Last Friday, Thoughtful were invited to join a presentation on manifestos given by Ken Garland, to a group of first year students at the LCC.

Despite a few stutterings and James’ sausage fingers, we managed to get through it. Ken Garland on the other hand was flawless.

He did most of his presentation, not from the stage but from the centre isle of the lecture theatre. He was able to move up and down the room speaking to about 200 students, in what felt a very intimate presentation. By far the biggest highlight of Ken's presentation was when he spoke about the Ply-Tech Junior Chair which he designed for Galt Toys.

The idea is brilliantly simple. The chair would be sold to schools and local parish halls where space is a premium. Each day the teacher would come in and ask the children to build their own chairs, and then take them apart at the end of the day...just imagine the scene.

Watching Ken Garland taught us a few lessons in the art of public speaking, and it was an experience we'll always remember. When it came time for Thoughtful to present, Ken Garland sat in the very chair he made an hour earlier.

We don't feel particularly well qualified to talk about Ken Garland, or his work but this would be an opportunity wasted if we didn't make any students (or designers) reading this post aware of his career and his work.

It's fair to say Ken Garland is a legend of design, he is one of the great British designers with a career spanning 5 decades.

He studied art and design in the early 50's at Central School of Art and Crafts where he was in a group of students who would go on to become the second generation of British graphic design. His peers included Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes and Ivor Kamlish among others. Ken was appointed as the art editor of the Design Council’s Design magazine from 1956-62, after which he set up his own company, Ken Garland & Associates, which he continues to run.

Ken Garland has produced many striking pieces of work for political and social causes, such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. As well as designing the corporate identity (and many games) for Galt Toys.

He is best known for writing the historic First Things First manifesto, which he read out at the Institute of Contemporary Arts on an evening in December 1963. A manifesto which met with a prolonged applause and the signature of 21 other visual communicators.

The First Things manifesto called for a ‘reversal of priorities in favour of the more useful and more lasting forms of communication’.

Some of you may have noticed the signatories are in reverse order, alphabetically. Ken told us, this is because he wanted Edward Wright, who was a well-established and respected figure at the Central School to lead the list.

In 1999 the manifesto was redrafted, after Canadian magazine Adbusters had come across First Things First in a back issue of Eye ('There is such a thing as society' by Andrew Howard, no. 13 vol. 4). They felt its sentiments had become 'more, rather than less relevant'. And, jointly published (with 33 signatories) the ‘First Things First Manifesto 2000’, with Emigré, the AIGA Journal, Eye, Blueprint, Items and Form.

To mark the talk, we designed (or un-designed) a poster which Ken Garland individually signed. We think it's a pretty neat idea: a signed manifesto poster.

And, being a young practice keen to show the creative community what we can do, we thought the 'signed manifesto poster' would make an interesting competition entry. But quite quickly after all the 'high-fives', we stopped and took a long hard look at what we were doing. Isn't entering THIS poster at odds with the whole idea of design competitions - given that the speaker wrote the historic First Things First manifesto?

Shouldn't we be using our skills and talents for pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills? Hmmm.

Of course, the answer is 'yes', but on the whole we share design critic and author Steven Heller's view that 'graphic designers can make a big noise, but they have limited power'. That is by no way an excuse for us to avoid self-critique, we just feel it takes co-operation from all sides, Designer / Client / Government for us to produce more worthwhile forms of communication. It also a question of us balancing our commercial work with work that falls into the charity, ethical and cultural sectors, something which isn't so easy to do.

So, would we sign the First Things First manifesto? No. (Well, not just yet.) Not that we don't agree with its message - but it’s easy to sign a document. We think we need to prove ourselves first.

It would appear Ken Garland's First Things First manifesto is doing its job again by igniting a debate (in our studio, at least).

We're very keen to hear your thoughts on the First Things First manifesto and First Things First Manifesto 2000. So whether you're a student seeing this for the first time. Or a designer who thinks nothing has changed for fourty-four years, please leave a comment.

Thoughtful would like to thank:

Anna Gerber for inviting us to talk. Anna is currently developing a new book entitled Another Green World: Graphic Design and Green Issues, to be published by Laurence King in 2009.

Ken Garland for making us think a bit harder our work (and props are always good to have in presentation).

The first year students who attended, especially the five students who stood up and asked some really interesting, and probing questions (please get in-touch).

One last point, for any students attending any future talks or seminars with a speaker like Ken: Walking in late without offering any kind of apology isn’t very thoughtful.