100+ Years of Design Manifestos

Since the days of radical printer-pamphleteers, design and designers have a long history of fighting for what’s right and working to transform society. The rise of the literary form of the manifesto also parallels the rise of modernity and the spread of letterpress printing.

This list of design manifestos was buried in a previous post but deserves its own permalink. The original list was largely drawn from Mario Piazza’s presentation at the 2009 conference Più Design Può in Florence, though I’ve edited and added to it. I’ve also incorporated links where I was able to find them.

1861 Graphic Tables and Figurative Maps, Charles Minard
1883 The Ideal Book, William Morris
1889 The Arts and Crafts of To-day, William Morris
1909 The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism, F.T. Marinetti
1914 Manifesto of Futurist Architecture, Antonio Sant’Elia
1918 De Stijl Manifesto
1919 Bauhaus Manifesto, Walter Gropius
1919 Das grüne Manifest (“The Green Manifesto”), Leberecht Migge on the economic, political, and social importance of public gardens in urban environments
1920 Down with Seriousism!, Bruno Taut
1922 Manifesto of the Painters’ Union, Taller de Grafica Popular
1923 Topology of Typography, El Lissitzky
1923 The New Typography, László Moholy-Nagy
1933 Charter of Athens, Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne
1952 The Industrial Aesthetics Charter, l'Institut d'Esthétique industrielle
1959 The journal "New Graphic Design," though not explicitly a manifesto, called for a radical rethinking of design along more scientific lines.
1964 First Things First, Ken Garland
1967 The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord
1971 La coscienza del designer, Albe Steiner
1971 The Artist's Contract, a legal document, a manifesto, an institutional critique
1978 Atlante Secondo Lenin - not so much a design manifesto, as a designed manifesto. The innovative infographics visualize theories for gaining power.
1979 Ahmedabad Declaration on Industrial Design for Development
1983 The Free Software announcement, later clarified in 1985’s GNU Manifesto
1987 Design memorandum. Dall’etica del progetto al progetto dell’etica.
1987 Ten Rules of Good Design, Dieter Rams
1989 Carta del progetto grafico, Giovanni Anceschi, Giovanni Baule, Gelsomino D’Ambrosio, Pino Grimaldi, Giancarlo Iliprandi, Giovanni Lussu, Alberto Marangoni, Gianfranco Torri
1990 A Scandinavian Design Council Manifesto on Nature, Ecology and Human Needs for the Future
1991 The Social Role of the Graphic Designer, Pierre Bernard
1991 The Munich Design Charter
1991 The Riot Grrrl Manifesto, Kathleen Hanna
1992 The Hannover Principles, William McDonough
1996 Viewer's Declaration of Independence
1996 A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, John Perry Barlow
1998 Ne Pas Plier statement
1998 People's Communication Charter
2000 The Manifesto of January 3, 2000, Bruce Sterling
2000 First Things First update - not just about advertising this time, but setting new values.
2000 Icograda Design Education Manifesto
2000 Incomplete Manifesto for Growth, Bruce Mau (though I thought Dean Allen did a tidy job of demolishing this.)
2001 Diseno etica e comunicazione, AIAP
2001 Socialist Designer's Manifesto - a series of ideologically driven limitations along the lines of Dogme 95.
2001 Designers Against Monoculture, Noah Scalin
2001 Manifesto for Agile Software Development
2002 First Declaration of the St. Moritz Design Summit
2002 Triangular Design Manifesto, Conceptual Devices
2003 The Economy of Ideas, John Perry Barlow. A framework for patents and copyrights in the Digital Age.
2004 The Free Culture Manifesto
2005 Draft Craft Manifesto, Ulla Engeström
2006 The Public Role of the Graphic Designer
2006 Free Font Manifesto, Ellen Lupton
2006 Owner’s Manifesto, The Maker’s Bill of Rights
2006 Karimanifesto, Karim Rashid
2007 The Designer’s Dilemma and subsequent Designers Accord
2007 1000 Words: A Manifesto for Sustainability in Design, Allan Chochinov
2007 Um Manifesto Anti-Design
