17th Mar 2011 6:00pm-8:00pm
Sallis Benney Theatre
Design Paradigms was the Faculty of Arts' public lecture series organised by the Design Research Institute. The series focused on the theme of sustainability to explore models of design practice. Each lecture was by a leading designer. Design is an intrinsic part of our contemporary visual and material culture. Design engages with everyday life, both practically and philosophically.
Ken Garland completed his studies in Graphic Design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London in the 1950s. He was the Art Editor of Design magazine from 1956–62, when he left to establish his own graphic design studio, Ken Garland and Associates. Among his many clients were Galt Toys, Race Furniture, The Butterley Group, William Heinemann, Paramount Pictures, Harper & Row, Otto Maier Verlag, The Science Museum, Cambridge University Press, The Ministry of Technology, Jonathan Cape, The Arts Council, The Royal Parks Agency, and the Barbican Gallery. Ken Garland is a Visiting Professor at the University of Brighton.
Ken Garland published the First Things First manifesto 1964. It was backed by over 400 graphic designers and artists and also received the backing of Tony Benn, radical left-wing MP and activist, who published it in its entirety in The Guardian newspaper. Reacting against a rich and affluent Britain of the sixties, it tried to re-radicalise design which had become lazy and uncritical. 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 has since been updated and republished with a new group of signatories as the First Things First 2000 manifesto.
Sustainability has an awful lot to say about what we shouldn't do, but where are the positives? Ken Garland’s lecture was entitled 'How About Some Do’s?'
