Writing a manifesto is super hard. I don’t know how I’m supposed to come up with a definitive statement on Design and its Purpose or even my design and its purpose — I know that this is just a first draft and this doesn’t even really “matter” for anything but art/design is so deeply personal I want this to be good just for me. Does it help to have some kind of thesis or just list several related (or unrelated) points? To what extent is it even possible to have an eternal Grand Theory of Everything about design as a process of inquiry, uncertainty and experimentation, and to what extent is this desire or goal counterproductive? Should designers even have manifestos, if so much about design is about setting aside your own subjectivity in favor of empathy? I know that there isn’t really one right answer and this is all up to me, but that’s the difficult part — it’s all up to me.
I also don’t know to what extent I’m just stating the obvious — particularly when I talk about wanting to do design that actually does something, or design as the materialization of love and attention. Maybe everybody thinks this way. Maybe nobody does, and I should stop worrying so much about taking up people’s space and time. Maybe I have this all wrong, and art lacks a point the way love lacks a point.
In any case, I feel like it’s kind of a narcissistic thing to write a manifesto at all. This website is, in many ways, all about me, and I enjoy building and maintaining this weird little shrine to myself more than I’d like to admit. I haven’t yet decided how private or public I want this information to be because on one hand I’m quite proud of some of these (barely original) thoughts, and on the other hand I really just envisioned this as a private tool to help me keep track of my growth and hopefully figure some stuff out. Maybe it’s helpful and creatively generative to critically reflect on my own practice, or maybe I should just shut up and make things.
Last Updated: 12/01/23