(This is an extended version of a text on no design/the freedom of design. Parts of it were included in the No Design Manifesto book, (to be) published in October 2025 by BIS Publishers. Both the text and the book were the starting point to organize a public debate on the state of design in 2025, organized by Next Nature at Evoluon in Eindhoven (NL) as part of the Dutch Design Week, due to happen on October 25, 2025)
“There’s a wonderful sign hanging in a Toronto junkyard which reads, ‘Help Beautify Junkyards. Throw Something Lovely Away Today.’” Marshall McLuhan
”Order nowadays is mostly met where there is nothing. It is a phenomenon of shortage.” Bertolt Brecht
“There is no true creativity without freedom. Anything less is subpar, consumerist, and for the purchase of vapid billionaires and oligarchs.” Badiucao
The design world is dazed and confused. The role of the professional formerly known as “graphic designer” is caught between conflicting expectations of meme-driven social media, worthy government policies, and dirty business practices. Over the past 50 years, design has super-charged a disposable culture, pollution, and consumerism. Social inequality has dramatically increased over the past two decades. Will the sector be able to “design” itself out of the deadlock? It is no longer enough to pay lip service to good intentions. Can “design” step out of the managerial straight-jacket and regain autonomy or will it humbly retreat into a submissive service role?
Designers have long acknowledged that the sector has been at least partly responsible for overproduction, media addiction, and an increasing demand for meaningless products and services that harm both people and the planet. Just as colonialism has undergone a critical reassessment due to its destructive impact on cultures and societies, the Western consumer society – and with it, the role of design – has been reconsidered. This means not only curbing random consumption but also recognizing the historical and cultural complicity of attractive and “cool” design in fueling the constant desire for more.
The thing is, design has already acknowledged all of that since the 1960s, to the extent that social commitment became a genre in itself. But what comes after the mea culpa? What is to be done with these critical insights? What are the long-term effects of “guilt,” “awareness,” “acknowledgment,” and “consciousness”? What if “ethics” as a framework acts primarily as a narcissistic manifestation of the morality of the individual practitioner? This is why it is time to evaluate the ethical implications of ethics, and its strategic consequences. Consumer culture is already ahead of design culture, having autonomously recognized the hypocrisies of green-and-pink-washing. The design field, by contrast, has yet to fully reflect on its ethical overtures and confront the downside of the do-gooder industrial complex that currently holds design hostage. “To hell with good intentions,” as Ivan Illich concisely put it.
Over the past decades, the critique of a La La Land kind of autonomy of visual arts and design was justified. Design artifacts and artworks were finally recognized as art work. In response, both creative industries advocates and the field of engaged social practices have torn down the walls of elite ‘l’art pour l’art’ institutions. But this process of deconstruction and reform did not happen in a vacuum. And for the most part it submitted to a market-rules discourse, where creativity was all about the generation of intellectual property (IP). Except outside the studio film and video game industries, IP was never really a factor for the jobbing muso or portfolio career of designers and artists. Hanging out for the next commission reinforced the idea that markets were the only thing that really mattered. Content and style that articulated a wider school of practice, experimental idiom, or indeed avant-garde intervention became banished terms of reference and discredited cultural values.
The past forty years have been defined by a mix of neoliberal market solutions. Some version of this remains the case, only now it’s fused with increasingly widespread authoritarian right-wing populist rule. Ever since the Covid pandemic design has struggled to revitalize itself. Budget cuts, dwindling arts and humanities funding, and mounting commercial pressure on institutions have cornered the stagnating design field into a submissive support role. Support for what? Whatever is on the cultural policy menu of the day: yesterday, it was inclusivity; tomorrow, it might be pro-life initiatives. Within a twisted world, constructive design solutions for crisis x, y, z are running on empty.
