Rick Poynor, “We the Undersigned: A Manifesto about Manifestos”

Visual interpretation by James Provost of The Cult of Done Manifesto (2009)

Times of crisis demand action. Decisive action requires bold ideas delivered in compelling words and forms. A talk about how and why manifestos came back.

Rick Poynor, the British design critic, was the founding editor of Eye and a co-founder of Design Observer. He has written about design and visual culture for Blueprint, Icon, Creative Review, Frieze, Financial Times, The Guardian, Adbusters, Harvard Design Magazine, Metropolis and Print. His books include the critical studies No More Rules (Yale University Press, 2003) and Jan van Toorn: Critical Practice (010 Publishers, 2008), and the essay collections Design Without Boundaries (Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1998), Obey the Giant (Birkhauser Architecture, 2001) and Designing Pornotopia (Laurence King, 2006).

The Fall 2011 Design Criticism MFA Lecture Series is open to the public. You are warmly invited to attend our lectures, to see our new department and to meet with speakers, faculty members and students over a drink. Space is limited; Register here.

Event Information

When: 6 Oct 2011, 6:00 p.m.
Where: MFA Design Criticism Department, School of Visual Arts, 136 West 21 Street, 2nd floor
Price: Free and open to the public

Reader Comments

1. Manifesto Lost & Found | Words in Space

   16 Oct 2011

   [...] The students — all undergrads from across the university, from Wharton business kids to graphic designers and architects — wanted to create a take-away for visitors. In keeping with the ethos of The Foundation, which was (is?) responsible for programming the space, the students decided to create a manifesto, in zine form. I had completely forgotten about this, and was delighted to stumble upon it tonight. The timing is quite coincidental: it was only about a week ago that I went up to SVA’s D-Crit lecture series to hear Rick Poynor deliver a “Manifesto on Manifestos.” [...]

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