First Things First 1964:

This manifesto is interesting because it states, “by far the greatest time and effort of those working in the advertising industry are wasted on these trivial purposes, which contribute little or nothing to our national prosperity.” Garland is referring to such entities as cat food, detergent, cigarettes, etc. I’m sure Garland realized that all of those “trivial purposes” were contributing the most to national prosperity. (In the monetary sense) I agree with the ideas of the manifesto. During the 1960’s design could have been used in more efficient ways to contribute to national prosperity. (In the educational sense) The problem is: designers can’t shift their priorities if the country itself is not shifting its priorities. If there is a greater demand for advertising cat food than there is for designing educational aids, or periodicals, then designers need to design what is in demand. Actually, that is not entirely true. They can design whatever they wish, however they will only get paid to design what is in demand. This is a difficult topic because it is discouraging and almost pathetic that the country’s priorities are geared more towards commercial needs than to educational or cultural needs. As a designer, one must ask themselves, “Do I want to design as a career, or do I want to design to change the world?” Yes, there are more worthy purposes for visual communications, but designers are not politicians, or members of the government. They can’t change what is in demand at the time (in this case commercial design) so this manifesto is more of a plea to the country to change its priorities, which hasn’t happened and sadly will not happen from what one can see in the First Things First Manifesto 2000.