The corporate consultancy world has framed design as part of “key enabling technologies” utilized to solve a carefully curated selection of “societal challenges.” However, their list of “wicked problems” cannot be discussed or recast, let alone questioned. Indeed, design is no longer permitted to be socially irrelevant. The utilitarian mantra insists on design solutionism. If you do not agree you will not get the job or grant. In recent years, design was supposed to support DEI, energy transition, and local neighbourhood initiatives. Next year, re-armament or budget cuts might be designated as worthy goals. If one refuses to participate in this solutionist machinery, designers, activists, and researchers are considered part of the problem. Authorities assert their power to exclude critical design theory and practice through retribution, coercion, and attrition. Needless to say, neither concrete technologies (except in the generic, abstract sense of “tech”), nor aesthetics, nor criticism made it onto their lists. Platform capitalism is a given, as is the narrowly defined interface culture in which designers have to operate these days.
No More Makers
The desire for objects and experiences that feel real is more powerful than ever. We crave authenticity and origins. We cherish the texture of that earthenware bowl, the rough hew of fabric that magically bares its soul, the smooth curve of neomodern yet also somehow classical design. So Scandi! Hygge for all. We feel cheated, dirty, and somehow ripped off when we discover the facts of production. Made in an unidentified sweatshop in Bangladesh, Vietnam, or the Philippines.
It’s so hard to reconcile the aura of a desired object with the brutal reality of global supply chain capitalism. In fact, it’s devastating. Nowadays, the sales pitch from the artisan in our home town is entirely comfortable explaining how the outsourcing and offshoring of handcrafted design is in no way affecting the quality of the object and experience we are so desperate to glean. Somehow, though, it’s just not convincing, even if rationally we can accept this reality of contemporary logics of production.
What do startups and policy makers have to say about all of this? Rather than asking hard questions they skip the painful reflection on their own involvement and instead push young professionals into a moral straight-jacket, defined by forced optimism. Design is coerced to embrace a narrowly defined discourse on co-creation, making, prototyping for a limited set of vague, lo-res goals like sustainability or the smart city. Better if you just shut up and find joy with the stakeholders. Discover innovation in service design thinking. Channel diversity. Model worlds. Catalyze businesses. Sandbox sensations. Pilot futures. Rewild imagination.
Just Say No
The long history of neoliberalism from the 1930s up until now is only partly to blame. As much as the many crises that populate our present have led some to declare neoliberalism is dead, all too often we find it refuses to disappear. At some point, however, a new cultural-economic paradigm will emerge. Something that is weirder and more absurd. We can be sure that politicians will be the last to know. And then, finally, the apparatus will realize it too. The design consultants, business professionals, policy wiggle-heads. But we will already be in the know, sourcing critical intel from the subterranean currents pumping through the lifeblood of social underground pipelines. The avant-garde flourishes there – and that’s our secret.
Design is meant to service society and the economy. And it is meant to shape and cultivate citizen-subjects. Economy coupled with citizenship immediately excludes. So where do you go from there? Perhaps the commercial sector is the last refuge for honing core design skills and providing a basic income that covers your living costs. Then, in the dark hours of the night you muster the energy to return to building your dream portfolio. Or maybe you just slumber in for another evening of streaming. Burnt out and hollow from the stress of the day. Fair enough.
The question of where design is headed remains open. Sustainable solutions for “wicked problems” can no longer be the only proposition in town. Creative industries itself as a wicked problem should be taken into account. Corporate and state policy sets parameters that determine whether you are in or out. Do you conform, consciously or otherwise, to the worthy consultancy agenda when suddenly much larger and urgent issues present themselves – or smaller, concrete ones? That is the essential question. And it is one tied to the limited horizon of the national-industrial imagination. Big doesn’t necessarily mean urgent, and small can still be relevant. A large European initiative on “the Anthropocene” can be less valuable (more bullshit, if you will) than an individual project about the signs of a Rotterdam neighborhood. Don’t believe the hype. Follow the money, sure, but never trust it.
Poverty Sucks
The descent into poverty and decrepitude is a sad reality for the precarious multitudes. One hundred and fifty years ago an impoverished existence was myth-making – take Van Gogh. Meanwhile, his humble indigence was offset by monthly allowances from his guilt-ridden brother. Many, however, do not have the luxury of family ties with money and have to compromise. We see this in art and design schools around the world, where over the past couple of decades only students bankrolled by wealthy parents can afford art and design as a possible vocation. Or, more likely, an occasional hobby down the line of guaranteed financial security, either inherited or by marriage. Will we finally start to look differently at the worthy projects once we’re reconciled with the harsh reality that art and design have, once again, become an idle pursuit of the ruling class?
