able to pick and choose their clients. Designers at that level of work don’t have to
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worry about paying the bills, a criterion that Marie identified as one of her motivations
for working.
Right after I asked about FTF 2000, Marie gave an example of a noncommercial project in which she designed a communication device for children with
extreme disabilities. She said that she enjoyed telling her peers about this project and
was proud of it, but that she was equally satisfied with, and proud of, projects for
commercial clients.
At the same time, I’d have to say, I work to get on that type of project as much
as I’d work to get on a project team for, you know, branding a luggage
company …to me the variety is probably more important than working for a
good – I don’t know – a higher purpose.
Marie was also skeptical of non-commercial projects because, in her experience, they
weren’t always what one expected.
But I’ve found that…to ask specifically for that kind of work, sometimes you
don’t get at all what you bargained for. You have your vision of what those
projects are about and what they mean. But, again, the people that are
associated with those companies and are associated with those areas of work
describe maybe more, I don’t know. It’s maybe more random than you might
think. So, I’ve found that I like the variety.
Marie prefers to balance commercial with non-commercial projects and finds more joy
in the personal relationships she builds with clients than the type of project that she is
working on. About working with an unusual client she said,
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It was this really bizarre dynamic, but you’re seeing human interactions in a
way that perhaps has nothing to do with the project you’re working on, but you
sort of get insight in to what kind of people are involved in certain types of
industries. To me, that’s really, really curious. And there’s a challenge that
comes with that, too.
For Marie, all graphic design work allows her to enter the daily lives of her clients and
learn about their worlds, which she views as a valuable aspect of her work. Overall,
Marie was skeptical of the message FTF 2000 conveyed because her experiences did
not support it. Instead she found personal and professional satisfaction in other arenas,
which did not directly address the issue of ethics in practice.
An Emerging Theme – Tension Permeates the Profession
Common threads in the participants’ perceptions of and reactions to FTF 2000
recurred in the previous section. An awareness of the hierarchy between prominent and
rank-and-file designers was discussed by almost every participant. Most were also
keenly aware of their own status, and as well as the benefits of holding a prominent
position in the profession. While graphic design has the ability to affect people, and
thus designers are charged with the ethical responsibility to create positive outcomes,
the participants discussed how graphic design has a limited sphere of influence. It does
not cause permanent harm or damage. The benefits of experience were also discussed
by the participants, and juxtaposed with the need to stay fresh and informed about
graphic design through contact with youthful, novice designers. Finally, some of the
participants said the late twentieth century was a moment in need of the FTF 2000
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manifesto. The dialogue and debate it instigated were essential to bringing together a
diverse community that, ostensibly, lacked focus and was feeling a loss of control over
design.
Evaluated holistically, a common trait to each of these threads is the pervasive
nature of tension: tension between designers of different status; tension between ethical
concerns and the limits of graphic design’s influence; tension between the perceived
benefits of experience and youth as a site of ‘freshness;’ and the need for tension via
debate and discourse. In the next section I disentangle the ideas in each of these threads
to illustrate the pervasive nature of this trait.
Professional Rank and Attitude
As a group the participants were keenly aware of their positions within the
profession, as well as a perceived hierarchy between prominent and rank-and-file
designers. The ideology presented in FTF 2000, a shift to focus on non-commercial
design, was associated with prominent designers, since the 33 signatories are wellknown, prominent designers. Following the logic of the manifesto, the attitude of rankand-file designers is one in which design decisions are made without consideration of
the design’s outcomes on the ‘citizen-consumer.’ The FTF 2000 attitude is concerned,
first and foremost, with how decisions will affect the consumer and user of the
designed artifact.
In contrast, reactions and responses against FTF 2000, a desire to pursue
commercial graphic design (e.g., advertising), were associated with rank-and-file
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designers. Emily associated the “commercial-design” (anti-FTF 2000) attitude with
rank-and-file practitioners, specifically young, novice designers who are beginning
their careers and trying to earn a living. At this point their ability to deny projects that
might be viewed as ‘too commercial’ by the standards of FTF 2000 may be limited,
because this could jeopardize their job or limit their experience and exposure to
different types of projects and clients. Their decisions are framed by survival, both
literal and professional.
Frank discussed how advertising is viewed as part of the anti-FTF 2000
“commercial design” attitude of the rank-and-file practitioner, and Emily recognized
that the manifesto denounced her work in branding. FTF 2000 reinforces this
interpretation, when it denounces advertising as contributing to a negative mental
environment. According to FTF 2000, designers working in advertising and branding
(those with the “commercial design” attitude) do not consider the outcomes of their
work on the public, considering first their career and success.
However, the participants’ reactions showed that the perceived pyramidal,
hierarchical structure of rank in the profession is actually more flexible. Professional
status (prominent or rank-and-file) and attitude (FTF 2000 or commercial design) are
separate dimensions that create at least four28 possible pairings: a prominent designer
with the FTF 2000 attitude; a rank-and-file designer with the commercial design
28
The possible interactions are limited to those identified in this research. There are likely many more interactions
that were not represented by the participants.
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attitude; a prominent designer with the commercial design attitude; and a rank-and-file
designer with the FTF 2000 attitude. The responses of the participants illustrate these
four possibilities, as well as other potential positions (see Figure 3).
For example, Max’s exclusion from signing FTF 2000 resulted in his adoption
of the commercial design attitude in his critique. Max, however, is certainly a
prominent graphic designer. Or a designer may be relatively unknown on a national
scale (e.g., be a rank-and-file designer), but have a FTF 2000 attitude, as did Simon.
Max and Simon’s responses demonstrate how status and attitude can interact in
complex, unpredictable ways; the profession is not simply a fixed pyramid of rank,
with specific attitudes exclusively associated with each stratum. The participants’
subtle interactions with, and responses to, FTF 2000 reveal how apparently conflicting
positions may be simultaneously maintained.
Designers’ Ethical Responsibilities and Graphic Design’s Limited Sphere of Influence
A thread running through many of the participants’ comments is tension
between concerns about graphic designers’ ethical responsibilities and the ultimate
limitations of
graphic design’s potential effects. In the participants’ comments, designed ephemera
are
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Figure 3: A Matrix of the Interactions Between Status and Attitude
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identified as objects that have specific abilities; they are able to improve the lives of
others. Graphic design artifacts were also defined as having a public life. The
application of designers’ specific skills and abilities to artifacts (graphic design) is,
thus, able to make a positive influence on the public, and the world. Graphic designers
thus have the ethical responsibility to create artifacts that have a positive effect on the
world.
Sarah raised the issue of influencing people and said,
I look at our work and we do many things, but one of the things we do is inform
people and educate people about things. Another thing we do is try to influence
behaviors. And if you’re going to try to influence behaviors, let’s do it in a way
that you can really live with it…You can always make more money – I would
rather make something that is meaningful to me and affects the population in a
way that is beneficial and is not just consumerism and it’s not just material and
it’s not just the idea of the moment, but it has meaning.
For Sarah making graphic design requires that one be ethical and responsible, since the
artifacts created can influence the way people live and buy; they can influence
behavior. Marie discussed designing children’s books as an example of ethical practice.
There was another project – the National Children’s Book Project – where we
were trying to find a way to get very high quality children’s books in the hands
of people that probably would not otherwise buy books for their kids. So, how
to make these things appealing to, you know, people who are not big readers.
In Marie’s view the redesigned children’s books, through the application of form,
typography, illustration, color, etc., are able to positively influence the lives of the
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intended audience. Designed artifacts have the ability to create change, and thus
graphic designers must use their skills in crafting messages and shaping objects to
create positive, not negative, outcomes.
The participants, however, limited the sphere of graphic design’s influence.
Almost every participant discussed how graphic design cannot cause serious harm to
anyone. Sarah said, “This is really just graphic design. You’re not saving lives.”
Further Sarah said, “But you know the other thing is in our disasters nobody dies.
Nobody dies on the table, buildings don’t collapse. That’s just good, all good.” About
some questionable practices related to entering award competitions Frank said, “But
did it kill anybody? No.”
During the interviews when this subject arose the participants used the “but it
doesn’t kill anyone” rationale to qualify their work. The idea that graphic design will
not kill you is not a new one. In “Me, The Undersigned,” Jessica Helfand raises this
issue in one of the items in her satirical take on manifestos (2002). The realm of
graphic design’s influence, and thus the abilities of graphic designers are limited.
Graphic designers are ethically responsible for creating positive change in the world,
but the fact that ‘graphic design can’t kill you’ limits their sphere of influence; they are
not able to create physical harm.
The comments of the participants illuminate an underlying tension in the
perception of graphic design. While graphic design has the ability to affect people, and
thus designers are charged with the ethical responsibility to create positive outcomes,
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graphic design is defined as having a limited sphere of influence. It does not cause
permanent harm or damage.
Experience Versus Youth
Just as the tension between concerns about graphic designers’ responsibilities
and the limits of graphic design’s influence permeated my conversations with the
participants, so did tension between perceptions of the benefits of experience and those
associated with young, novice designers. Many of the participants discussed how
experience gained through practice was a process of moving away from the folly and
misconceptions associated with being young and inexperienced. During my interview
with Max, he used the term “foreground/background design” when discussing his
work. When asked to describe this idea in more detail he said,
When you’re in design school, sort of the unspoken premise of all the work
you’re doing is that you’re creating heroic individual artifacts…You graduate
and go out into the world and you find that the world sort of doesn’t really want
that. The premise is that each – every single thing that one produces has to be a
work of striking originality. [It] bursts into the world without precedent and has
the effect of like, everyone that sees it is sort of staggered by its originality.
And then you find…for one thing [that] a lot of people don’t want that. Clients
don’t want that. And then…you think the clients are cowardly or they have no
taste or they’re stupid…But then you realize that the world actually doesn’t run
on this endless, non-stop, diet of originality and endless…differentiation for its
own sake. Instead, what makes the world a civilized place, what makes it a
community, what makes people able to live with each other in a society is the
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fact that we sort of all respect conventions that sort of dictate how – at a base
level – you dress and how you behave.
Max defines a fixed sequential set of steps that occur throughout the career of a graphic
designer. At each stage a designer’s knowledge of graphic design changes. The
experience gained through practice helps a designer move away from the youthful
misconception that all graphic design must be ‘heroic.’
Echoing Max, Marie said, “…you start as a student and you say, ‘Ahhh, I want
to do design that is going to change the world.’ And then you go through this stage
where it’s like, you start to work and you start to learn what this design thing’s all
about and what you can do, and it’s very practical.” Knowledge about what graphic
design is evolves throughout the life cycle of a graphic design career. With experience
comes the knowledge that graphic design can happen on many levels, for many
reasons, and can be a supportive aspect rather that the focus of an environment.
However, many of the participants expressed concern, and perhaps a certain
degree of anxiety, about becoming a ‘curmudgeon’ or a ‘relic’ as a graphic designer.
Frank said, “I just don’t want to become bitter or a curmudgeon. Even Paul Rand
became, to me, a little bit too bitter.” Dennis described how he believed that graphic
design is a young profession, in that novice designers are those taking the risks with
their work and pushing the boundaries – pushing the status quo. The experience gained
through years of practice is described as potentially being fraught with the pitfalls of
becoming stuck in one’s ways: being inflexible, and being uniformed.
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Sarah expressed a negative view of aging in the profession. When comparing
herself to younger, novice designers she said, “And I don’t think you stay connected
with what’s going on with…the younger designers if you don’t force yourself to be
involved with them in some way. Who wants to be a relic?” When asked to describe
her interpretation of a ‘relic,’ Sarah said,
A relic is a person that is so out of touch…they do the same damn solution over
and over and over again. They’re predictable. They don’t change with the
times. They’re not willing to evolve; they’re not willing to try new things. They
don’t keep broadening their awareness of design or the world, and as a result
their work becomes stale…I think a relic is a designer that doesn’t keep up with
how the business is being done…
Staying aware of what’s happening with younger, novice designers was how Sarah
avoided becoming static in her work. She works with and oversees a number of junior
designers, and discussed her joy when they presented ideas for projects that were
innovative, exciting, and fresh. Sarah also stays connected to younger designers
through teaching. Thus, the pitfalls of aging in the profession are clear and present; one
risks becoming out of touch and fixed. However, contact with novice designers (who
are youthful) allows experienced designers to stay fresh and informed. While the
participants also had other tactics for staying ‘fresh’ and informed, the tension between
perceptions of experience as having the benefits of moving beyond the misconceptions
of youth, and youth as a site of ‘freshness’ dominated discussions of aging in graphic
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design. Tension between the benefits of experience and the freshness of youth recurred
throughout the interviews.
