While tidying up a few things in the archives, I came across this post from a little over a decade ago about the first and second First Things First manifestos. These made a huge impact on me at the time, one of those recurring phases when I was extremely aggravated about a lot of the crap that went along with being a graphic designer, and as good manifestos are wont to do, they articulated a lot of pent-up frustrations I had. They’ve also stayed with me in a very conscious way ever since, whether or not I have always been able to effectively follow their calls to action.
The admonition to consider the impact and the ethics of the work that I do has certainly influenced a lot of my choices since then. Thanks to First Things First, I put more energy in working in the non-profit and arts sectors, teaching, making things for personal reasons instead of commercial ones. (Much to my financial ruin over the years, but I certainly bear plenty of the blame for that.) At the moment, I am working for a profit-oriented company for the first time since I read these manifestos, and I’ll admit that some things involved in that give me pause now and again. I still believe, however, that design can be an agent of change, and of improvement. I certainly think that type design can be an incredible tool for these things — improving legibility, literacy, engagement with words. Part of the attraction of working in Indic scripts, for example, is that they so badly need good typefaces to express and promote those languages.
The other thing that strikes me is that in the decade since I read these manifestos, I have met and become a colleague to many of the people behind them, and have been encouraged by their examples — and often the things they’ve actually said to me — to keep the faith and keep trying to use my talents to make things better if I can, to try and improve my profession at the very least, and hopefully make things better in the world at large now and again if possible.