Design education is turning into a liberal arts degree after which the young professional can take up a managerial job. The “applied” character of the degree competes with more vague, humanistic skills, and not so much with engineering, MBAs, or law degrees. Design feels safe because “at least it is not as abstract as art,” but the “making” part is often comparable to the marketing skills of the media and communication degrees. Precarity potentially lies in the decreasing value of qualifications over time. Practical skills with a short shelf life will either have to be constantly upgraded or become redundant. Think of how “HTML/CSS proficiency” sounds in the age of AI – practically, prehistoric. It is not yet clear what actual design skills AI entails. Prompting techniques change on a daily basis, whereas HTML has remained largely stable for three decades. Skills are not just a matter of substance but also of perception, and design seems far more invested in the latter.
Does this all mean that design as a practice receptive to uncomfortable expression and unforeseen experimentation outside the borders of compliance is all set to vanish into the nostalgic ether of modernist period-pieces or the extreme presentism of the tech and media agenda? Do we accept AI-driven tools as the engine of design production, overseen by an executive class tasked with the implementation of the latest policy directives? A weakened and docile profession has little to say about all this, neither in terms of contribution or critique.
One look at contemporary housing and apartment design is enough to tell you that the world has fully surrendered to cookie-cutter IKEA templates and cheap as crap production materials, all of which resemble some nasty fit-out in a lower-middle class cafe or smash-burger place. All too often you can’t even use your laptop in such venues anymore. That would ruin the vibe. To say it with McLuhan, the vibe that you designed, designs you out. That, dear graduate, is your lukewarm destiny, if only you stick to the script. Trash it. Recycle it. Vintage it. That’s the real existing poverty of Waste by Design.
The unbearable brightness of animated brands stares you in the face. While graffiti no longer disrupts modernist whiteness and softens the urban bleak, you get the feeling that contemporary design, the kind that matters, here, right now, is in hiding, deep inside the machines. As commodities with exclusive shapes have become the domain of influencers, vintage is the trend-setter in town. Retro for the people.
Does the social-political form of collectives offer one possible device or tactical architecture for the designer committed to the pursuit of radical invention? In part because of funding cut-backs in education, and in part because of a recognition by teaching staff (tutor-student ratio of 1:30 or more) that working in groups can produce interesting work in a relatively short period of time, the practice of collective work survives in art and design schools as a mode of aesthetic generation and concept cultivation. Collaboration is a performance and participation is a nightmare in a world characterized by the “workshopization of cultural production” (Anja Groten).
The Art of War
Can this mode of collaborative design be turned into a vital resource, a condition of possibility, for design practices that are at odds with the Musk-Trump small-dick-energy convention? Design chiefs prefer to trumpet the sound of the non-political in fear of losing future clients and customers. An empty sound. And one that’s not an option anymore. But that also goes for the hyperpolitical drum that neutralized politics by means of “everything is political.” It turns out that deeming everything radical can be a form of neutrality. Neutrality by excess, if you will. Design shouldn’t be an afterthought in the armchair of acquiescence. Scenario planning and game theory are the primary techniques of modeling the battle ground. Preemption and prediction, simulation and calculation, strategy and tactics. These are among the principle elements of play that rehearse the theatre of conflict. All assume visual and systems design strategies. After the end of future, what we are left with is the art of war.
Paul Virilio, the urban theorist of speed, once noted that games of war eventually make their way into civil society as technologies of governance and consumer objects. We can investigate the time in which such a migration or translation from battlefront to bedroom occurs – see the demand for Zelenski’s outfit at the White House. But that is less important for us here. More significant is the fact that design is the concept and practice that bridges the gap between war and society. If that’s the case, designers should deploy all their strategic, tactical and communicative know-how to prevent war – so that Sun Tzu’s book remains a theoretical source of inspiration, not a literal guide.
