Design: Another backlash candidate?

In other backlash news, ad agency Butler, Shine’s blog Influx Insights posts about “the impending design backlash,” citing Icon Magazine. The August issue of Icon Magazine includes 50 (!) “manifestos” from critics, architects, and designers. A few are pretty crabby, mostly the first two, from Peter Saville (“Creativity has become part of the business of social manipulation.” “Much of the work being done now lacks meaning and the designers know it.” Etc.) and Jasper Morrison:

Design, which used to be almost unknown as a profession, has become a major source of pollution. Encouraged by glossy lifestyle magazines and marketing departments, it’s become a competition to make things as noticeable as possible by means of colour, shape and surprise…

Elsewhere the magazine suggests “Why Design Needs a Recession.” Listing a variety of design/marketplace problems and complaints, the magazine says: “Design is in a decadent phase that won’t abate until we are forced to rediscover what it is that we need.”

Fun stuff. On the other hand, it turned out that most of the mini-manifestos were not particularly crabby at all.