Melanie, of brushstroke.tv points me to more writings by Jessica Helfand. This Manifesto was originally published in Eye Magazine 10:38 (Winter 2000), and makes some very strong statements about the role of design, the importance (self-importance) of design and other issues in New Media.

My favorite quote is, "Information Architecture is Not Architecture. ...My view then was the same as now: as long as we’re choosing new titles, I’d like to change mine to “brain surgeon.” Much as we’d prefer to think otherwise, design, unlike architecture (and for that matter, brain surgery) remains an industry in which one need not—indeed, can not—be certified to practice. Architecture is architecture, information be damned. What we design, as novel and revolutionary as it might seem at the time of our designing it, is still just design. Simply stated: Graphic design is probably not going to kill you if it falls on your head."

This simple statement does alot to push the air out of the self importance and fluffiness that we have been making of IA. While what we do is important - to our companies, to our clients, it is not rocket science.

The Manifesto goes on to make more interesting points and refers to other interesting manifestos throughout the course of art and design history. As always, we have much to learn from our predecessors. I have to wonder what would MY manifesto say? Who else would agree with it? Would anyone notice? Would anyone else sign it and uphold these beliefs?

Other manifestos:
the dadaist manifesto
the surrealism manifesto
dada and surrealist texts
futurist manifesto
cluetrain manifesto
Bruce Sterling's Manifesto

Comments

/matt

Oh, oh.. one more. Bruce Mau's An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. My five cents :)