A Culture of Shame and Guilt
What should we feel guilty about? Literally everything. No meat. No alcohol. Sugar is taboo. No carbs. No dairy. Flying? Absolutely not. Drive less. Forget skiing holidays. No more kids. Stop sitting so much. Binge-watching? Cut it down. No more Facebook, definitely no TikTok. And remember: AI and VR are already causing the next digital disaster. Forget fast fashion. No more package deliveries. Even toxic flower bouquets and smoke-spewing barbecues are now frowned upon.
The aim here is not to debate whether these things are good or bad, but to shed light the hierarchy that these prohibitions imply and enforce. The “general public,” this abstract entity we supposedly belogn to, is constructed as an infant in need of a lesson. Any technology – old or new – any design, artwork, or innovation is reduced to a “what about the children?” argument, with children standing in for the environment, an oppressed minority, or any other vulnerable entity – including ourselves. When does this paternalism end? Will design culture ever move beyond its Victorian pathos?
If you rebel against bans, you’re quickly labeled “anti-woke.” If you stick to them, you’re a moralist indulging in a “leftist hobby.” So, where do we go from here? Sooner or later, designers must confront the complex and polarizing dynamics at play. They need to move beyond the opinion game and let go of the smartypants urge to always say the right thing. If not, the entire discipline will act as a pawn in an ideological tug-of-war – ultimately killing imagination and leaving actual design in the hands of automated software.
Will design take a conservative turn, embracing a “law and order” ethos reminiscent of the late Paul Rand? Will progressive design institutions – if they survive – and retreat into insular fortresses, churning out unread manifestos on everything political except what is truly at stake? In 1978, Rem Koolhaas asked “how to write a manifesto in an age disgusted with them?” Today, the question becomes: “how to write a manifesto in an age enthralled by them?” What will design populism look like? There’s an opportunity here for designers and critics to abandon rhetoric, paternalism, and any pretense of moral purity. In an era where statements become more important than design projects, to change design culture designers need to fundamentally rethink how they speak about what they do. The new grammar of design is a meme gone viral.
Design at a Crossroads
Design will have to take a side. This is not about left versus right or progressives versus reactionaries. Designers must choose whether to remain within the paternalistic ranks of the professional-managerial class – despite design’s diminishing status and the economic proletarianization of many designers – or engage in a constructive populism that is not just about vitalistic chaos and misinformation. Such a movement would take stock of real forces as they manifest through affect. If, as Moholy-Nagy claimed, “design is an attitude,” then it must be attuned to the passions of those it claims to serve.
How to exit the horror of the contemporary when this is the shit-bucket shoved on our heads? More and more trapped, we need to collectively forge passages of escape. Exodus is not just a necessity, we have no other option with the current design culture that has universally embraced the poverty of managerial mantras writ large. What is problem design? There is no visionary energy without first questioning the powers that be. If reflection fails and is seen as a negative ritual that should rather be quietly tucked away into the closet, chances are high that the utopian packaging is merely a repetition of the same old cultural patterns. In this sense, there is no “we” – only us and them. What side are you on?
After more than a decade of societal “big challenges,” here’s an actual one, framed not in the newspeak of the earnest bureaucrat, but in the terms of the actually existing design practitioner. The practice is at risk of running into a dead end. Should design – a discipline that has democratized and expanded enormously in recent decades – focus solely on the societal challenges imposed by politics and government? Do national priorities get you excited? Or should designers rise up, say “No!,” and reclaim their freedom, demonstrating an aesthetic, intellectual autonomy?
How it feels when people try to impose a thought, opinion, or obligation on you – and how this works within the design context?
You’ve probably experienced it before: overprotective parents or teachers who mean well. They decide, with the best intentions, what’s good for you. You don’t really get a say in the matter because you’re either too young or too inexperienced. You trust the people who raise you, who teach you what life is about. You want to do the right thing, so you adopt the norms and values of your caregivers. This is where the concept of the superego comes into play.