2008 White Night Before A Manifesto, Metahaven
2008 Kyoto Design Declaration, Members of Cumulus
2008 Parametricism as Style â€" Parametricist Manifesto, Patrik Schumacher
2008 Conditional Design Manifesto
2009 The Repair Manifesto from Platform21
2009 The Cult of Done Manifesto
2009 A Short Manifesto on the Future of Attention, Michael Erard
2009 Information Visualization Manifesto, Manuel Lima
2009 The Awesomeness Manifesto, Umair Haque
2009 Internet Manifesto: How journalism works today. Seventeen declarations.
2009 Charter for Innovation, Creativity and Access to Knowledge, assembled at the Barcelona Culture Forum for citizens’ and artists’ Human Rights in the digital age
2009 Not In Our Name, Marke Hamburg! (English here)
2009 Information Visualization Manifesto, some principles towards transparent and responsible data visualization.
2010 The Role of Design in the 21st Century, Danish Designers Manifesto: A Vision for the Future of Danish Design
2010 The Obstructionist Manifesto, Mark Goldman against harmful, insider-driven city planning
2010 Anti-Design Festival Manifesto
2010 The Win Without Pitching Manifesto, Blair Enns
2010 The Glimmer Manifesto, Warren Berger
2010 Big Potatoes: The London Manifesto for Innovation
2010 A Design Education Manifesto, Mitch Goldstein
2010 LeNS Project Manifesto, on sustainable development and the role of design (and design thinking) in promoting system innovation
2011 Post Typographic Manifesto
2011 Icograda Design Education Manifesto, 2011 (an update of their 2000 manifesto)
2011 No Chair Design Challenge, pledge to not design a chair in 2012.
2011 Open Architecture Manifesto
2011 The Critical Engineering Manifesto
2012 Web Design Manifesto 2012, Jeffrey Zeldman
2012 Online Public Services Manifesto, Consumer Focus Labs, UK
2012 Draft Manifesto for an Open Internet of Things
2012 Certifying REsponsible Design Manifesto, towards certification for the communications design profession.
2012 Subcompact Publishing Manifesto, towards a minimal model of publishing and design for the moden tablet, mobile, and web.
2013 A manifesto for creative professionals by Paul Jarvis on professional ethics.
2013 #ACCELERATE MANIFESTO for an Accelerationist Politics
2014 First Things First 2014, an update to the 1964 and 2000 manifestos addressing design in the Digital Age.
2014 Generation M. by Dimitris Papadopoulos
2014 DesignX: A Future Path for Design / Why DesignX?
2015 The Oslo Manifesto, Architecture Design and Planning for the Sustainable Development Goals
2015 Poetica's manifesto for humane app design
2015 The Two Day Manifesto: Contribute back to the open source you build on
2015 The Arts Emergency Manifesto
2015 The Utrecht Manifesto, an outcome of 'Design the good society'/Utrecht Biennial Foundation meetings from 2005-2015
2017 The Montreal Design Declaration, on the potential of design to achieve global economic, social, environmental and cultural objectives, and a call to utilise the potential of design for the benefit of all.
2017 The Copenhagen Letter, on responsibility, design, and technology.
2017 Reconstrained Design: A Manifesto towards new imaginative spaces for discourse, inoculating ideas and subverting the status quo of design.
2017 The Lancaster Care Charter
2018 Spark Poster Collective Manifesto
2018 Design Justice Network Principles
2019 A Manifesto for Decolonising Design
2020 Society-Centered Design
2020 First Things First 2020

And a few un-/anti- manifestos:

2008 Project H Design (Anti)Manifesto: A Call To Action For Humanitarian (Product) Design
2009 This is Not Manifesto — towards an alternative design practice - hard-hitting anarchist perspective
2009 13 points: this is not a manifesto from Image-Shift

Know of others I’m leaving out? Please

Bonus points if you’ve got a link.

Thanks Alberto, Ampat, Barbara, Ben, Charles, Gabe, Gary, Ianus, Jane, Kara, Kelly, Laura, Lotte, Nick, Noah, Ramsay, and William for the additions.

Last updated December 6, 2021.

22 July 2009, 7:15 AM | LINK | Filed in manifestos, typography