Dialogue, Debate, Discourse
A theme discussed by Bob, Claire, and Max was the timing of FTF 2000 and in
particular the need for dialogue about graphic design at the turn of the twenty-first
century. Bob said,
So, you know, going back to First Things First, anytime you raise these issues,
it’s a good thing to do because it will engender response. And if it engenders
response it will engender thinking. Then perhaps people will be on their toes
about what is right, what is wrong, what is in-between.
As discussed previously, Bob framed FTF 2000 within the historical context of other
twentieth-century artists’ manifestos and saw FTF 2000 as a continuation of this
tradition. Max understood FTF 2000’s timing as a reaction against the dot-com boom
and the perceived ‘decadence’ of the late 1990s. Max said that in response to FTF 2000
and the changing perceptions about graphic design,
…we decided then and there that the next [annual AIGA] conference would be
in opposition to that [decadence of the 1990s] regardless, and that ended up
being the one we had in Washington called Voice… and I wanted to call it the
broccoli conference, because I thought we were going to force everyone to eat
broccoli at the next conference.
And, while Claire did not predict that FTF 2000 would stir up dialogue, she still framed
it as a document that would cause designers (specifically students) to think critically
about their work. The social, economic, and political contexts of the late 1990s and the
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turn of the century, in the views of Bob, Claire, and Max, made the intellectual climate
of the profession ripe for debate and discussion about the nature of practice.
Underlying these participants’ comments is the assumption that debate and
dialogue are essential for the profession, and there are certain moments where
stimulating debate is especially important. Tension is purposefully cultivated. Bob
discussed how he knew the manifesto had internal flaws, but signed it nonetheless, to
show support for its ideas and to incite debate. Friction between competing ideological
standpoints at particular moments in the course of practice resulted in debate. The
purpose of debate – tension – is to bring together “individuals that care about many
things,” according to Bob. To quote FTF 2000 directly, “The scope of debate is
shrinking; it must expand.” By expanding the debate, more graphic designers become
involved. They are brought together not as a group with a singular ideology, but
through debate, as a group with the desire to discuss, consider, and question ethics.
Debate – tension between viewpoints – is a unifying force for the profession.
The participant’s awareness of the need for debate at particular moments is
curious, revealing the profession’s self-awareness of its history and perhaps its status.
Bob said, “…but I feel like it had a significant input into thinking, if not the practice, of
a particular moment of our recent design history.” Debate self-consciously becomes a
tool for shaping or fashioning graphic design.
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Concluding Thoughts
The interviews revealed that the graphic designers’ perceptions of FTF 2000
varied among the different types of work they perform, their positions in their careers,
and their individually held beliefs about graphic design and their work. A dominant
theme, the prevalence of tension, emerged among the threads that were identified in the
participants’ perceptions of FTF 2000 and their discussion of graphic design practice.
The community of graphic designers thrives on a climate of unrest, where ideas are
continually challenged and the standards change.
The participants’ subtle interactions with, and responses to, FTF 2000 revealed
how apparently conflicting positions may be simultaneously maintained. Graphic
designers can hold ostensibly conflicting positions, such as agreeing with FTF 2000,
which was associated with prominent designers, and be a rank-and-file designer. Status
and attitude interact as a matrix, rather than a hierarchical pyramid. This results in
tension between professional status and attitude.
The participants described designed artifacts as both public and able to create
change in the world. Graphic designers are, thus, charged with the ethical responsibility
of creating positive outcomes through their work. However, there is tension between
perceived ethical responsibilities and the sphere of graphic design’s influence; the
participants qualified graphic design as unable to create physical harm. However, this
finding is also balanced with the knowledge that graphic design can cause, or result in,
physical harm (e.g., illegible typography on a prescription bottle that results in the
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incorrect dosage, etc.). Perhaps the participants used the ‘but it cannot kill anyone’
rationale as a technique for dismissing the seriousness, and resulting ethical
responsibility, of graphic design. Regardless, there was tension between their perceived
responsibilities and the limits they placed on graphic design.
Over the course of their careers graphic designers gain experience and the
benefits that come with years of practice. However, they perceive a need to stay ‘fresh’
and informed, and look to young, novice designers as a site of ‘freshness.’ There is
tension between the perceived benefits of experience and youth, which must constantly
be ‘consulted’ to stay fresh and informed. Graphic designers are keenly aware of the
need for debate at particular moments in the profession’s history. Tension in graphic
design discourse becomes a uniting force that brings together practitioners.
In the next chapter I analyze the four threads of tension related to FTF 2000
using post-structuralist theory to illuminate how these threads are involved in networks
of power in the graphic design profession. The construct of power/knowledge is
described and applied to the participants’ responses.
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Chapter Nine: Post-Structuralist Analysis
The purpose of this research is both to critically evaluate the participants’
responses and reactions to FTF 2000 and to use the lens of Foucauldian poststructuralist theory to better understand networks of power relations in the profession
of graphic design. In the previous chapter, preliminary analysis revealed a dominant
theme in participants’ perceptions and reactions to FTF 2000: tension is an
omnipresent aspect of graphic design discourse.29 I further explored four specific
instances where tension was evident and dissected each thread, showing how ideas and
concepts collided, creating friction.
To begin the next phase of analysis, I first discuss how the four threads of
tension are internal rationalities of graphic design discourse. I describe how these
internal rationalities are in actuality ambiguous and nebulous aspects of graphic design
discourse. I then proceed by reintroducing the Foucauldian concept of
power/knowledge and discussing the qualities of power/knowledge: what it is, where it
occurs, how it is enacted, and why it happens. This section concludes with an
evaluation of how local instances of power/knowledge are connected in a webbed
network of power/knowledge that composes the graphic design profession.
29
The term discourse is loosely defined as a set of “recurring statements that define a particular cultural object and
provide concepts and terms through which such an object can be studied and discussed” (Cavallaro, 2001, p. 90).
Discourse – including forms of representation, conventions, and habits of language, especially practices – associated
with a particular institution or community form truth and order for a society (Brooker, 2003; See Chapter Four:
Theory, p.87 for more discussion of this term).
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Internal Rationalities as Sites of Tension and Ambiguity
In post-structuralist theory, when discourse (forms of representation,
conventions, habits of language, and practices) is evaluated it must be remembered that
its internal rationalities should be scrutinized and dismantled. The four threads in the
previous chapter are internal rationalities; they are places where on the surface the
argument, idea, or concept appears to be clear, precise, and rational but are, in
actuality, nebulous and ambiguous (see Table 3). The apparently pyramidal,
hierarchical structure of professional rank and prominence was dissected and revealed
as a set of complex interactions between attitudes and relative positions of prominence
or anonymity. The structures of rank and prominence were described as fluid and
flexible, rather than rigid and fixed.
Graphic designers’ ethical responsibilities were discussed by the participants.
Their comments revealed that there is tension between concern over ethical practice
and the perceived limits of graphic design’s influence. For, graphic design cannot
cause physical harm or injury.
The benefits of experience were contrasted with the need to stay fresh and
informed. Specifically, the young, novice graphic designer (youth) was identified as a
site of ‘freshness’ that the participants felt the need to connect with. There is tension
between the perceived benefits of experience and those of youth. And finally, the
constant need for debate and dialogue was evaluated as a unifying tool, illuminating
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Table 3: Internal Rationalities Identified in the Participants’ Responses
Perceived Rational
Qualities
Nebulous and Ambiguous
Qualities
Professional Rank and
Hierarchy
Graphic design is
composed of a pyramidal,
hierarchical structure of
professional rank: from
anonymous rank-and-file
designers to famous,
prominent designers
The Ethical
Responsibility of
Graphic Designers
Because graphic designers
create artifacts consumed
by the public, they are
responsible for being
ethical and creating positive
influences and outcomes.
The Benefits of
Experience
Graphic designers proceed
through different phases in
their careers. As experience
is gained they move away
from the folly and
misconceptions of youth
and become more
comfortable with their
skills and abilities.
The field of graphic design
is united by similar beliefs
and perspectives.
Different levels of rank (e.g.,
anonymous rank-and-file or
well-known, prominent
designer) can interact with the
attitudes of each perceived
rank;
e.g., a designer can have
prominence but hold the rankand-file attitude
Even though designers
influence the public through the
artifacts they design, graphic
design’s sphere of influence is
limited.
For, graphic design cannot
physically harm anyone.
While experience brings a sense
of comfort with one’s abilities,
it also brings fear of becoming
fixed in one’s ways. Designers
must then seek out freshness
and stay informed. They must
stay connected to young, novice
designers (youth) as a site of
‘freshness.’
The graphic design profession
thrives on a culture of debate,
tension, and unrest, where ideas
are constantly challenged and
reconceived.
Internal Rationality
The Graphic Design
Profession
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the fact that graphic design is not united ideologically, but exists through discourse
defined by tension, friction, and debate.
These internal rationalities appeared to be coherent qualities of the profession.
When examined closely, what seems to be logical and rational is discovered as
ambiguous, nebulous, and containing competing ideas; they are, instead, locations of
tension and friction. Dissection of the internal rationalities of graphic design discourse
revealed the open flexible nature of the systems and structures that compose it. This
assessment is in keeping with post-structuralist theory and the assumption that the
structures in society and language are not closed, finite, natural, or universal (Carrier,
1999; Green & Troup, 1999). The structures of graphic design discourse are not fixed
or closed; they are mutable and ambiguous (see Table 3). The dissection and
dismantling of the four threads (internal rationalities) are the first step in a poststructuralist analysis of graphic design discourse, and informs the following
Foucauldian analysis of power/knowledge.
Power/Knowledge – A Definition and Its Qualities
To begin an analytics30 of power relations within the profession of graphic
design, I first consider and define the Foucauldian concept of power/knowledge. To
facilitate understanding and provide a tangible application of an abstract concept, in the
30
The term “analytics” is borrowed from Foucauldian approaches to the analysis of power. It specifically means a
type of study concerned with an analysis of how particular ways of doing and thinking emerge, exist, and change
(Dean, 1999).
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section below I describe what power/knowledge is, how it is brought into being, where
it occurs, and why it happens.
What is Power/Knowledge?
To understand what power/knowledge is, it must first be understood that
power/knowledge is the inextricable connection of power and knowledge. Foucault
said,
We should admit rather that power produces knowledge…; that power and
knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relations without
the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that
does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations. (Foucault,
1995, p. 27)
Power and knowledge are bound together in a relationship in which one is interwoven
with the other in a never-ending cycle. In power/knowledge power essentially involves
knowledge, and knowledge essentially involves power.
Power/knowledge is not static; it is constantly moving, producing actions and
reactions via processes and struggles. Foucault said,
In short it is not the activity of the subject of knowledge that produces a corpus
of knowledge, useful or resistant to power, but power-knowledge, the processes
and struggles that traverse it and of which it is made up, that determines the
forms and possible domains of knowledge (Foucault, 1995, p. 27).
Thus, power/knowledge is relations that are processes and struggles wherein the
nature, essence, and scope of what can be known about a particular subject (e.g.,
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graphic design) that are entangled in confrontation, producing knowledge (and power)
via reactions, inactions, and behavior.
Further, power/knowledge both composes and takes as an assumption that there
is a “field of knowledge,” thus creating a network of power/knowledge relations.
Foucault said,
…they define innumerable points of confrontation, focuses of instability, each
of which has its own risks of conflict, of struggles, and of at least temporary
inversion of the power relations….
…none of its localized episodes may be inscribed in history except by the
effects that it induces on the entire network in which it is caught up. (1995, p.
27)
For this study, points of confrontation are specific places where actions are produced.
Points of confrontation are the locations where individual processes and struggles are
visible. These points become visible because they may be locations where
power/knowledge is challenged or put into action. Examples of points of confrontation
include public debate, surveillance, confrontation, reinforcement of an idea through a
rule (or law), or others mechanisms. FTF 2000 is a point of confrontation.
Points of confrontation illuminate the specific, local occurrence of
power/knowledge. Power/knowledge is at the same time individual relations (processes
and struggles that are visible at the point of confrontation) and an entire network; it is
both singular relations and the field of graphic design (the network of
power/knowledge). For, points of confrontation are connected, creating a network of
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Figure 4: Power/Knowledge: Individual Actions Connected in a Network
In this diagram of power/knowledge, the colored arrows represent individual actions (processes and
struggles) that become visible at points of confrontation (gray circles). As actions and reactions
(power/knowledge) move from one point to the next, the network of power/knowledge (the profession of
graphic design) becomes visible.
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power/knowledge. These relations are in a state of constant change and movement (see
Figure 4).
How is Power/Knowledge Brought into Being?
