I’ve been looking into manifestos and what they mean but I’ve wanted to get across my own points of view on design. By no means is this a complete manifesto as some points might get re-worded and changed but it’s just something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Work in progress, beta, draft or whatever you want to call it.

1. The computer is a powerful tool, use it, as long as you remember it’s not the only one
2. Design is a service, like plumbing but with type and more colours.
3. Define a typographic rule-set and then stick to it. Order and alignment are indispensable tools.
4. Always remember that the main aim of Design is to communicate a message as simply as possible
5. Taking that in mind, if your idea is simple it should be able to be explained in a commonsensical vocabulary.
6. Design is art but art is not design. Simply put, design has enough people being pretentious as it is.
7. Enjoy the Design process and it will come across in your final work.
8. Financial and workplace organization are critical elements to Design. The cleaner these are kept the more time you’ll have to focus on the task at hand.

Let me know what you think. I’m thinking about re-writing point six as there is a fine line between parodying pretentiousness and being pretentious yourself.

Any comments?