Manifesto Research - ‘Ten Things I Have Learnt’ by Milton Glaser

1. “You can only work with people you like” - Glaser comments on how all the most meaningful and significant work he has done has been with people on which he regards less with professionalism and more with affection. - I think in an ideal world, we would all do work we love doing, with and for people we enjoy doing it for, however I think its important to realise that this is very idealistic, and certainly at the beginning of ones career, you have to grin and bare it sometimes and take on projects which you perhaps don’t enjoy so much. Glaser was fortunate in the fact that he become such a big name that he could only take on the projects he wanted to 
2. “Never have a job” - For this rule, Glaser cites a radio interview with John Cage, in which Cage is asked ‘How do you prepare for your old age?’ - Cage states ‘Never have a job, and that way no one can take it away from you’. - I think what this rule means is that Cage is referring to a job in a more formal sense, he is talking about a job as a means to ‘put bread on the table’. If you have a job you enjoy and are passionate about, when it comes time to retire from doing it professionally, no one can take it away from you because you can still do it out of pure enjoyment. 
3. “Some people are toxic, avoid them” - This rule comes from the words of Fritz Perls, a gestalt therapist, and it states that in each relationship between any 2 people, one person is toxic and one is nourishing, and Glaser suggests only surrounding yourself with those who are nourishing. I think this is good life advice in general, but doesn’t apply directly to graphic design. One thing I thought however, is if you only interact with people who are nourishing in your relationship, does that not make you the toxic one.
4. “Professionalism is not enough, or the good is the enemy of the great” - Glaser here comments firstly and how he doesn’t like referring to people as ‘creatives’. His main point is that if you’re in a creative field, you cannot be professional because being professional means being efficient and minimising risk, and a creative job requires continuous transgression. While I see what he’s getting at here, I think if you consider professionalism in a more conventional sense, someone in a creative field can be professional.
5. “Less is not necessarily more” - “Just enough is more” - Glaser retorts as he states how the phrase ‘Less is more’ is paradoxical in nature, and is not always true, as it depends on context. 
6. “Style is not to be trusted” - “It’s absurd to be loyal to a style” - The rule here states that because style is always changing, if you want to stay relevant you have to update your style. This point is interesting because as young designers, we try and cultivate our own style and design identity, maybe its true that we shouldn’t be pigeon holed into one style and should be able to experiment how we choose.
7. “How you live changes your brain” - Glaser gives an example of people with perfect pitch, and says how although some people are born with it, a study was carried out which proved that it can actually be obtained by studying music at a young age. He contextualises this within graphic design by saying that constantly drawing makes you m ore visually attentive. I agree with what Glaser says here, obviously the more you do something, the more dexterity you gain in that thing, however it’s interesting to consider the actual physical effects on your brain as opposed to just putting it down to practise.
8. “Doubt is better than certainty” - “Deeply held beliefs of any kind prevent you from being open to experience” - Glaser talks about how important it is to consider other people's ideas and that it’s an important idea when considering the ‘design triad’; Designer, Client and Audience. You need to be able to think from other peoples perspective, especially when considering the audience, and its also important to be able to open to there possibility that someone else is right and you’re wrong.
9. “On Ageing” - “It doesn’t matter… follow this rule and it adds decades to your life”. Again this is gold life advice and as well as meaning you don’t have to worry about ageing, he’s saying you can do whatever you want to do and you don’t have to care about preconceptions.
10. “Tell the truth” - Here Glaser talks about the responsibility that designers have to tell the truth; as the people creating all the visual communication, its important it’s all correct, imagine if someone tasked with creating a road sign lied on it, everyone would get lost, what if a poster advertising a product got the price wrong? - “We can accept certain kinds of misrepresentation, such as fudging about the amount of fat in his hamburger but once a butcher knowingly sells us spoiled meat we go elsewhere. As a designer, do we have less responsibility to our public than a butcher?”.

Study Task 3 - Parody and Pastiche

Hutcheon, an advocate for post-modernism and its application of parody, describes parody as being - ‘usually considered central to postmodernism, both by its detractors and defenders’. Hutcheon describes postmodernism as - ‘a value-free, decorative, de-historicised quotation of past form and that is a most apt mode for a culture like our own that is oversaturated with images’. Hutcheon effectively says that parody is a core element of postmodernism, and while the values of modernism align with the following of specific rules, integrity of communication and information and originality, postmodernism does not follow these values so closely, and instead strives more towards decoration and communication of a certain message which often does mean a subversion of something prior to it. Fundamentally, postmodernism is the act of not being afraid to step on anyones toes. The idea that it is a ‘most apt mode for a culture like our own that is oversaturated with images’ is very astute, Hutcheon is commenting on the fact that our culture is so oversaturated, that perhaps that means that true originality is hard to come by and that so many things are a parody whether its intentional or not. 

Ultimately parody is by no means a bad thing, and does not represent the death of originality, Paula Scher’s advertisement for Swatch watches is a good example; It is an obvious replication of Herbert Matter’s advertisements for the Swiss Tourist Board from 1934, but it is that obvious replication that she uses as an attention grabbing tool and satirical reference. She is not trying to pass off Matter’s work as her own. So really, the act of parody is the act of referencing/acknowledging prior work, and any example of someone doing this in order to steal the idea or pass it off as their own, is not truly parody. 

Jameson describes pastiche as - ‘like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. But it is a neutral practise of such mimicry, without any of parody’s ulterior motives, amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter’. Jameson see’s the transition from modernism to postmodernism as a bit of a fall from grace, he talks about how modernists used to have distinct ‘inimitable’ styles and now ‘modernist styles…become postmodernist codes…’. Perhaps this ties in well with what Hutcheon describes as an ‘over saturation of imagery’ in our culture, however while Hutcheon see’s postmodernism as a solution, Jameson see’s it as the problem. Ultimately when Jameson talks of parody, he talks of imitation for the sake of imitation, void of humour or any reason, very close to plagiarism really. 

An example of the pastiche Jameson talks about is in these 2 advertisements for beer, one for Asahi and one for Kirin, the one for Asahi having come first. Clearly these 2 beers are competitors so it’s not like Kirin have parodied something culturally signifiant for effect, they have literally replicated the advertisement for it’s aesthetic quality.