According to Freud, the superego develops during the first five years of life in response to parental punishment and approval. This process happens as the child internalizes the moral standards of their parents, a development strongly supported by the natural tendency to identify with them. The growing superego absorbs the traditions of the family and the surrounding society, helping the child control aggressive impulses or socially unacceptable urges. Violence and embarrassment are taboo. Breaking the rules of the superego leads to feelings of guilt or anxiety and the compulsion to atone for one’s actions. The superego continues to evolve into young adulthood as individuals encounter new role models and learn to navigate the broader rules and expectations of society.
The term superego, translated from the German “Über-Ich,” can be somewhat misleading. The word “superego” might make you think of self-glorification rather than feelings of shame and guilt when you do or think something that goes against the norms and values instilled during your upbringing. But Freud intended the term to encompass more than just internalized rules and prohibitions. He also meant that a child picks up emotions and behaviors from the outside world – things they admire and wish to emulate.
The superego reflects the moral compass and the ideals an individual strives to achieve. It represents the internalization of cultural norms within a person. Thanks to the superego, individuals can distinguish between right and wrong, and this sense of morality continues to develop throughout life.
Design Shame
The freedom of creativity and innovation in the design world is under pressure from social norms and well-intentioned guidelines imposed by government policies and the Victorian culture industry. Societal challenges force designers and citizens into a rigid framework. The discomfort designers feel when their work does not align with moral or societal expectations, or when they feel obliged to create something they do not fully support or are not much interested in, clearly illustrates how our society is at an impasse and how this impacts design practices.
Of course, action is needed, but a “ban” disguised as good intentions reveals how subtle this form of control can be. It may seem harmless, but it positions designers as guardians of moral and social standards. This leads to a form of design shame when one is not actively engaged in sustainability, energy transition, or any other topic deemed urgent by decree. Indeed, urgency has become a tool for distinction. As a result, designers often lose the freedom to think and act critically and independently. The irony is that “criticality,” understood as compliance with the totalizing agenda of the creative industries, has become the very attitude that prevents critical thinking and critique. Creatives these days are too busy explaining why their projects illuminate all the wickedness of this world and how their activities make it a better place. Designers don’t have the stamina to deepen their own practice. The superego becomes the designer. This explains how creative freedom can be sacrificed in favor of meeting societal expectations.
Today, the focus within design is increasingly shifting from semiotics and aesthetics towards ethics and social responsibility. This shift is guided by policy frameworks adopted by educational institutions, public bodies, and private organizations. Designers are told to follow these guidelines but have yet to develop an independent response from within their own practice, resonating with the contexts in which they operate. To do so, they have to recognize that ethics and social responsibility are reassuring narratives akin to self-help. This predilection doesn’t take into account the specific reality of the single practitioner. That reality is made of favourable, preferable, possible, and unattainable courses of action – it’s what we call politics. Less ethics, more politics. Or: no ethics without politics. An additional, yet unaddressed issue here is the initially subconscious resentment against a politically correct “boomer” elite, leading to an implicit support of right-wing populist sentiments.
While governments allocate substantial budgets for circularity and transition projects, and the design world eagerly seizes these opportunities, the Trump-Musk revolt remains a mystery. There is nothing inherently wrong with government-led sustainability programs. Nonetheless, we’re increasingly noticing a lack of solid, autonomous design visions – visions not solely shaped by worthy policy criteria but one that emerges organically from the practice itself, driven by experimentation, intuition, and the inherent dynamics of the craft. And when such visions finally emerge, they don’t survive long as there is no fertile soil for them, neither in the cultural world nor in the commercial one.
It’s never too early for a critical public debate. But be aware that authorities will try to shut this down and will accuse legitimate attacks by critics of those in power as “unsafe” and “unacceptable” behaviour. We live in times of polarization, nationalism, and growing inequality, driven by fear and anxiety, in a world that increasingly craves meaning and purpose. Art and design have always managed, while negotiating with the real, to assert themselves independently. The question is whether new generations of designers – raised with TikTok and lock-downs – can develop a truly free design vision through the act of making, distancing themselves enough from those crumbling institutions that look at the future through a rear-view mirror.