Various tactics are used to enact power/knowledge. The method of
implementation, or brining power/knowledge relations into being, can include the
threat of arms or warfare, surveillance (such as monitoring progress, visual
observation, etc.), or differences in economic standing (e.g. class), to name just a few
(Foucault, 1995). Surveillance also includes self-surveillance. This is a process of selfmonitoring in which one monitors one’s actions, such as internalizing ideas of social
propriety and measuring one’s actions by those standards. Surveillance (watching,
monitoring, and scrutinizing) is perhaps the most common form of bringing
power/knowledge into being, and is the circumstance most common in this research.
Surveillance can occur via systems of differentiation. Examples of systems of
differentiation include laws, traditions, economic conditions, linguistic or cultural
differences, and differences in competence, etc. (Foucault, 1995). Systems of
differentiation are technologies, or mechanisms for, surveillance that bring
power/knowledge into being. Surveillance and systems of differentiation can be points
of confrontation.
Where does Power/Knowledge Occur?
In power/knowledge actions, not people, are acted upon. These actions are
undertaken by a knowing, active, autonomous individual, or in this case, a knowing,
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knowledgeable graphic designer. Power/knowledge occurs upon actions that can also
include inaction (see Figure 1, p.78).
Why does Power/Knowledge Happen?
When considering power/knowledge it must be remembered that it is not about
assuming a position of supreme authority, but rather pursing a specific set of
objectives. These may include maintaining privileges, gaining profits, bringing an
authority into operation (such as a governing board, political ruler, etc.), or exercising a
financial transaction. As such, “Domination is not the essence of power,” (Foucault,
1995, p. 168). Identifying the objectives of power/knowledge is a critical aspect of a
Foucauldian analysis of power/knowledge.
Thus, power/knowledge is at the same time individual relations (processes and
struggles) and networks of power/knowledge (as a network of individual actions); it
presupposes and composes the field of knowledge (graphic design). Power/knowledge
relations are brought into being through various tactics, including surveillance. These
tactics are used to pursue a specific set of objectives and act upon actions, not people.
Graphic Design Power/Knowledge
This research examines nine graphic designers’ responses to the FTF 2000
manifesto and is intended to be an exploration of graphic design power/knowledge
relations. By beginning with the responses of the participants to FTF 2000, as a point
of confrontation, the nature of power/knowledge in graphic design begins to become
visible as individual actions.
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This section begins by asking a variety of questions about the participants’
responses to FTF 2000 to illuminate the ‘what,’ ‘how,’ ‘where,’ and ‘why’ of graphic
design power/knowledge. FTF 2000 is a point of confrontation in graphic design
power/knowledge; FTF 2000, therefore, is an apt location to begin an analysis of
networks of graphic design power/knowledge. Throughout the following discussion, I
consider how localized instances of power/knowledge (reactions and responses to FTF
2000) are connected in a network of power/knowledge relations. First, to address the
issue of what graphic design power/knowledge is, I ask: what abilities does
power/knowledge invest in the participants? To address the issue of how graphic
design power/knowledge is enacted I ask: how does it exert pressure upon them? Then
to address the issue of where power/knowledge occurs I ask: how is power/knowledge
transformed by them and through them? Finally, to address the issue of why graphic
design power/knowledge is enacted the last question I will address is: what are the
specific objectives that graphic design power/knowledge pursues? The final step of
analysis draws upon the participants’ responses, as well as the broad history of graphic
design (see Chapter Two).
What: What abilities does power/knowledge invest in the participants?
FTF 2000, and the participants’ responses to it, provide insight into what
graphic design power/knowledge invests, empowers, endows, and authorizes them to
do. Since power/knowledge acts upon actions, the participants’ responses, reactions,
and inactions must be evaluated and understood. As discussed in the thread about
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tension between designers’ ethical responsibilities and the limits of graphic design’s
influence, graphic design power/knowledge invests designers with the agency to enact
change. The discourse on graphic design defines artifacts as both public and able to
create change. Thus, graphic designers are able, through the artifacts they create, to
positively affect the world.
The FTF 2000 manifesto is an example of power/knowledge about graphic
designers’ agency. It discussed the “many cultural interventions, social marketing
campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs,
films, charitable causes and other information design projects [that] urgently require
our expertise and help.” ‘Commercial work’ is proposed as the antithesis of graphic
designers’ higher purpose. FTF 2000’s definition of graphic design problematizes the
late-twentieth century environmental, social, and cultural contexts as in need of graphic
design’s problem-solving skills and expert knowledge, whereas the economic situation
(of commerce and capitalism) has too long been the focus of graphic design. As such,
that arena needs less attention by graphic designers; it has already been altered by
graphic designers. Since one arena has already been changed, the underlying premise is
that graphic designers have the ability to create change through the artifacts they create.
The public nature of graphic design was discussed by Max, who said, “And you
can also create things and do beautiful things, too, that other people see in public –
which is nice.” Further, “I like designing, you know, things that are seen in public
somehow.” Bob said, “…this is a great thing to be involved in because not only do you
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make it, but other people see it.” Not only is graphic design public, but it influences
people. Max said, “…Things that you feel actually have an impact on people’s lives,
’cause they get to encounter the things and it takes them by surprise, let’s say.”
Similarly Emily said, “[Design is] not about making a difference via form or flavor
anymore. It’s about how do we make a difference in people’s lives.” And Claire said,
“I think design succeeds when it touches somebody and it moves somebody and it
announces something that is meaningful and memorable.” The language Max, Bob,
Emily, and Claire use to discuss graphic designer’s agency is powerful: it takes them;
makes a differences; and moves people. These phrases express not only designers’
agency but that of the artifacts they create; i.e., the artifacts’ abilities to have a positive
impact on the public. Designers’ involvement in the process is as the creator, shaping
the artifact. They see themselves as intimately involved in this capacity, orchestrating
design that is able to enact change in the world.
And yet, while the participants viewed themselves as agents of change, this
perspective was also infused with the view that graphic design is not essential, in that it
cannot cause serious harm to anyone. During the interviews many of the designers used
the “but it doesn’t kill anyone” rationale to qualify their work. Bob said, “And as a
profession we’re fairly benign. We don’t hurt people terribly….But, you know, we
don’t do that much to make bad things happen, so far.” And Sarah said, “This is really
just graphic design. You’re not saving lives.” Further she said, “But you know the
other thing is, in our disasters nobody dies. Nobody dies on the table, buildings don’t
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collapse. That’s just good, all good.” About some questionable practices related to
entering award competitions Frank said, “But did it kill anybody? No.” The discourse
on graphic designers’ agency is bound to the perception that graphic design is nonessential, and that while graphic design can create change, this change will not incite
physical harm. While graphic design power/knowledge invests graphic designers with
the agency, the power, to create change, this agency is restricted.
How: How does it exert pressure upon them?
The discourse on graphic design invested the participants with the agency to
create change. The next step in this analysis of networks of power/knowledge in
graphic design is to answer the question, how does power/knowledge exert pressure
upon graphic designers and bring power relations into being? Graphic design
power/knowledge involves various technologies that are forms of surveillance. There
are various mechanisms that watch over, scrutinize, and monitor actions. These include
systems of differentiation that rank and hierarchize31 skills and abilities; selfsurveillance through the definition of standards and adherence to them; and other
institutions, documents, and locations where power/knowledge is confronted. These are
points of confrontation where pressure is exerted. The points are places where ideas
collide and intersect with each other via various forms of surveillance and systems,
producing actions in response.
31
The term ‘hierarchize’ means “to arrange in a hierarchy or gradation of orders” (Simpson & Weiner, 1989). This
term is used extensively by Foucault and in Foucauldian-style analysis (c.f. Foucault, 1995; Dean, 1999).
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FTF 2000 is a point of confrontation in that it differentiates and defines graphic
design and requests (or demands) action. It is a public document that proposed a shift
in the focus of graphic design practice. FTF 2000 surveyed and observed recent
graphic design practice, making the assessment that,
We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual
communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and
apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most
lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and
mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and
publications reinforces it. Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply
their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds,
detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and
heavy-duty recreational vehicles.
In response, FTF 2000 proposed a shift, focusing instead on non-commercial uses of
graphic design. FTF 2000 is a point of confrontation because it surveys graphic design
practice, makes assessments, and establishes a standard against which practitioners
responded and reacted.
Another example of surveillance in graphic design is designers’ selfsurveillance. When engaged in power/knowledge relations about how to practice
graphic design, one of the ways designers can respond is by developing and adhering to
personal standards. In my interviews, Marie discussed how determining the value of an
award her work received was a difficult, confusing task. In response to a question
about how she evaluates projects she said,
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You know, there are industry related things that are very satisfying, like when
you get a reward of some sort, or acknowledgement on a publication – that’s
cool…And I always find those awards kind of interesting…But there are
different types of success. For example, we got a best of show award from How
Design for this one identity we worked on. Great. That’s really validating. The
luggage company did not do particularly well that year. It’s like well, was our
work not that good for them? Was it good for the design community? Did I
meet their needs? Did I do a good job for them?
Marie was inconclusive about her position on the value of the award, but identified that
the standards awards produce are not necessarily the standards by which she values and
defines her work. Marie’s situation is a struggle over redefining (or accepting) the
value of the award. She internalizes standards and exerts pressure on herself to meet
the standards; they become a rule by which she measures her actions.
Another example of internalized surveillance emerged in my conversation with
Max. When asked about how he evaluates projects he said, “I usually find a lot of
things that just didn’t come out exactly right, just for one reason or another.” As Max
described some of his successful projects, he indicated that the audience’s response to
the work was one criterion.
…I’ve had a few instances, one recently where I was meeting someone and they
found out what I did and they started describing a piece of graphic design they
had seen that they really liked, and it turned out to be something I had designed.
So that’s actually – to me that’s a home run, actually.
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Max monitors his work (the outcome of practice) using internalized standards. As such,
he disciplines himself by imposing these standards and criteria for success as a
technology of self-surveillance. Marie’s and Max’s internalization of standards for
success and their subsequent application of these standards to their work are examples
of self-discipline and surveillance wherein power/knowledge about how to conduct
graphic design practice is enacted.
Those involved in power/knowledge are free to react, transform, and redefine
the standards they present and set for themselves. In this process, identified in Marie
and Max’s definitions of success and mechanisms of evaluation, they internalize
standards that they then exert on themselves as self-discipline and surveillance. Thus,
the participants’ self-surveillance are locations where pressure is exerted and
power/knowledge is enacted.
Where: Where and how is power/knowledge transformed by them and through them?
To explore where graphic design power/knowledge occurs, I consider how
graphic design power/knowledge has been transformed and changed by the
participants, focusing on FTF 2000 as a point of confrontation. FTF 2000 is a
circumstance where the participants were confronted with graphic design
power/knowledge – a specific idea about how to practice graphic design. The
differences between the ways in which the participants’ ideas about how to practice
graphic design differ from FTF 2000’s standpoint, are examples of how they have
transformed graphic design power/knowledge.
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In response to FTF 2000’s perspective on graphic design practice, graphic
designers reacted in various ways. Some agreed with it, some saw it as “high-brow,”
and some were rather ambivalent. A particularly interesting example of how graphic
design power/knowledge was transformed by and through the participants was Emily’s
response. Her ideas were guided by the perception that people, oftentimes designers,
misunderstand the role of branding.
So my mission in life – well my mission in my career now is to make sure that
people understand that brands are no different than any other type of project
that designers take on and they have to be, they have to be held to the same
standards as all the work that we, and that’s what I try to do in our practices.
Honesty, authenticity, and transparency, if possible, wherever possible.
Further, “And I see my job as bringing that out to the business world. And so I see
myself as an advocate of design.” Emily has transformed the power/knowledge
exemplified in FTF 2000, changing the manifesto’s call for a ‘reversal of priorities’ to
her aspiration to infuse branding with honesty and ethics. This new perspective, this
transformed power/knowledge, then invested Emily with the role – the ‘job’ – of
design advocate. Her work interviewing designers and distributing podcasts via iTunes
are actions (evidence) of how she transformed the power/knowledge of FTF 2000.
Marie’s actions provide a different example of the transformation of
power/knowledge. She was rather ambivalent about the views of FTF 2000, and
offered her own perspective of how to practice graphic design. Marie discussed graphic
design’s public life, and how with this comes a designer’s responsibility. Marie defined
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responsibility in relationship to the audiences that view graphic design. She said, “But,
I think the task as a graphic designer – your responsibility is to speak to your audience
in a way that communicates clearly to them.” The view that graphic designers are
responsible to their audiences also was voiced by Frank. While Frank perceived FTF
2000 as elitist, he identified responsibility as a call to educate the public about design.
