As a Graphic Design student, I find myself day dreaming about my future identity. What kind of work will I be doing? Will it benefit society? Will I challenge the social norm and work with continuous passion? This week marks my first month in the Seattle Central Graphic Design program, and it has already begun to make radical changes in my life. I am challenged daily to think in new ways and have made it a personal mission to put everything else aside to succeed.
I came across Dan Friedman’s 12 point modernist agenda, which still rings true today even though it was written 20 years ago. While reading AIGA’s article: “‘Be Radical:’ Dan Friedman’s 12-point Modernist Agenda Still Utterly Relevant after All These Years,” I could not help but hope to keep these points as guidelines for my future career.
1. Live and work with passion and responsibility; have a sense of humor and fantasy.
2. Try to express personal, spiritual, and domestic values even if our culture continues to be dominated by corporate, marketing, and institutional values.
3. Choose to remain progressive; don’t be regressive. Find comfort in the past only if it expands insight into the future and not just for the sake of nostalgia.
4. Embrace the richness of all cultures; be inclusive instead of exclusive.
5. Think of your work as a significant element in the context of a more important, transcendental purpose.
6. Use your work to become advocates of projects for the public good.
7. Attempt to become a cultural provocateur; be a leader rather than a follower.
8. Engage in self-restraint; accept the challenge of working with reduced expectations and diminished resources.
9. Avoid getting stuck in corners, such as being a servant to increasing overhead careerism, or narrow points of view.
10. Bridge the boundaries that separate us from other creative professions and unexpected possibilities.
11. Use the new technologies, but don’t be seduced into thinking that they provide answers to fundamental questions.
12. Be radical.