Thanks but No Thanks
Designers should initiate a NO-Design debate about the ever-growing list of prohibitions they’re asked to decorate. There is an important distinction between a demand and a prohibition. While social movements encourage change from the ground up – which is where design can play a key role – the current culture of prohibition focuses on imposing behavioral rules from the top down. Instead of promoting an inspiring vision of the future, design is used to pressure the citizen-consumer, holding them accountable for past mistakes that have contributed to today’s polluting consumer society.
True, prohibition and discipline can offer valuable insights. They reveal why many design practices and educational programs are losing popularity under these ostensibly responsible but restrictive norms. The culture of prohibition creates a moral consensus that directly opposes the artistic development of new ideas and concepts. Risk aversion is the new legal code. We should not excuse these oppressive and boring normative regimes from serious critique. Let’s not play the victim here. We can hold a mirror up to both society and the design world, creating spaces for discussion, reflection, and ultimately, change. Subversive energies are key sources of freedom, hope, desire, and rebellion. The protestant guilt trip must end.
Impact, Circularity, Transition, and Ecosystem
Whether it’s a policy framework, grant criteria, the vision of a philanthropist, or an open call for submissions – everything revolves around this one question: how will you shape sustainability? Our world is teetering on the edge of collapse. We have exploited, polluted, and irreparably damaged it. How did we get here? Like a horde of indifferent barbarians, we have looted the Earth and drained it of its resources. Reports are written, data is collected, and endless meetings are held to discuss the planet’s future. But the core question remains: is humanity even worth saving? If we don’t change course drastically, we will disappear alongside everything we’ve destroyed. Is it our role to “design’ humanity out of this mess?
Innovation is no longer the ultimate goal – transition has taken its place. We now live in a permanent state of flux, where technology is no longer the holy grail. Instead of tech-savvy visionaries and engineers leading the way, today it’s the green consultants and coaches who decide how the future will unfold. Everything must be sustainable. Everything must be circular. Global agreements are made, and protest movements grow louder: from the Green Deal to Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future. The headlines are filled with it. People openly judge each other: “What? You still fly? You still eat meat? You still drink cow’s milk?” This isn’t a trend or a hype – it’s a matter of life and death. And the underlying message is clear: YOU can make a difference. This is individualization run rampant.
In the meantime, those who gave up visiting their home country for environmental reasons later discover that, during Covid, empty planes continued flying just to secure airport parking slots. A newly elected president can, with the stroke of a pen, undo years of climate agreements. The forums where sustainability and circularity are promoted and debated attract a frequent-flyer class of Aperol Spritz drinkers. As a result, people feel deceived, and their distrust toward the green clergy of experts only deepens.
Bad Ideas
In his recent Techno-Optimist Manifesto, software engineer and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen argues that: “Our enemies are not bad people – but rather bad ideas. Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades – against technology and against life – under varying names like ‘existential risk’, ‘sustainability’, ‘ESG’, ‘Sustainable Development Goals’, ‘social responsibility’, ‘stakeholder capitalism’, ‘Precautionary Principle’, ‘trust and safety’, ‘tech ethics’, ‘risk management’, ‘de-growth’, ‘the limits of growth’.”
The enemy of our enemy is not our friend. It’s not techno-optimism what we call for, but a technosocial realism, one able to transcend both the dusty rhetoric of Progress brought to you by machines, and the performative display of good morals as the new bureaucracy. For us, “the purpose of a system is what it does,” not what it says it does, will do, or should do.
Design’s Role in the Current Crisis
In the 20th century, designers didn’t just follow the spirit of the times – they shaped it, often with their own agendas. Today, the question is: do designers go along willingly with the transition wave (or what’s left of it), or do they remain critical? Does design offer solutions, or does it expose the pressure points? In a world where sustainability has become the norm, design stands at a crossroads: to follow, to lead, or to question? What’s the actual relationship between design and the practices of planetary appreciation, from the low-brow recycling ideas to the high-brow, neo-hippy more-than-human gaze of yet another mossy exhibition.
