The First Things First manifesto was written 29 November 1963 and published in 1964 by

Ken Garland Ken Garland (19 February 1929 – 20 May 2021) was a British graphic designer, photographer, writer and educator. Garland is known for his writing on design and the prolific work of his studio Ken Garland & Associates. Early life and education ...

. It was backed by over 400 graphic designers and artists and also received the backing of

Tony Benn Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. ...

, radical left-wing MP and activist, who published it in its entirety in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' newspaper. Reacting against a rich and affluent Britain of the 1960s, it tried to re-radicalize a design industry which the signatories felt had become lazy and uncritical. Drawing on ideas shared by

critical theory A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from soci ...

, the

Frankfurt School The Frankfurt School (german: Frankfurter Schule) is a school of social theory and critical philosophy associated with the Institute for Social Research, at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1929. Founded in the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), dur ...

, and the counter-culture of the time, it explicitly reaffirmed the belief that design is not a neutral, value-free process. It rallied against the consumerist culture that was purely concerned with buying and selling things and tried to highlight a Humanist dimension to graphic design theory. It was later updated and republished with a new group of signatories as the

First Things First 2000 manifesto The First Things First 2000 manifesto, launched by ''Adbusters'' magazine in 1999, was an updated version of the earlier First Things First manifesto written and published in 1964 by Ken Garland, a British designer. The 2000 manifesto was signed ...

External links

Text of the First Things First manifesto on Design is History

Published writing by Ken Garland
Art manifestos Design history Graphic design 1964 documents {{art-stub