Starting the Manifesto
Our final project was to create a manifesto stating our personal or professional rules. Typography, words and layout are the primary areas that we will be focusing on. I was determined to not make an enormous workload for myself, learning from the lessons of the previous two projects.
I decided to write my manifest as quickly as possible so that I could start developing ideas fro how to present it:
Now Think
Are you still creative?
That’s a good start, but do you have any money?
Excellent, have you made something for yourself recently?
Get you, have you researched these ideas and tested them?
Most impressive, have you considered the longevity of this creation?
Sounds like you’ve got too much time on your hands, can you finish this project?
Too good to be true, I don’t believe it and you probably don’t either. Are you feeling content?
Are you sure?
Let’s try something different. Have you reached beyond the confines of your desk and shared these ideas with enthusiasm to a wider audience that might benefit from your creations?
Someone thinks they’re cool. Beat this. When you received feedback from your creations, did you demand useful criticism that might help you expand your creative practice, even if you think that criticism is stupid (hint: it probably isnt)?
Running out of ideas now, that probably means you are too. Have you considered going for a walk?
Avoid looking at the work of others, it’s a losing battle. Forget trying to contend with a literal world of creatives. Put a water bottle in a bag and walk up a hill, if you can’t do that then just walk. You probably need to take it further. Put a tent in your bag and walk into a forest, camp in it. Chuckle to yourself as it’s raining and miserable that you’d rather be anywhere else and nowhere else at the same time.
Now think.
Think as you walk into the woods, up the hill, over the field, through the village, over the moor. Let your head do the work. If it wants to replay the same irritating image over and over again, then let it. Let it turn endless content consumption into the same irritating image over and over again, at least it doesn’t have ads. Let your think find the chink.
Think as you think about thinking about thinking that maybe it is time to stop thinking and start doing. No I don’t mean jump to action and start creating, I mean you’re hungry and cooking food in a tent is a faff. Put away your tent in the morning, cry inside as your fingers freeze and laugh out loud when you fall over. Now go home, you’ve done your thinking and doing. Maybe you should consider 一
The initial idea was that the reader would ask themselves these questions of growing difficulty, at any point if they answered ‘no’, they would be taken to the section about going for a walk – a method I use to kick start my creative thinking.