Currently, design seems trapped in a contradiction: first contributing to the destruction of the world, only to later redesign it in the hope of fixing it. Rather than seeking freedom to break this deadlock, design has taken on the role of a guilty preacher, naively believing that a shift in consumer mentality (designers being among the consumers) – fueled by collective guilt and public shame – is the path to redemption. And if one does not agree with all this, no project, no money for you.
In a time when modernity manifests its tragic shortcomings, designers’ emphasis on responsibility and ethics is increasingly linked to design’s culpability. Designers have exhumed the confiteor: “mea culpa,” they utter in shame. There is a parallel with the world of tech. A counter-narrative, popularly dubbed techlash, is emerging around digital platforms. It stands in opposition to the messianic narrative of Big Tech amplified by the media throughout the 2010s. Here, mistakes are acknowledged. Careers are built out of an anti-tech evangelism and boosted by public acts of atonement. The irony is that these negative evangelists are often the very same people at the top of the professional elite ladder,
Reclaiming Freedom
What can we take from all these insights, to ask questions of the role of design amidst the current geopolitical turmoil?
Design can take command, not of the world at large but of its own larger or smaller pursuits (probably smaller). It will find the shape of things – if it the creates it own coalition of the willing. Patterns will have to be recovered. New design urgencies will build a new grammar, an architecture of connection and disconnection. This all makes design always-already political. From the start. And it won’t always be cute: think of the MAGA hat design.
Designers can be so bold to declare they will build the next NATO out of the ruins of the Trump-Putin love-pump. What’s stopping them? Think Buckminster Fuller and his Dymaxion World, a design from 1943 of intercontinental relations comprised of 20 geodesic triangles flattened into two-dimensional surfaces to project a near-contiguous land mass. Design worlds. Destroy despots. Disrupt systems. Demonstrate alternatives. Barbarians, run that European code. Now.
Be bold if you need to, but don’t feel obliged. Boldness itself has become the style of the policy-branding nexus. Bureaucrats began writing manifestos, and in doing so drained the manifesto form of its power. In fact, what you’re reading is an all too late manifesto: we wield the tools of the past to confront the challenges of the present. So, be humble if you prefer, or melancholic, or something else entirely. Shape your own Stimmung.
Such principles of orientation will never be found in the policy handbook. There’s no authority here to grant permission. Or refuse entry. Just take it. We can find inspiration from Hannah Arendt’s call to make new beginnings. Stuck in the mud? Call it a day, regroup, and start something new. Make a decision. Say no to executive orders. Refuse to attend meetings. Conspire and come up with a surprising intervention. Reverse all signs. Feel the freedom, and never give it away. Walk on to other side and reclaim the subversive nature of aesthetics. A rich and shared visual language and vocabulary is a sign of life. Culture is not just a set of necessities, sold to you as commodities. There are no terms and conditions. It is time to question the instrumental reason of intentions and create new free spaces for experimentation and freedom to join the non-aligned.
—
The following FREEDOM FOR DESIGN MANIFESTO, initiated and authored by Mieke Gerritzen, calls for design to liberate itself from the dull sense of generic social responsibility that forces the entire design world to focus exclusively on “correct” themes and “correct” interpretations of such themes, without the critical autonomy to question them – let alone explore entirely new paths. As a pathway to possibility, we present the following principles:
- No Freedom, No Creativity
When design is too tightly bound to broad societal expectations or policy goals, it inevitably limits creative thinking, leading to predictable, uninspired, and “safe” designs. Only freedom, understood as the ability to express uncomfortable ideas without fear, allows designers to think outside of ethical tautologies (“doing good is good”).
- Responsibility Should Empower, Not Constrain
Imposing responsibility can pressure designers into constant moral and ethical balancing acts. The so-called “responsible” approach can be paralyzing. Moral contortion is not a design principle. Ethics is not about adhering to protocols of engagement. Clearance to act requires no committee approval procedure. Openness means designers don’t always have to frame their thinking in terms of good and evil. Don’t always ask: is this good? Instead, why not ask: does this work? Does it do what it says it does?