He said, “I think it’s our responsibility, or the creatives’ responsibility, to raise that bar
and have them appreciate it more.”
In contrast to Marie’s indifference and Frank’s dislike of FTF 2000, Dennis
supported the manifesto’s ideas. Dennis discussed a similar idea, in that he sees his role
as educating clients about design. He specifically sees his responsibility as
enlightening, and brining the ideas and power of design to help clients’ businesses.
While each of these participants – Marie, Frank, and Dennis – responded to FTF 2000
differently, they each transformed the ideas about practice represented by it to include
different interpretations of graphic designers’ responsibilities. Marie defined her
responsibility to communicate clearly to the public, Frank seeks to enlighten the public,
and Dennis seeks to inform clients. Each approach to graphic design practice represents
a transformation of graphic design power/knowledge.
Why: To pursue a specific set of objectives
The preliminary analysis, as well as the introductory analysis of internal
rationalities, identified how graphic design power/knowledge is in essence not stable;
and is fraught with tension, dissent, and struggles. The corpus of graphic design
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power/knowledge invests designers with the agency to create change: exerts pressure
on them; and it is transformed by them. The results of these actions are more actions –
power produces. With these constant processes, struggles, and tension in mind, what
objectives does power/knowledge seek? Foucault identifies a variety of possibilities:
maintaining privileges, gaining profits, bringing an authority into operation, or
exercising a financial transaction (Foucault, 1995). Power is not about assuming a
position of supreme authority, but rather pursing a specific set of objectives. To begin
to identify the objectives of graphic design power/knowledge, the broader discourse on
graphic design must be considered. Two recent and recurrent foci lend themselves to
this analysis: discussions about graphic design’s value to business and debates about
the licensure and the regulation of graphic design.
In some of my conversations with the participants, the desire to connect graphic
design to the economic success of a product or service was discussed. Max said,
Whether [a capital campaign] actually raised all– you know 1.2 billion dollars
or not – or what would have happened if it had not existed – how much less
they would have raised – I don’t know. Maybe they would have raised it all
anyways. I don’t know. It’s hard to say.
And Marie echoed Max’s concern, saying
Trying to sort that stuff out is really hard because I think everybody in the
design world wants to know, did design make a difference? Did it make your
company more profitable? You know, trying to put metrics to that, so you can
actually say sales increased by 25% because we used orange [laughs]…
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These comments indicate a general desire to connect the ostensibly ‘better’ design
provided by graphic design professionals to positive economic outcomes. Further the
AIGA actively promotes design’s role in business.
AIGA celebrates great examples of beautiful and effective design. It also seeks
ways to raise awareness of the contribution design can make to competitive
advantage, value, sustainability. AIGA offers case studies of effective
designing processes and examples of ROI [return on investment]. And AIGA
also seeks ways to advocate the role of designing in business strategy (Ideas for
Business, 2006).
Using jargon from the business community, such as ‘return on investment,’ the AIGA
promotes graphic design as an essential and viable aspect of successful business. This
measure of success, which was disdained by Max and about which Marie was
ambivalent, is nonetheless dominant in graphic design discourse. Connecting graphic
design to increased profits or sales would increase the perceived value of graphic
design. In turn this would potentially increase the fees graphic designers could levy for
their services, increasing the salaries and monetary value of graphic design. Economic
gain (increased profits) is an objective of graphic design power/knowledge.
One of the markers used to identify a field of knowledge as a profession is
certification and licensure (see Chapter 2, p. 36). In the United States graphic designers
have debated the potential benefits and detriments of lobbying for, developing, and
implementing credentials that are conferred by regulation and examination. In a June
2005 post on the design blog Speak Up, an author noted that the debate continued.
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Swanson’s post asked Speak Up readers to define what qualifications potential
certification should assess and what registration should allow (2006). The discussion
that ensued on the Web site received 256 posts and lasted for almost two months with
comments ranging from the satirical to the serious. The conversation, however, did not
resolve the issue and the debate persists.
In contrast to the situation in the US, in Ontario, Canada, the certification of
Registered Graphic Designer (RGD) has been a credential conferred by the
Examination Board of Registered Graphic Designers and the association of Registered
Graphic Designers of Ontario since 1996. The title “RGD” is conferred upon proof of
sufficient years of practice and education, successful completion of an exam, and after
passing a portfolio review. According to the RGD’s Web site, the benefits of becoming
an RGD include lobbying efforts with the Canadian government and potential clients;
the promotion of design as a business tool; as well as programming about current
issues in practice (Privileges, 2006).
An advocacy issue for the RGD is the promotion of a no-spec-work policy.
This policy prohibits RGDs from participating in spec work (Privileges, 2006), which
is work that is completed for free, oftentimes via a competition or when a group of
designers (or firms) are asked to submit possible designs for a project. Under these
circumstances only the winner of the competition, or the firm that is hired, are paid for
their time and work. This means that the other designers worked for free. RGD
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Ontario’s policy on spec work indicates an objective of regulation: to increase fees and
profits for graphic designers.
The debate among the US graphic design community about regulation indicates
that there is interest in the potential benefits of some form of regulation, such as
increased economic profits. RGD Ontario’s no-spec-work policy is evidence that their
objective is to increase financial gains for graphic designers and increase the perceived
value of graphic design. The Examination Board for Registered Graphic Designers is
an example of a governing board that oversees the practice of graphic design. This is a
bureaucratic organization that further institutionalizes graphic design and graphic
design power/knowledge. The RGD exam codifies graphic design knowledge,
demarcating specific areas of expertise that must be demonstrated: design history,
principles and research; business; technology; and rules of professional conduct. This
system of differentiation identifies practitioners as acceptable (those passing the tests)
or unacceptable (those who fail the test or do not take the test). It ranks and orders both
graphic design knowledge and graphic designers. The monitoring of practice through
examination is a form of surveillance of graphic designers in Ontario. The
power/knowledge involved is about how to practice graphic design and focuses on the
objective of increasing profits.
Further, the RGD organization has already brought into power a governing
board that oversees Ontario graphic designers. Power/knowledge about how to practice
graphic design has, in Ontario, achieved an objective and continues to seek increased
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profits for graphic designers. While it cannot be concluded that the US graphic design
community seeks the same objective (brining into power a governing board) the
existence of RGD regulation in Ontario and the consistent debate on the topic indicate
that this might be an objective of graphic design power/knowledge in the US.
Conclusion
The previous sections defined power/knowledge and then discussed graphic
design power/knowledge: what it is, how it is enacted, where it occurs, and why it is
put into being. An example of graphic design power/knowledge, as shown in FTF 2000
and the participants’ interviews, is the agency graphic designers are invested with to
create change both within the profession and in the broader world.
Graphic design power/knowledge exerts pressure on graphic designers through
their self-surveillance and the use of standards to critique and evaluate their work.
Various mechanisms of surveillance define how to practice graphic design. At points of
confrontation, such as FTF 2000, graphic design power/knowledge becomes visible.
The power/knowledge of FTF 2000 is transformed by the participants through their
responses and their work. The results of these actions are more actions; graphic design
power/knowledge produces. It seeks objectives that include monetary gain for
practitioners, as well as the institution of a governing board, as occurred in Ontario (see
Table 4). The final task in this research is then to describe how power/knowledge
relations are connected as networks of relations.
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Table 4: A Summary of Power/Knowledge and Graphic Design
Power/Knowledge
Power/Knowledge (a definition)
What:
• Power and knowledge are bound
together;
• Relations that are struggles and
processes;
• Both composes and presupposes
a field of knowledge;
• Visible at points of confrontation
How:
• Through surveillance (e.g., selfsurveillance and systems of
differentiation)
Where:
• Acts upon actions, not people
Why:
• To pursue a specific set of
objectives
Graphic Design Power/Knowledge
What:
• Knowledge of graphic designers’
abilities to create change, as well as
the limits of their abilities;
• Presupposes and composes graphic
design: what it is and how to practice
it
How:
• FTF 2000 as a document that defined
a standard of practice;
• Self-surveillance through the
internalization of standards about
what constitutes good and successful
practice
Where: in their reactions to FTF 2000 and
transformation of graphic design
power/knowledge:
• Emily’s redefinition of FTF 2000 as a
call for honesty in branding;
• Marie’s indifference to the manifesto
and her articulation of a responsibility
to communicate clearly to the
audience;
• Frank’s dislike of the manifesto and
his articulation of designers’
responsibility to raise the public’s
expectation for graphic design;
• Dennis’s agreement with FTF 2000
Why:
• To increase the profits of graphic
designers;
• To (possibly) institute a governing or
regulatory board
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First, as has already been established, networks of power/knowledge are not
physical connections between people. Power/knowledge in the graphic design
profession exists where ideas intersect and collide and when others respond, challenge,
or ignore. This occurs at points of confrontation, such as when FTF 2000 redefines
graphic design practice as in need of refocusing. The act of defining how to practice
graphic design in response to FTF 2000 involves knowledge about what graphic
designers can do, and is a power/knowledge relation in that pressure is exerted upon
graphic designers producing actions. Emily’s reinterpretation of the meaning of FTF
2000, Simon’s agreement with FTF 2000’s approach to graphic design practice, Max’s
definition of foreground/background graphic design, Dennis’s agreement with FTF
2000, and Frank’s disdain for it and redefinition of graphic design practice were
produced in response to FTF 2000.
With the manifesto (as a point of confrontation) actions, reactions, and responses occur
and are visible. The ensuing reactions, actions, and responses are power/knowledge
that has been produced out of confrontation with FTF 2000. The power/knowledge that
is produced as a result of confrontation at the FTF 2000 point then intersects with
another point (see Figure 5). This point could be any circumstance or instance where
power/knowledge becomes visible as an action, inaction, or response to other
power/knowledge. Examples could be the reactions that occur in response to: a client’s
request for financial justification for hiring a particular graphic designer; an essay
published about a graphic designer; the public’s vocal criticism of a piece of
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Figure 5: FTF 2000 is a Point of Confrontation in the Network of Graphic Design
Power/Knowledge
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graphic design; teaching graphic design and articulating a particular idea about
practice; the AIGA’s promotion of competition winners; a letter from RGD Ontario to
a client about the problems with spec work; or any other numerous instances. Networks
appear as individual acts create power/knowledge as a response to, or by ignoring
power/knowledge that has been confronted (and made visible) at points. The
power/knowledge that has been created (or is confronted) could be about any aspect of
graphic design that is encompassed within graphic design discourse. Graphic design
power/knowledge discussed in this study (that graphic designers are invested with a
defined agency) is not the only form of graphic design power/knowledge.
In power/knowledge networks, relations are formed not through how one
person relates to another, but in how ideas become bound up with other ideas and
concepts at points of confrontation, shaping a graphic designers’ field of actions,
resulting in actions and responses. The designers’ responses to FTF 2000 are connected
in a web; local graphic design power/knowledge (Emily’s, Frank’s, Max’s, Marie’s
responses) are connected to the field of graphic design knowledge (the web of
power/knowledge). We see this idea in action in Max’s discussion of
foreground/background graphic design where he said,
When you’re in design school, sort of the unspoken premise of all the work
you’re doing is that you’re creating heroic individual artifacts…The premise is
that each – every single thing that one produces has to be a work of striking
originality. It sort of proceeds almost, you know, bursts into the world without
precedent and has the effect of everyone that sees it is sort of staggered by its
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originality. And then you find…for one thing a lot of people don’t want that.
Clients don’t want that. And…then you think the clients are cowardly or they
have no taste or they’re stupid…But then you realize that the world actually
doesn’t run on this endless, non-stop, diet of originality and endless kind of
differentiation for its own sake. Instead, what makes – what sort of makes the
world a civilized place, what makes it a community, what makes people able to
live with each other in a society is the fact that we sort of all respect
conventions that sort of dictate how – at a base level – how you dress and how
you behave.
Max’s definition of graphic design both defines the field of knowledge – as composed
of foreground and background artifacts and projects – and presuppose it as self-evident.
It is based on the premise that there is, indeed, a corpus of graphic design knowledge
(graphic design power/knowledge), while at the same time his ideas compose graphic
design knowledge (graphic design power/knowledge).
Thus, we understand networks of graphic design power/knowledge as a web of
actions. Designers’ views on what graphic design is and how to practice graphic design
are visible at points of confrontation; and the ways in which they put these ideas into
action through practice, teaching, participating in the AIGA, and so on, are
power/knowledge. These local instances of power/knowledge compose the field of
graphic design power/knowledge.
