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Ken Garland wrote and proclaimed the First Things First manifesto in 1963 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. It was first published in January 1964. Co-signed by 21 colleagues, the manifesto proposed that design effort should re-directed, away from advertising towards more worthwhile, purposeful activities.
A second version, entitled First Things First 2000, was published in autumn 1999, appearing simultaneously in Adbusters, AIGA Journal and Emigre in North America, Eye and Blueprint in the UK and Items in the Netherlands. It later also appeared in Form magazine in Germany. Having a similar structure to Garland’s original, it widened its target to include not just advertising but also marketing and brand development.
The response to this version was polarised, and many in the design industry were angered by the tone of the criticism. As an example, Poynor (2021) cites Pentagram partner Michael Bierut’s riposte for I.D. Magazine, “A Manifesto with Ten Footnotes.”
In 2014, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first appearance of First Things First, Cole Peters decided to launch a third version, this time with an emphasis on design in the digital realm. Cole was prompted by Edward Snowden’s disclosures about governmental abuse of communications technologies to consider the question of how culpable were designers in abetting the technological apparatus that was feeding on personal data and surveillance, an apparatus whose appeal was often enhanced through design.
A fourth, online version, First Things First 2020, was written by Namita Dharia, Marc O’Brien and Ben Gaydos. It includes “a checklist of urgent design goals, covering the histories and ethics of design, community-based initiatives, non-exploitative social relations, nature as a complex system, and reconnecting design and manufacturing to the Earth and its people” (Poynor, 2021).
References
Poynor, R. (2021) ‘The Evolving Legacy of Ken Garland’s First Things First Manifesto’, Eye on Design. Available at: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/why-ken-garlands-first-things-first-manifesto-keeps-getting-updated/ (Accessed: 13 September 2021).
Links
First Things First https://designmanifestos.org/ken-garland-first-things-first/
First Things First 2000 http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/first-things-first-manifesto-2000
First Things First 2014 https://firstthingsfirst2014.net
First Things First 2020 https://www.firstthingsfirst2020.org
A Manifesto with Ten Footnotes https://readings.design/PDF/bierut_10_footnotes.pdf
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