- Keep Design Independent
Only through regained autonomy can design foster innovative interventions. When design becomes too subservient to abstract societal transition processes, it loses its intrinsic value. Independence (that is, autonomy in choosing one’s own interrelations) gives designers the space to work from their own expertise and vision.
- Bring Beauty Back
Design isn’t just a tool for solving problems (if societal wicked problems can ever be solved at all!) – it has the unique ability to bring beauty, joy, and humanity into everyday life. It can improve the quality of life by placing aesthetics, comfort, experimentation, happiness, and pleasure at its core. Beauty has always been a means to articulate complex issues and should never be reduced to mere eye candy. Beauty escapes the narrow confines of function as full instrumentalization, both of actions and intentions.
- Freedom Nurtures Diversity
When designers are liberated from narrow definitions of social responsibility at large, space opens up for diverse and unforeseen approaches. Some may focus on innovation, others on aesthetics and human interaction, others on technological challenges, and still others on weird stuff. Diversity makes the field richer and stronger. We cannot be certain that socially responsible projects have a positive impact on the world, so we shouldn’t assume that other approaches have a negative one.
- Do Not Dictate
Designers can make suggestions, but the final choice lies with the user, the client, the citizen and the non-citizen alike. People should be empowered to make conscious decisions about how they use products and services. Design should facilitate, not dictate. Kill the little priest in you.
—
No Meat No Milk No Alcohol No Avocado No Bananas No Coffee No Social Media No Netflix No Smartphone No Car Driving No Flying No Sitting No Package Delivery No Dreams No Perversions No Fast Fashion No Campfires No Flowers No Noise No Coca Cola No Calories No Smoking No Sugar No Shopping No Fun No Babies No Microplastics No Manifestos
—
Metadata of these two manifestos happen to be Trump’s Forbidden Words, “flagged for further review” (https://gizmodo.com/the-list-of-trumps-forbidden-words-that-will-get-your-paper-flagged-at-nsf-2000559661): Activism, activists, advocacy, advocate, advocates, barrier, barriers, biased, biased toward biases, bipoc, black and latinx, community diversity, community equity, cultural differences, cultural heritage, culturally responsive, disabilities, disability, discriminated, discrimination, discriminatory, diverse backgrounds, diverse communities, diverse community, diverse group, diverse groups, diversified, diversify, diversifying, diversity and inclusion, diversity equity, enhance the diversity, enhancing diversity, equal opportunity, equality, equitable, equity, ethnicity, excluded, female, females, fostering inclusivity, gender, gender diversity, genders, hate speech, excluded, female, females, fostering inclusivity, gender, gender diversity, genders, hate speech, hispanic minority, historically, implicit bias, implicit biases, inclusion, inclusive, inclusiveness, inclusivity, increase diversity, increase the diversity, indigenous community, inequalities, inequality, inequitable, inequities, institutional, Igbtqia+, marginalize, marginalized, minorities, minority, multicultural, polarization, political, prejudice, privileges, promoting diversity, race and ethnicity, racial, racial diversity, racial inequality, racial justice, racially, racism, sense of belonging, sexual preferences, social justice, sociocultural, socioeconomic, status, stereotypes, systemic, trauma, under appreciated, under represented, under served, underrepresentation.
—
Impasse-Partout
The Lipservice Industry
Curb your Enthusiasm
Awareness-aware
Time for meta-ethics
“To hell with good intentions” – Ivan Illich
Utopia or LaLa Land?
Forced Optimism for All
Portfolio Daydreaming
Creative industries as a wicked problem
Big ≠ Urgent
“At least not as abstract as art”
Softskilling, deskilling, protoskilling, (s)killing
“The vibe that you designed, designs you out”
Retro for the People
Tutor-student ratio: 1/30
“Workshopization of cultural production” – Anja Groten
Everything radical = broadly neutral
What about the children?
Law and Order
The Statement is the Project
Populist Constructivism
Über-Itch
Less Ethics, More Politics
Discipline or Disciplining?
The enemy of our enemy is not your friend.
Transition No-Wave
Decorate Redemption
Shape Your Own Stimmung