In each and every instance where graphic design power/knowledge is evident,
the person (a designer, critic, student, educator, etc.) engaged in power/knowledge is an
active, autonomous, knowing individual. In power/knowledge she is invested with the
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authority, agency, and the ability to react, respond, reshape, and transform the very
power/knowledge relation in which she is engaged. Power/knowledge relations are
engaged when pressure is exerted. She exerts pressure on herself via self-definitions of
success and through self-regulation and discipline. Graphic design power/knowledge
seeks to increase the financial profits for practitioners, and perhaps strives for the goal
of instituting a regulatory board. Power/knowledge in the graphic design profession is
complex, multi-faceted, and always present.
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Chapter Ten: Implications and Conclusion
The purpose of this research was to explore graphic designers’ responses to
FTF 2000, using post-structuralist Foucauldian theory as a tool for analysis. In
preliminary analysis, the theme of tension emerged from the experiences of the
participants and their reactions to FTF 2000. In subsequent analysis, FTF 2000 was
identified as a point of confrontation wherein power/knowledge exerts pressure on
graphic designers. The participants’ responses and reactions to FTF 2000 exemplified
how graphic design invests them with agency and how power/knowledge is
transformed by them. In a broader discussion of graphic design discourse, the
objectives of power/knowledge were considered and identified. FTF 2000 was
discussed as a visible point of confrontation that illuminates a complex web wherein
power/knowledge exists as individual actions and processes, composing a network of
power/knowledge and the field of graphic design.
Summary
For this study of networks of relations in the graphic design profession, I
conducted three ‘reviews’ to situate my work: a review of other manifestos and essays
published in the late twentieth century; a review of literature from other disciplines that
used Foucauldian theory as a tool for analysis; and a review of graphic design’s
history.
To situate FTF 2000 within the context of late-twentieth century graphic
design, I summarized and evaluated manifestos published in the late twentieth century,
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as well as published responses to FTF 2000. Many of the ideas about FTF 2000
discussed by the study’s participants echoed the literature I reviewed. The responses
were varied, ranging from frustration with the manifesto’s premise to rousing
agreement with it. These essays, as well as the manifestos I reviewed, gave a first
glimpse at the dominant theme I identified during preliminary analysis: the theme of
tension through constant debate.
The review of Foucauldian, post-structuralist literature revealed that many
academic disciplines have used Foucauldian-style analysis to reevaluate underlying
assumptions within various disciplines. For example, the analysis of tourism through
the lens of Foucault revealed that tourists, locals, and brokers (e.g., travel agents) are
both targets and agents of power. This essentially overturned the assumption that
tourists are powerful and that locals are powerless (Cheong & Miller, 2000). The
evaluation of literature from other disciplines guided my work by showing that
Foucault’s writings and theory can be interpreting in many ways, and that the inherent
value of this approach is its ability to overturn deeply entrenched beliefs and bring new
viewpoints to the forefront.
The review of graphic design’s history revealed that graphic design practice is
inextricably tied to every-changing technology and has a long history of responding
and adapting to changes. Graphic design, while often called a profession, was assessed
in terms of four markers of professionalization: a professional organization, specialized
education, a code of ethics, and governmental regulation. While the AIGA is a strong
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professional organization for graphic design and specialized education exists, a code of
ethics and governmental regulation have not yet been achieved. Finally, the history of
graphic design was explored in terms of its ties to capitalism, and the use of modernist
forms (and sometimes ideology) as a tool for selling and persuading consumers.
In terms of method, I conducted nine open-ended interviews with graphic
designers working in the Minneapolis/St. Paul or New York City areas. Signatories of
FTF 2000 (2), prominent practitioners (4), and rank-and-file graphic designers (3)
volunteered to participate and were interviewed in person (8) or via the telephone (1).
In the interviews, I asked the participants to discuss their interpretations of FTF 2000
and their responses to it. They also discussed their work histories, their approach (or
philosophy) to graphic design, how they evaluate their work, and how they define their
roles and responsibilities as designers. Interviews lasted between 45 and 120 minutes.
After transcription, the interviews were read and re-read, as I flagged potential themes,
took notes on commonalities, and identified divergences among the participants’
responses.
The participants’ perceptions of FTF 2000 varied among the different types of
work they perform, their positions in their careers, and individually-held beliefs about
graphic design and their work. A dominant theme, the prevalence of tension, emerged
among the threads that were identified in the participants’ perceptions of FTF 2000 and
their discussion of graphic design practice. This theme was based on four threads that
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ran through the interviews; three threads related to FTF 2000, and one that emerged in
broader discussions of graphic design practice.
The first thread was tension between professional status and attitude. As
revealed in the participants’ comments, graphic designers can hold ostensibly
conflicting positions, such as agreeing with FTF 2000 (which was associated with
prominent designers), and be a rank-and-file designer. Status and attitude interact as a
matrix rather than a hierarchical pyramid. This results in tension between professional
status and attitude.
The second thread was tension between graphic designers’ ethical
responsibilities and graphic design’s limited sphere of influence. This thread emerged
from discussions about designed artifacts as both public and able to create change in
the world. Graphic designers were described as charged with the ethical responsibility
of creating positive outcomes through their work. However, there is tension between
perceived ethical responsibilities and the sphere of graphic design’s influence; the
participants qualified graphic design as unable to create physical harm.
The third thread was tension between experience and youth, and was identified
among the participants’ discussion of their work. Over the course of their careers,
graphic designers gain experience and the benefits that accrue with years of practice.
However, they perceive a need to stay ‘fresh’ and informed, and look to young, novice
designers as a site of ‘freshness.’ There is tension between the perceived benefits of
experience and youth, which must be ‘consulted’ to stay fresh and informed.
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The fourth thread is the constant need for dialogue and debate within the
profession. This was evidenced in the various viewpoints of the participants and their
acknowledgement that different perspectives abound. This thread is also strengthened
by my assessment of supporting literature and the lack of a dominant ideology within
the profession. Combined, these four threads revealed the theme of tension in graphic
design practice: tension between rank and attitude; tension between ethical
responsibility and graphic design’ sphere of influence; tension between youth and
experience; and tension in debate.
Finally, in the previous chapter, I evaluated the participants’ responses and
reactions to FTF 2000 within general graphic design discourse and evaluated networks
of power/knowledge in the graphic design profession using Foucauldian theory. The
FTF 2000 manifesto is a point of confrontation. Graphic design power/knowledge
invests graphic designers with the agency to create change in the world through their
work, the artifacts they create.
The participants transformed power/knowledge through their reactions and
responses to it. A web of power/knowledge is created as the participants’ individual
reactions (power/knowledge) become entangled at other points of confrontation. For
example, the ideas that the designers reaffirmed, changed, or adopted in response to
FTF 2000 (e.g., that graphic designers should do more non-commercial work) are
power/knowledge. This power/knowledge exists and becomes visible as it is engaged
at points of confrontation, such as an interaction with a client (e.g. declining a
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commercial client), when confronted by a peer with a competing (or similar) view, or
even when performing self-surveillance and reevaluating or affirming this knowledge.
In each succeeding interaction power/knowledge is asserted, reaffirmed, transformed,
or changed. In every power/knowledge relation a field of actions, not people, are acted
upon and actions are produced. Each of the participants is, and all graphic designers
are, bound-up in multiple relationships that are graphic design power/knowledge.
Power/knowledge in the graphic design profession exists where ideas intersect
and collide, and when others respond, challenge, or ignore. In power/knowledge
networks, relations are formed not through how one person relates to another, but in
how ideas become bound up with other ideas and concepts and shape a graphic
designers’ field of actions, resulting in actions and responses. Power/knowledge in the
graphic design profession is complex, multi-faceted, and everywhere.
Limitations
Before I began interviewing participants, I anticipated that this research would
be limited by the theory and methods that I employed. First, as discussed in Chapter
Five: Methods, this research is limited by the underlying assumptions of poststructuralist theory. In terms of method, my bias as a graphic designer and a friend of
one of the participants is a limitation. Because I used ethnographic methods for the
interviews and analysis, it was necessary that I become involved in the worlds of the
participants. Because I consider myself a member of the graphic design community,
my ability to see beyond commonly-held beliefs and ideas about graphic design may
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have been limited. Conversely, I may have been better able to penetrate ideas about
graphic design because I am a member of this group. This is both a general limitation
of ethnographic methods and of this research.
During the interviews, I recognized another potential limitation of the methods
I employed. Some of the participants’ responses led me to believe that they were
oftentimes excited to be participating in my research, but also were eager to please and
wanted to provide ‘correct’ answers and reactions to my questions. This is a general
limitation of this type of interview as well as ethnographic methods in general.
Finally, this research is limited by the nine graphic designers that participated.
In particular, the fact that all of the participants are educators limits their
generalizability of these findings. Their roles as educators may have influenced their
responses, and this may especially be apparent in the “Experience Versus Youth”
thread identified in Chapter Eight. During the interviews, I lost the entire recording of
an interview with a participant and, thus, this participant’s responses are limited by my
memory and the accuracy of the notes that I made during our conversation.
Additionally, most of the participants were in the late-intermediate or senior career
level; they were well-established, oftentimes locally- or nationally-known designers.
Implications and Significance for the Graphic Design Profession
This research contributes to knowledge about graphic design practice. This area
of research has previously been identified as a gap in literature about graphic design
(Blauvelt, 1994a). The body of knowledge about graphic design practice from the mid-
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twentieth to end of the twentieth century is limited. My research provides an image of
nine graphic designers’ situations and work lives, focusing on one theme and four
threads. The specific situations and ideas presented here contribute to understandings
of what graphic designers do, how they work, and how they perceive their roles and
responsibilities.
This research adds to the small but growing body of investigations into the
practice of graphic design. The findings indicate that graphic design practice is a
fruitful site for analysis and investigation and that there is a bounty of knowledge yet to
be revealed. To the body of graphic design research, this study adds an example of
theory-driven data analysis that employs Foucauldian ideas of power and power
relations to guide a portion of the investigation. This marks a departure from the trend
of using Foucauldian theory as a mechanism to drive form and artifact making (Lupton
& Miller, 1996).
Directions for Future Research
As identified by some of the participants, future research about the nature of
graphic design practice should include interviews with graphic design students as well
as designers in the novice phase of their careers. More interviews with graphic
designers from more varied geographic locations would strengthen the themes and
ideas presented in this research.
Future research about graphic design practice should examine where and how
other ideas and concepts are connected as graphic design power/knowledge. For
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example, it would be interesting to evaluate how ideas about teaching and learning
graphic design are connected to other ideas within the profession. Where are the
tensions and conflicts in graphic design education, and what ideas are colliding,
inciting responses and reactions? This would help uncover unacknowledged
assumptions that graphic design education is based upon, and could help guide
educators.
Additionally, a goal of graphic design power/knowledge (to increase the profits
of graphic designers) should be further evaluated. It is likely that additional goals of
power/knowledge exist and have not yet been identified. Further, how do
organizations, such as the AIGA and RGD Ontario, institutionalize graphic design
power/knowledge? How do events such as the Insights Lecture Series in Minneapolis
and AIGA conferences reinforce, challenge, or change graphic design
power/knowledge?
Further, the history of graphic design is traditionally considered a narrative of
form. The idea of graphic design power/knowledge asks the discipline to reconsider
this long-held belief. How does an understanding of power/knowledge inform the
three-pronged history of graphic design presented in this study? How and where do we
see power/knowledge at play in the history of graphic design in relationship to
technology, professionalization, and capitalism? Infusing graphic design history with
these ideas – taking a Foucauldian approach – to understanding and constructing the
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profession’s past will illuminate long-held assumptions and provide new insights that
can guide the profession into the future.
Conclusion – Reconsidering Graphic Design
As qualitative research that employed Foucauldian-style theory and analysis,
these findings are abstract by nature, and thus difficult to apply to practice. Rather than
providing a list of directives to follow, the findings of this research pose a new set of
questions to graphic designers and graphic design researchers. This study revealed that
underlying ideas within the profession are nebulous at best.
This study posits that graphic design is composed of an intricate web of ideas
and concepts that are connected through the actions and reactions of those involved in
the graphic design community. Power/knowledge produces change, action, and
reaction as ideas constantly collide and interact. We see power/knowledge as it
becomes visible at points of confrontation: those places where knowledge is
reaffirmed, changed, or challenged, such as FTF 2000. Graphic designers are
essentially involved in these networks of power/knowledge, and as such, are
empowered with the agency to create change through the ways they work, the ideas
they create, the debate they engage in, and the work that they perform. In tasks large to
small, graphic designers produce, change, and reinforce graphic design
power/knowledge. Graphic designers can, thus, work from the inside out to reshape
and reconsider their work and their community. For example, rather than viewing the
profession as a network of ‘good ol’ boys and girls,’ designers are empowered to create
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change through discourse, through the adoption of different attitudes, and by changing
the ways in which they evaluate their work, among other actions.
