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A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010

© Clara Vieira

“A New Kind of Dialogue”


by Andrew Howard

Essay first published in the Canadian magazine Adbusters, issue 37, Design Anarchy, 2001
Reproduced later (2002) in the anthology Looking Closer 4, Critical Writings on Graphic Design, Allworth Press, NY.
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira

“Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful, but if it is, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.”
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira

Design: need, use and aesthetics

Design is not an abstract theoretical


discipline – it produces tangible artefacts,
expresses social priorities and carries
cultural values. Exactly whose priorities
and values is at the core of this debate.
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira

“...we have reached a saturation point at which the high pitched scream of con-
sumer selling is no more than sheer noise. We think that there are other things
more worth using our skill and experience on. There are signs for streets and build-
ings, books and periodicals, catalogues, instructional manuals, industrial photog-
raphy, educational aids, films, television features, scientific and industrial publica-
tions and all the other media through which we promote our trade, our education,
our culture and our greater awareness of the world.”

First Things First manifesto, 1964, by Ken Garland

“We propose a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting and demo-
cratic forms of communication – a mindshift away from product marketing and
toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of
debate is shrinking; it must expand.
Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives
expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design.”

First Things First Manifesto 2000


A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira

“Am I satisfied with design's place in society? How are my educational and professional institutions supporting innovation in design?
What can I do independently? Making these questions central to design criticism encourages the ‘socialization of design’ advocated
by Andrew Howard in his Adbusters essay, ‘A New Kind of Dialogue’. It challenges us to affect change in our work - maybe even our society.”

Context in Critique (review of Emigre No.64, Rant) by Dmitri Siegel


A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira

“...human needs have material limits. This is not good for the economic imperative. Therefore new
demands have to be created so that they can match the profitable output of industrialised production.
This is the inversion of supply and demand – the myth that the production of goods is based on need.
It is best done by dividing our needs, desires and activities into the smallest possible units so that
products and services can be created to satisfy them.”

A New Kind of Dialogue by Andrew Howard


A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira

“We are encouraged to concentrate on the details of our activity – to develop its internal logic. This is what
it means to be a good professional. Thus we lose track of how things fit together. In our allocated areas of
professional concern there is little time for the wider picture.
...
There has to be a set of reference points that lie beyond individual works or clients, some sort of guide that
can locate our activity within a collective value system.”

A New Kind of Dialogue by Andrew Howard

“It is time to think again about design’s social function and the way it is determined by our culture.

Graphic design has a part to play in creating a visual culture that empowers and enlightens, that makes
ideas and information accessible and memorable. Many designers may argue that their job is not politics,
and they would be right. But this does not prevent us from developing ideas about cultural democracy.
We cannot separate our work from the social context in which it is received and from the purpose it serves.
If we care about the integrity of our design decisions, we should be concerned that the relations implicit
in our communications extend active participation in our culture. If what we are looking for is meaning
and significance, then the first step is to ask who controls the work and whose ends does it serve.”

There is such a thing as society by Andrew Howard, eye magazine, 2001


A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira

“...nowadays more and more companies and global businesses prioritize social commitment and responsi-
ble action. All well and good, but a certain cynicism, the suspicion that it might all just be a clever market-
ing strategy, nonetheless lingers among the public. Amongst all the flak directed at businesses, however, the
question arises as to how much we are actually prepared to get involved ourselves.
Graphic designers have a wide-ranging vocabulary for conveying content to other people and getting their
attention. Working for a good cause is generally not financially rewarding, however; designers still sell
themselves best when they can shine with important clients, and at the end of the day, bills have to be paid.
It was on the horns of this dilemma that Tommaso Minnetti and Pasquale Volpe found themselves when
they decided in 2006 to combat their own frustration and the general apathy surrounding them.
...
Good 50x70”, which allows designers to get involved and use their knowledge for a good cause...seven aid
organizations draft a briefing on a globally relevant topic; designers can submit posters appropriate for the
topics, and a jury chooses the 30 best projects in each subject area. These posters are published in a cata-
logue, shown in various exhibitions worldwide, and may be used by the aid agencies for their own commu-
nication.”

‘Its is possible that we won’t go anywhere with Good 50x70, but if we manage to shake up graphic design-
ers and the creative industry and show them how much power they have to change the world, then we’ll
certainly have achieved something.’

Tackling the Issues, Novum magazine 02/09


A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira

Help!
Social Appeals in Posters

2.9.2009 – 10.1.2010
Plakatraum, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira

"I want to make people think," says Toscani in an interview in the Independent (December 16,
1992). "I want them to remember a name." Thus social criticism is appropriated in the struggle
for brand identification. "It [the advertising industry] persuades people that they are respected for
what they consume, that they are only worth what they possess,” says Toscani, angrily upbraiding
the industry for corrupting society.
Most advertising, he tells us, is based on the emotions and has nothing to do with the product.
One can only wonder what graveyard crosses during the Gulf War, a ship overflowing with
refugees, an electric chair, children in Third World slums, and a nun and priest kissing have to do
with expensive, multicolored knitwear? But even these are surpassed by Toscani's idea for a
"fun" campaign about wife-beating for Guinness. What makes Toscani's ever-so-radical ideas ever
so depressing is that his accurate critique of the advertising industry's effect on our
aspirations and self-image appears to be of no help to him in establishing the link between the
industry and the economic ideology that spawned it.

Whatever his intentions, Toscani's posters are merely a state-of-the-art marketing device masquer-
ading as social conscience. It is extreme arrogance to throw images at people in the belief
that they need to be told what issues are of social importance.
Radical work is never a question of presenting correct political opinions, but is concerned instead
with the nature of the dialogue that is made possible between the author and the audience.”

There is such a thing as society by Andrew Howard, eye magazine, 2001


A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira
A New Kind of Dialogue, Andrew Howard apresentação Jan 2010
© Clara Vieira

“By far the most prominent instance in this context is the ad campaign developed by the photographer Oliviero Toscani for the fashion firm Ben-
etton, one that earned worldwide attention. The firm insisted that the advertisements were designed to provoke an awareness of social responsi-
bility, the campaign was intended less to market its products and more to call attention to political issues, taboos, and social grievance. Critics,
however, regarded it as unethical to exploit human suffering to increase profit margins. The controversy points up the way in which the Benetton
campaign, with its striking display of images of war, HIV/AIDS, death, racism, environmental degradation, death row inmates, suffering of refu-
gees, etc., had evidently transgressed unspoken boundaries.
...
From the perspective of the economy of attention, certainly, the campaign was a resounding success: it transformed an Italian knitwear firm into
one of the best-know labels worldwide”

Help! Soziale Appelle Im Plakat, Plakatraum, Museum Fur Gestaltung Zurich, Lars Muller, 2009

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