Foucauldian-style analysis, as illustrated in the work of Cheong and Miller
(2000), Webb, McCaughtry, and MacDonald (2004), and Titchkosky (2003), can be a
tool for questions the underlying assumptions of a community or academic field. The
findings of this study ask that graphic design not be conceived in terms of the artifacts
it produces, the hierarchy of famous versus anonymous designers, or even the style of
the moment. Rather, the underlying essence of the profession, as a community of
practitioners that thrives on a culture of change, tension, and debate, should be
considered. The understanding of the profession, and even its history, as a narrative of
form wherein one stylistic innovation is connected to the next; wherein developments
are traced in the careers of specific designers; or wherein graphic design is conceived
in terms of its ability to communicate, must be questioned. Instead, we should ask:
How did the tension between perceived rank and status (and the competing attitudes)
develop in graphic design discourse? How did the agency that graphic design discourse
ascribes to designers (through the artifacts they create) emerge? Has graphic design
discourse always been rife with debate? How has graphic design’s essence been
defined and changed: has tension between experience and youth always existed in
graphic design discourse?
Foucault’s concept of power/knowledge directs us to consider how ideas
(knowledge) are power, and how this knowledge is productive. We can ask, what are
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the goals of graphic design? From a Foucauldian viewpoint, the increase of profits for
designers and the institution of a governing board are objectives of graphic design
power/knowledge. How does this perspective (these goals) confront, contradict, or
complement other understandings of graphic design? What does this realization ask
graphic designers to rethink or reconsider? Post-structuralist theory and Foucauldian
thought are a new lens through which practitioners, educators, and researchers can
view the profession. This approach will likely not fundamentally change the way
graphic design is practiced, but rather presents new ideas that, through debate,
exploration, and consideration, have the ability to help us reflect on what graphic
design is and how it is practiced.
As questions about the nature of graphic design persist, as with the FTF 2000
manifesto, it will be essential to investigate what graphic designers think about their
work and their responsibilities to the public, clients, students, critics, and the graphic
design community. Sharing the findings of the research with the graphic design
profession may inform decisions that graphic designers make daily. Understanding the
web of relations in which power and knowledge are constantly engaged – pulling and
pushing, inciting actions and reactions, and the central role of various struggles that
seem to permeate graphic design practice – may help designers make decisions about
pursuing licensure or regulation, about the importance of design award competitions,
about the role of relationships with clients and students, or about the nature of graphic
design itself. The goal of this research is not to tell the graphic design community what
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it is and how it functions, but rather to provide one interpretation that may help guide
future decisions that could shape graphic design practice in years to come, as well as
historical enquiry into graphic design’s past.
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Appendix A: FTF 2000 Manifesto
First Things First 2000: a design manifesto
We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual
communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus
of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective
and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief;
the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it.
Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to
sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit
cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles.
Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it
become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world
perceives design. The profession’s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand
for things that are inessential at best.
Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design.
Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand
development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so
saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers
speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a
reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse.
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There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented
environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural
interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational
tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design
projects urgently require our expertise and help.
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.
In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be
put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their
message has only grown more urgent. Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation
that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart.
signed:
Jonathan Barnbrook
Max Bruinsma
Nick Bell
Siân Cook
Andrew Blauvelt
Linda van Deursen
Hans Bockting
Chris Dixon
Irma Boom
William Drenttel
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville
Gert Dumbar
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Simon Esterson
Steven Heller
Vince Frost
Andrew Howard
Ken Garland
Tibor Kalman
Milton Glaser
Jeffery Keedy
Jessica Helfand
Zuzana Licko
Lucienne Roberts
Ellen Lupton
\Erik Spiekermann
Katherine McCoy
Jan van Toorn
Armand Mevis
Teal Triggs
J. Abbott Miller
\Rudy VanderLans
Rick Poynor
Bob Wilkinson
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Appendix B: Background on the Signatories
In the following appendix, background information on each of the 33 signatories
is provided. This information was gathered via books and internet searches using the
search engine Google. All of the information provided below is publicly available. Please
see Table 5 for a list of the signatories, their E-mail addresses, Web sites, and geographic
locations.
Jonathan Barnbrook
Jonathan Barnbrook is a well known type designer based in London at Barnbrook
Design. Born in 1966, Barnbrook studied at Central St. Martin’s College of Art and
Design, and then at the Royal College of Art (Livingston & Livingston, 2003). Barnbrook
produced a variety of typefaces that have gained international acclaim and has tested the
boundaries of typographic legibility. Barnbrook Design focuses on the role of graphic
design in society, as well as political and anti-advertising issues (Jonathan Barnbrook,
2001).
Nick Bell
Nick Bell, born in 1965, is currently the creative director for Eye magazine (since
1997). Bell studied graphic design at the London College of Printing, where he continues
to teach. Bell was heavily influenced by the work of fellow signatory, Dutch educator and
designer, Gert Dumbar (Livingston & Livingston, 2003). Bell started his own design firm
in 1988, and was associated with the Amsterdam based Dutch design firm UNA from
1998 until 2004. Currently Bell’s firm is known as Nick Bell Design. Bell’s work focuses
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Table 5: FTF 2000 Signatories
Name
E-mail
Web site
Location
Jonathan Barnbrook
us@barnbrook.net
barnbrook.net/
London
Nick Bell
studio@nickbelldesign.co.uk nickbelldeisgn.co.uk
London
Andrew Blauvelt
Andrew.blauvelt@walkerart.org
Minneapolis
Hans Bockting
unadesigners.nl
Amsterdam
Irma Boom
office@irmaboom.nl
irmaboom.nl
Amsterdam
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville
New Haven, CT
Max Bruinsma
maxb@xs4all.nl
Amsterdam
Siân Cook
London
Linda van Deursen
Amsterdam
Chris Dixon
New York
William Drenttel
william@winterhouse.com
winterhouse.com
New Haven, CT
Gert Dumbar
studio@dumbar.nl
dumbar.nl
The Hague
Simon Esterson
info@estersonassociates.co.uk estersonassociates.co.uk London
Vincent Frost
info@frostdesign.co.uk
frostdesign.co.uk
London
Ken Garland
London
Milton Glaser
info@miltonglaser.com
miltonglaser.com
New York
Jessica Helfand
Jessica@winterhouse.com
winterhouse.com
New Haven, CT
Steven Heller
New York
Andrew Howard
Portugal
Tibor Kalman (deceased)
Jeffery Keedy
Los Angeles
Zuzana Licko
Berkeley, CA
Ellen Lupton
elupton@designwritingresearch.org
designwritingresearch.org
Baltimore
Katherine McCoy
Chicago
Armand Mevis
Amsterdam
J. Abbott Miller
miller@pentagram.com
pentagram.com
New York
Rick Poynor
rpoynor@btinternet.com
London
Lucienne Roberts
London
Erik Spiekermann
London
Jan van Toorn
Amsterdam
Teal Triggs
t.triggs@lcc.arts.ac.uk
London
Rudy VanderLans
Berkeley, CA
Bob Wilkinson
London
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on graphic design as a cultural agent, and the communication of information and
knowledge. Additionally, Bell has lectured widely on graphic design (Nick Bell design,
n.d.).
Andrew Blauvelt
Andrew Baluvelt is the design director at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis,
Minnesota (McCarron, 2002). Blauvelt received an MFA from Cranbrook (1988) and a
BFA in graphic design and photography from Indiana University (1986). Blauvelt has
lectured extensively at universities worldwide, including the Jan van Eyck Academie, the
Netherlands, and the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Blauvelt was previously an associate
professor at North Carolina State University (Bio: Andrew Blauvelt, n.d.).
Hans Bockting
Born in 1945, Hans Bockting studied design at the AKI school of Fine Art in
Enschede, The Netherlands. In 1987 Bockting founded the Amsterdam-based design firm
UNA designers with Will de l’Ecluse. Bocking’s work has been associated with the surge
or modernism and post-modernism in Dutch graphic design during the last quarter of the
twentieth century (Labuz, 1991).
Irma Boom
Irma Boom was born in 1960 in Lochem and studied design at the AKI School of
Fine Art in Enschede, the Netherlands. After completing her education, Boom worked for
the Dutch government and later (1991) opened her own design studio, Irma Boom Office,
in Amsterdam. Since then Boom has lectured at the Yale University and the Van Eyck
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Academy. Boom’s work primarily focuses on book design and has won international
acclaim. Boom was (until September 4, 2005) featured in The Design Museum’s
(London) exhibition, The European Design Show (Irma Boom, n.d.).
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, born 1940, is a professor and director of studies at
Yale University (McCarron, 2000). De Bretteville received a BA in Art History from
Barnard College, Columbia University, in 1962, and her MFA from Yale University in
1964. De Bretteville’s work includes print design, focusing on feminism and social
causes and issues (Percent for Art in NYC, 2005).
Max Bruinsma
Max Bruinsma, born 1956, is a self-described design writer and critic, as well as a
practitioner focusing on editorial design. Bruinsma studied the history of art, architecture,
and design at Groningen University and the University of Amsterdam. He is a former
editor of Eye (1997-1999), as well as the Dutch design magazine, Items (1992-1997).
Bruinsma also taught at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Sandberg Institute in
Amsterdam (Curriculum Vitae, n.d.). Bruinsma currently resides in The Netherlands.
Siân Cook
Siân Cook is a director of the Women’s Design + Research Unit in London. She
is a practicing designer and educator whose work focuses on the music industry. Cook
has an interest in the promotion of AIDS awareness and health issues
(DECLARATIONS, n.d.).
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Linda van Deursen
Linda van Deursen, born in 1961, studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in
Amsterdam (1982-86) where she met her husband, Armand Mevis. With her husband,
van Deursen operates MEVIS + VAN DEURSEN, a graphic design firm in Amsterdam.
Mevis and van Deursen both worked at Studio Dumbar (1985) with Gert Dumbar
(Livingston & Livingston, 2003). Van Deursen is also head of the graphic design
department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. Van Deursen was (until September 4, 2005)
featured in The Design Museum’s (London) exhibition, The European Design Show
(Mevis en Van Deursen, n.d.).
Chris Dixon
Chris Dixon is a former editor of Adbusters magazine and previously was an
educator at the Emily Carr Institute. Currently Dixon works at the New York Times
Magazine. Dixon’s work has been recognized through various awards and publications,
and focuses on political and social issues (DECLARATIONS, n.d.).
William Drenttel
William Drenttel works with his wife, Jessica Helfand, in the firm Jessica Helfand
| William Drenttel in New York City, and also runs Winterhouse Studio with his wife.
Drenttel also manages and is creative director of two literary foundations, The Poetry
Foundation and Nextbook. From 1985 to 1996 Drenttel was a partner in the design firm
Drenttel Doyle Partners in New York City, and is co-editor of three of the Looking Closer
series books (McCarron, 2000; William Drenttel, n.d.).
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Gert Dumbar
Born in 1940, Gert Dumbar studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, The
Hague (1959-64). After working at Tel Design Associates, The Hague, Dumbar opened
Studio Dumbar in 1977. Significant projects in Dumbar’s career include the design of
corporate identities for the Dutch Railways and the Dutch Postal, Telegraph, and
Telephone authority (PTT). Dumbar also taught at the Royal College of Art (1985-7) and
is currently a visiting professor there (Livingston & Livingston, 2003).
Simon Esterson
Simon Esterson is a London-based graphic designer working in editorial,
newspaper, and book design.
Vince Frost
Born in 1964, Vince Frost studied at the West Sussex College of Design. In 1989
he joined the design firm Pentagram, and in 1994 he began his own design firm, Frost
Design Ltd. Frost’s work focuses on corporate identity, publication design, and signage;
he won various awards for his work from organizations in the US, Japan, and the UK
(The Typographic Circle, n.d.).
Ken Garland
Ken Garland, born 1929, studied at the West of England Academy of Art and later
at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London (1956-1962). He was then an editor for
Design magazine for six years, and later became the mouthpiece of the Council of
Industrial Design. In 1962 Garland created Ken Garland & Associates and began working
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with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which included the design of poster that he
later became well-known for. In 1964 he published First Things First (Livingston &
Livingston, 2003; Poynor, 2002).
Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser is well-know for work he completed at Push Pin Studios, which he
co-founded in 1954. In 1974 he founded Milton Glaser, Inc., and in 1983 he co-founded
WBMG with Walter Bernard. Glaser has taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York
City (Soar, 2002).
Jessica Helfand
Jessica Helfand taught at Yale University for six years in the graphic design
program, and now works with her husband, William Drenttel, in the firm Jessica Helfand
| William Drenttel in New York City, and also runs Winterhouse Studio with her
husband. She authored articles for Eye magazine, was an editor for Looking Closer Three,
and wrote an essay about her former mentor, Paul Rand. Helfand’s work focuses on new
media and theory, and she is also a lecturer at Yale University and New York University
(Soar, 2002; Jessica Helfand, n.d.).
Steven Heller
Steven Heller is the art director for the New York Times Book Review, the chair of
the School of Visual Arts’ MFA graduate design program, and is a prolific author and
editor of books on graphic design (McCarron, 2000).
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Andrew Howard
Andrew Howard teaches graphic design at the Escola Supeiror de Artes e Design,
and owns his own design firm in Portugal. Howard’s work focuses on cultural and
educational organizations (Bierut, Drenttel, & Heller, 2000).
Tibor Kalman
Tibor Kalman immigrated to New York state in 1956, at the age of eight, with his
parents from Budapest. Kalman studied at New York University, and eventually opened
his own design firm in New York City, M&Co. Throughout his career, Kalman created
images and designs that received accolades, from album covers for the Talking Heads to
work on the redevelopment of Times Square. In 1991 Kalman closed M&Co and
accepted an offer from Benetton to create a company magazine, Colors. Kalman directed
Colors for only a short while, returning to New York City to re-open M&Co. In the last
years of his life, Kalman collaborated on his retrospective, Peverse Optimist, with Steven
Heller and Michael Beirut. In 1999 Kalman lost his battle with non-Hodgkins lymphoma
on May 2 (Haber, 1999; Livingston & Livingston, 2003).
Jeffery Keedy
Jeffery Keedy, born 1958, studied graphic design and photography at Western
Michigan University, and later studied at the Cranbrook Academy (1983). He has been a
teacher at the California Institute of Arts since 1985 (McCarron, 2000). Keedy is known
for his work as a type designer, writer, and graphic designer. His work has been
published in a variety of graphic design publications including the Looking Closer series,
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and Eye and Émigré magazines (Bierut, Drenttel, & Heller, 2000). In 1996 Keedy opened
his own type foundry, Cipher (Livingston & Livingston, 2003).
Zuzana Licko
Zuzana Licko was born (1961) in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia and immigrated to
the US at the age of seven. At an early age Licko began designing typefaces for the
computer. She attended the University of California, Berkeley, beginning in 1981 as an
undergraduate student, where she met her husband, Rudy VanderLans. They married in
1983. Licko studied graphic design at Berkeley. In 1984 Licko co-founded Émigré
magazine, and began designing typefaces for the computer as a career. Her typeface
designs earned her an international reputation and are both used and sold by Émigré
magazine (Dooley, 1998; Livingston & Livingston, 2003).
Ellen Lupton
Ellen Lupton, born 1963, studied graphic design at the Cooper Union in New
York City, graduating in 1985. Lupton met her husband, J. Abbott Miller, while studying
at the Cooper Union. Currently she is the director of the MFA program in graphic design
at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. She is also the curator of
contemporary design at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City,
and curated a variety of exhibitions about design. Additionally, Lupton published books
on a variety of topics, including typographic design and education (Livingston &
Livingston, 2003; Lupton, 2004).
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Katherine McCoy
Katherine McCoy,born 1945, studied at Michigan State University and cochaired, with her husband, the Cranbrook Academy of Art’s Department of Design
(1971-95). Currently she is a senior lecturer at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s
Institute of Design and is co-partner in McCoy & McCoy and High Ground (Bierut,
Drenttel, & Heller, 2000).
Armand Mevis
Armand Mevis, born in 1963, is a Dutch graphic designer who studied at the
Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam (1982-86). Mevis met his wife, Linda van
Deursen while studying at the Academie. Mevis and van Deursen both worked at Studio
Dumbar (1985) with Gert Dumbar (Livingston & Livingston, 2003). Mevis and van
Deursen operate their own studio, MEVIS + VAN DEURSEN, in Amsterdam.
Additionally, Mevis teaches at the Werkplaats Typographie in Arnhem. Mevis was (until
September 4, 2005) featured in The Design Museum’s (London) exhibition, The
European Design Show (Mevis en Van Deursen, n.d.).
J. Abbott Miller
J. Abbott Miller, born 1963, studied design at the Cooper Union, New York. He
became a partner in the internationally-known design firm Pentagram in 1997 at the New
York City office. Miller writes about design, as well as practices as a designer and art
director. Miller and his wife, Ellen Lupton, founded DesignWritingResearch in 1985 – a
design studio focused on putting theory into practice. Then Lupton and Miller moved to
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Baltimore in 1997 to become educators the studio became dormant. The practice
produced the book DesignWritingResearch (Livingston & Livingston, 2003; Lupton
2004).
Rick Poynor
Rick Poynor is a prolific writer about design. He is the founder of Eye magazine
(1990), now a columnist for the magazine, and his work has been published in the
graphic design trade magazine Print, as well as in Metropolis, Frieze, Artbyte, and others.
In addition Poynor has authored a variety of books about graphic design ranging from
typography to retrospectives on well-known figures in graphic design (Bierut, Drenttel, &
Heller, 2000). Poynor studied the history of art at Manchester University and has a
M.Phil. in design history from the Royal College of Art, London. In addition, Poynor is a
visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art and the Jan van Eyck Acadamie in
Amsterdam (Rick Poynor, n.d.).
Lucienne Roberts
Lucienne Roberts is a graphic designer and educator. She currently teaches at the
London College of Communication in the University of the Arts, London (formerly the
London College of Printing). Roberts published books about graphic design and has
written for Eye magazine. Roberts opened her own design studio, sans+baum, in 1997
and focuses on social causes and issues in her design work (The Designer and the Grid,
n.d.).
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Erik Spiekermann
Erik Spiekermann, born 1947, studied art history at the Berlin Freie Universität.
He ran a printing press for a living before moving to London in 1973 and designing
typefaces. Spiekermann was the founder and principal of the German design firm Meta
Design (1983-2000), which now has offices in Berlin as well as San Francisco.
Spiekermann also started FontShop to sell typefaces (Livingston & Livingston, 2003;
McCarron, 2000; Erik Spiekermann, n.d.).
Jan van Toorn
Jan van Toorn, born 1932, is a Dutch graphic and exhibition designer and
educator who directed the Jan van Eyck Akademie, The Netherlands, and is currently a
professor at the Gerrit Rietveld Akademie in Amsterdam. Van Toorn is also a visiting
professor at the Rhode Island School of Design (Projects and Initiatives, n.d.). Van
Toorn’s work focuses on the social meaning and implications of design, rather than the
purely practical (DECLARATIONS, n.d.; Livingston & Livingston, 2003).
Teal Triggs
Teal Triggs is currently the head of research in the School of Graphic Design at
the London College of Communication, and a founder and contributor to the Women’s
Design + Research Unit, London. Triggs has published about fanzines
(DECLARATIONS, n.d.).
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Rudy VanderLans
Rudy VanderLans, born 1955, is the editor and co-founder, with wife Zuzanna
Licko, of the graphic design magazine, Émigré (McCarron, 2002). VanderLans was born
in The Hague, The Netherlands, and later studied design at the Royal Academy of Fine
Art from 1974 to 1979. He emigrated from The Netherlands to California in 1981 when
he was accepted for graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
VanderLans met his wife while a student at Berkeley and they married in 1983. In the
same year, he began work at the San Francisco Chronicle, mistakenly believing that the
newspaper was actually Chronicle Books. From the Chronicle VanderLans began
Émigré, whose inception coincided with the introduction of the Macintosh computer and
digital typesetting. During its publication Émigré’s focus shifted from a culture-oriented
publication to focusing on well-known designers to critique about the profession before it
ceased publication in 2006 (Dooley, 1998; Livingston & Livingston, 2003).
Bob Wilkinson
Bob Wilkinson is a practitioner, working with Lucienne Roberts at sans + baum.
Observations
While the backgrounds of the signatories of FTF 2000 are not shocking – among
them are practitioners, educators, critics, and type designers – there are some interesting
associations between them (see Table 6). Among the 33 there are four married couples,
accounting for almost a quarter of the signatories. Professional relationships,
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Table 6: Associations Between FTF 2000 Signatories
Married Couples: almost a quarter of
the signatories
Linda van Deursen and Armand Mevis
Ellen Lupon and J. Abbott Miller
Zuzana Licko and Rudy VanderLans
William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand
Professional Relationships
(work in the same firm)
Sian Cook and Teal Triggs; Women’s
Design + Research Unit
Vince Frost (no longer there), J. Abbott
Miller, Michael Bierut; Pentagram
Lucienne Roberts and Bob Wilkinson;
sans + baum
Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko;
Émigré
Ellen Lupon and J. Abbott Miller;
DesignWritingResearch
Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel;
Helfand/Drenttel; Winterhouse
Educators: almost 40% of the
signatories
(relatively their primary activity)
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville (Yale)
Andrew Howard (Escola Superior de
Artes e Design)
Ellen Lupton (Maryland Institute
College of Art)
Katherine McCoy (Illinois Institute of
Technology)
Jan van Toorn (Gerrit Rietveld
Akademie)
Teal Triggs (London College of
Communication)
(relatively secondary or co-activity)
Nick Bell
Irma Boom
Max Bruinsma
Jessica Helfand
Steven Heller
Jeffery Keedy
Lucienne Roberts
Type Designers
Jonathan Barnbrook
Jeffery Keedy
Zuzana Licko
Erik Spiekermann
Critics
Max Bruinsma
Steven Heller
Rick Poynor
213
such as associations through work, were identified between 13 of the signatories,
although 8 of the 13 are the aforementioned married couples. Signatories whose main or
secondary activity is education account for 40 percent. Almost all of the signatories were
identified with some form of practice, including four whose primary activity is type
design and three whose primary activity is as a design critic.
Beyond simple grouping, there are a variety of more tenuous associations between
some of the signatories. For example, three of the educators are (or were) associated with
Yale University: Irma Boom, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, and Jessica Helfand. And,
Lucienne Roberts and Teal Triggs are educators at the London College of
Communication. In terms of career mentorship, Nick Bell, Linda van Deursen, and
Armand Mevis were influenced by co-signatory Gert Dumbar.
Geographically, the majority (57%) of the signatories resides in Europe, with a
substantial contingent each in London and The Netherlands (see Table 7). Within the US,
the largest groups resides in New York (or in the nearby area), with a few in California,
and another each in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Baltimore.
Since FTF 2000 signatories were recruited through the networking of Chris
Dixon, Rick Poynor, and Nick Bell, it is not surprising that there are so many links
between the small group of 33. There are a number of names on the list that stand out as
rather well-know figures within the graphic design community. However, there were a
few signatories whose education, work, and careers were difficult to identify; among
214
them are Siân Cook, Simon Esterson, Lucienne Roberts, and Bob Wilkinson. The little
information that was uncovered primarily revealed their current working associations.
While this research into the backgrounds of the signatories was not initially
intended to identify their year of birth, I frequently discovered this information and
recorded it when possible. As was indicated in the background on FTF 1964, the oldest
signatory of the first iteration of the manifesto was only in his 40s at the time.
Conversely, from the age data discovered, (22 of the 33 signatories) the youngest appears
to be Jonathan Barnbrook, age 39, with 11 signatories in their 40s, three in their 50s
(Levrant de Bretteville, Spiekermann, and VanderLans), three in their 60s (Bockting,
Dumbar, and McCoy), and three in their 70s (Garland, Glaser, and van Toorn). The
septuagenarians in the group include the author of the first manifesto, Ken Garland, as
well as Glaser and van Toorn, who are approximately in the same age cohort as the
original signatories to FTF 1964. Those signatories now in their 50s and 60s would have
either been still pursuing their education or perhaps just starting their careers when the
original manifesto was written. The largest cohort, those in their 40s, was mostly born
around the time when the first manifesto was published. It is especially interesting to note
that on a whole, from the data available, the signatories of FTF 2000 are well-established
in their careers and many were well-known – receiving accolades and recognition from
their peers – at the time they signed the manifesto. This contrasts the younger group that
signed FTF 1964, many of whom were likely establishing their careers and would later
go on to become well-known within the profession.
215
The difference in age groups among the two manifestos is not particularly
surprising when one considers the age of Ken Garland at the time he wrote FTF 1964 –
36. It is likely that he drew upon his professional and personal networks to recruit
signatories for the manifesto. While Chris Dixon’s and Rick Poynor’s ages are unknown
(Nick Bell is 40), their work as critics and advocates for the profession of graphic design
are well-know, and it would seem likely that their networks would extend to other wellknow practitioners, educators, and critics – the vast majority of whom fall in a particular
age range – 39 and older. Their age is perhaps indicative of educators, critics, and
practitioners who are well-established, known, and respected within the profession.
216
Table 7: Locations of the FTF 2000 signatories
Location:
US: (43%)
Minneapolis
Andrew Blauvelt
Baltimore
Ellen Lupton
Chicago
Katherine McCoy
California
Jeffrey Keedy (LA)
Zuzana Licko (Berkeley)
Rudy VanderLans (Berkeley)
New York (24%)
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville (CT)
Chris Dixon
William Drenttel (CT)
Milton Glaser
Jessica Helfand (CT)
Steven Heller
J. Abbott Miller
Michael Bierut
Europe: (57%)
London (33%)
Jonathan Barnbrook
Nick Bell
Sian Cook
Simon Esterson
Vince Frost
Ken Garland
Rick Poynor
Lucienne Roberts
Erik Spiekermann
Teal Triggs
Bob Wilkinson
The Netherlands (18%)
Hans Bockting
Irma Boom
Max Bruinsma
Linda van Deursen
Gert Dumbar
Armand Mevis
Jan van Toorn
Portugal
Andrew Howard
217
Appendix C: Interview Problem Discussion and Participant Recruitment Documents
Interviewing Problems
As the recruitment process proceeded, I began by interviewing my first participant
in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Unfortunately, my recording device (a laptop computer)
proved unreliable and crashed, resulting in the loss of the entire interview. At the
conclusion of the interview, I recorded notes about the interview and some of the
ideas/issues/topics discussed, but the bulk of the interview was gone. In spite of the fact
that the interview was lost, this experience proved useful. First, I subsequently decided to
change my recording device to a hand-held digital voice recorder and use a back-up
device, an analog cassette-tape recorder. Thus, for following interviews there would
always be a back-up copy of the original audio file if one device were to fail. Second, this
experience allowed me to test the research questions and their sequence for interviewing
and gave me a better feel for how to navigate and conduct an interview.
As a result of the technical difficulties, I contacted the IRB to increase the number
of total participants in my research to meet my original number of six interviews. At this
time in the recruitment process, a friend put me in contact with a key informant that I had
not originally anticipated interviewing. This person is a prominent practitioner who had
published a response to the manifesto that received a lot of press in the graphic design
community. At this point I wanted to be able to include this person in my study and, thus,
needed to increase the number of participants from seven to eight. However, at that point,
I decided that I needed to then balance the types of participants, as the key informant is a
218
prominent practitioner. Thus, I wanted to add a ninth participant, another rank-and-file
designer.
During the recruitment process two potential participants requested phone
interviews in lieu of in-person interviews. While this interview method is less desirable,
since face-to-face personal contact is lost making it more difficult to establish rapport
with the participant, these potential participants were both FTF 2000 signatories, which
was a population that I was having trouble recruiting. As a result, I submitted a revision
to my IRB application to simultaneously increase the number of participants to nine and
to include the possibility of conducting interviews via the telephone. Both changes to my
study were approved. The added telephone interview protocol included an oral informed
consent process.
219
E-mail Recruitment for Signatories of the FTF 2000 manifesto:
Dear [insert participant’s name],
My name is Kate Bukoski and I am a Ph.D. student in design at the University of
Minnesota researching relations and networks in the profession of graphic design. I am
interviewing people involved with graphic design to understand how they define their
role as a practitioner.
I have contacted you because you are one of the 33 signatories of the First Things
First 2000 manifesto and are well-known within the design community. I wish to
interview you regarding your participation and perception of the First Things First 2000
manifesto and your beliefs about graphic design practice (work). This discussion will
unfold into a larger discussion of how you view your role with in the graphic design
community.
If you agree to participate in this research, I will make arrangements to visit you
at your convenience in your work environment, or the location of your choosing, at which
time you will be invited to participate in an interview (a one to two hour process)
regarding your involvement in the manifesto and your views and beliefs about the
practice of graphic design. After the interview, you may be contacted by me via phone or
E-mail to get your feedback about my observations or to clarify your responses made
during the interview. Your identity will be concealed through the use of an anonymous
220
identifier and any information that links my research to you will be altered to conceal
your identity.
Prior to the interview process you will be asked to sign an informed consent
document. At anytime, even after signing this document, you can elect to end the
interview or withdraw from the study.
If you are interest in participating in this study, please respond to this E-mail
indicating such.
Thank you for your time.
Best Regards,
Kate Bukoski
Ph.D. Candidate
University of Minnesota
221
E-mail Recruitment for Prominent Graphic Designers:
Dear [insert participant’s name],
My name is Kate Bukoski and I am a Ph.D. student in design at the University of
Minnesota researching relations and networks in the profession of graphic design. I am
interviewing people involved with graphic design to understand how they define their
role as a practitioner.
My research also involves discussions of the First Things First 2000 manifesto. I
will be conducting interviews regarding prominent practitioners’ perceptions, and
perhaps involvement with, the First Things First 2000 manifesto, as well as beliefs about
graphic design practice (work). This discussion will unfold into a larger discussion of
how practitioners view their role with in the graphic design community.
I have contacted you because you are a well-known graphic designer working in
the Minneapolis/St. Paul [or New York City] area. I am interested in interviewing
prominent practitioners that have been working professionally for a minimum of eight
years and who are aware of the First Things First 2000 manifesto. If you meet these
criteria, I invite you to participate in my research.
If you agree to participate in this research, I will make arrangements to visit you
at your convenience in your work environment, or the location of your choosing, at which
time you will be invited to participate in an interview (a one to two hour process)
regarding your involvement in the manifesto and your views and beliefs about the
222
practice of graphic design. After the interview, you may be contacted by me via phone or
E-mail to get your feedback about my observations or to clarify your responses made
during the interview. Your identity will be concealed through the use of an anonymous
identifier and any information that links my research to you will be altered to conceal
your identity.
Prior to the interview process you will be asked to sign an informed consent
document. At anytime, even after signing this document, you can elect to end the
interview or withdraw from the study.
If you are interest in participating in this study, please respond to this E-mail
indicating such.
Thank you for your time.
Best Regards,
Kate Bukoski
Ph.D. Candidate
University of Minnesota
223
E-mail Recruitment for Rank-and-File Practitioners:
Dear XXXX,
My name is Kate Bukoski and I am a Ph.D. student in design at the University of
Minnesota researching relations and networks in the profession of graphic design. I am
interviewing people involved with graphic design to understand how they define their
role as a practitioner.
My research also involves discussions of the First Things First 2000 manifesto. I
will be conducting interviews regarding practitioners’ perceptions, and perhaps
involvement with, the First Things First 2000 manifesto, as well as beliefs about graphic
design practice (work). This discussion will unfold into a larger discussion of how
practitioners view their role with in the graphic design community.
I have contacted you because you a practicing graphic designer. I am interested in
interviewing practitioners that have been working professionally for a minimum of eight
years and who are aware of the First Things First 2000 manifesto. If you meet these
criteria, I invite you to participate in my research.
If you agree to participate in this research, I will make arrangements to visit you
at your convenience in your work environment, or the location of your choosing, at which
time you will be invited to participate in an interview (a one to two hour process)
regarding your involvement in the manifesto and your views and beliefs about the
practice of graphic design. After the interview, you may be contacted by me via phone or
E-mail to get your feedback about my observations or to clarify your responses made
224
during the interview. Your identity will be concealed through the use of an anonymous
identifier and any information that links my research to you will be altered to conceal
your identity.
Prior to the interview process you will be asked to sign an informed consent
document. At anytime, even after signing this document, you can elect to end the
interview or withdraw from the study.
If you are interested in participating in this study, please respond to this E-mail
indicating such.
Thank you for your time.
Best Regards,
Kate Bukoski
Ph.D. Candidate
University of Minnesota
225
Consent to Participate in Research Form
Exploring Networks of Relations in the Graphic Design Profession
University of Minnesota Internal Review Board Code Number: 0601E80566
Principal Researcher: Kate Bukoski, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel
University of Minnesota
You are being asked to participate in a research study.
This document invites you to participate in Kate Bukoski’s research titled Exploring
Networks of Relations in the Graphic Design Profession.
You have been invited to participate because you are an original signatory of [or a
(prominent) graphic designer located in the New York City or Minneapolis/St. Paul area
who has been practicing for at least eight years and is aware of] the First Things First
2000 manifesto. If you agree, your participation will involve a one- to two-hour
interview. After your interview, during the analysis phase of this research you may be
contacted to provide feedback about my observations.
During the interview you will be asked to discuss your involvement with [awareness of]
the manifesto, views about your role or position in the graphic design community, beliefs
(philosophy, ideology, or ethics) used to guide your work, and your views about the
profession of graphic design. You should know that the discussion of beliefs used to
guide your work may involve the role of ethics in your practice. This may be
uncomfortable to you, and you can decline to discuss this topic at any time without
penalty.
Follow-up contact with you after the interview is not planned at this time, but I may be
interested in getting your feedback about my observations. I might also contact you to
clarify a comment or point you made during the interview. This type of follow-up contact
would be made via the phone or E-mail. You can decline to be contacted for this followup now, or at any time without penalty to you.
Your identity will be concealed throughout the research, and any references that could
potentially link your responses to you will be removed from transcriptions of this
interview and the final research report using anonymous identifiers.
226
At anytime throughout the interview or participation process you may decline to answer
any question or immediately withdraw from the study without any penalty or adverse
consequences. Even if you participate in the research and interview you may also decline
to be contacted after the interview for follow up feedback about this research, or
withdraw at that time. Upon withdrawing from the study any data collected from you will
be destroyed immediately.
If you agree to participate, you will be given a signed copy of this document and a written
summary of the research.
You may contact the principal researcher, Kate Bukoski at 612-964-5997 at any time, if
you have questions about the research. You may contact Kate Bukoski’s academic
advisors, Barbara Martinson at 612-624-4239 or Carol Waldron at 612-624-3633, if you
have questions about your rights as a research participant or this research.
Your participation in this research is voluntary, and you will not be penalized if you
refuse to participate or decide to stop.
Signing this document means that the research study, including the above information,
has been described to you orally, and that you voluntarily agree to participate.
___________________________
signature of participant
____________
date
To contact the researcher:
Kate Bukoski
240 McNeal Hall
1985 Buford Avenue
University of Minnesota
Office phone: 612-624-4797
Cell phone: 612-964-5997
E-mail: buko0016@umn.edu
To contact the researcher’s academic advisors:
227
Barbara Martinson, Ph.D.
240 McNeal Hall
1985 Buford Avenue
University of Minnesota
Office phone: 612-624-4239
E-mail: bmartins@umn.edu
Carol Waldron, MA
240 McNeal Hall
1985 Buford Avenue
University of Minnesota
Office phone: 612-624-3633
E-mail: cwaldron@umn.edu
228
Interview Research Questions
Initial Grand Question for Signatories:
•
Let’s start at the First Things First 2000 manifesto. It is well-known that you are
one of the original signatories.
•
Could you begin by talking about your involvement with the manifesto – perhaps
who asked you to get involved?
Initial Grand Question for Prominent and Rank-and-file Practitioners:
•
Let’s start at the First Things First 2000 manifesto. Could you begin by talking
about how – or perhaps where – you first became aware of it?
Sample Probing Questions for all Participants:
•
What do you think of the manifesto and the discussions that followed the
publication of First Things First 2000?
•
Did you follow the dialogue – in letters to the editor, on blogs, or elsewhere – that
resulted from the manifesto? If so, what did you read or follow?
•
Could you describe your reactions to this discussion? For example, did any of the
many opinions that were voiced strike you as extreme, agreeable, in line with
your own thinking, and so on?
•
What do you think of the various opinions and ideas that were raised concerning
graphic design?
229
•
Let’s focus on your work. Describe your work – your professional life as a
designer.
•
Could you discuss your involvement with the local – or national – design
community? Such as, do you have a group of graphic design colleagues that you
meet with, share ideas/projects, or are you involved in any design associations?
•
Has your group of professional colleagues or peers changed over time? If so,
how?
•
How would you describe or see your relationship to other graphic designers –
perhaps to other designers in the US and maybe the AIGA?
•
When you are working, what ideas – or philosophy if you would call it that –
guides how you conduct your practice – decide which clients to work for, which
projects to decline, etc?
•
Could you describe how you formed your approach to graphic design? For
example, are there any particular moments or experiences that helped you define
your approach to design – such as a moment in your education, an interaction
with a peer, a mentor, a particular client, or something else?
•
Has your approach to graphic design changed over time? If so, how has it
changed, and what prompted this change?
•
Do you attend any conferences, meetings, or classes about design to continue your
development as a professional? If so, please describe them.
230
231
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