Hasta La Ideas

Noam Chomsky, Alain de Botton, and Errol Morris are not the names one expects to see among the contributors to a journal about graphic design, but Open Manifesto is no ordinary publication. “It’s unlike most other design journals in the world,” says Open Manifesto founder, editor, and publisher Kevin Finn, a veteran of Saatchi Design. “Specifically, it focuses on the intersection of design with social, political, cultural, and economic issues and includes contributions from many significant people outside the design disciplines.” And so critical writing by the likes of Paula Scher and George Lois mingles with the musings of Edward de Bono and ex-CIA operative Larry J. Kolb. The latest issue (#6) is an entertaining, educational, and engaging look at the power of the myth. We seized the narrative-themed moment to ask Finn about his own story. Read on to learn how founding Open Manifesto saved his career as a designer, trends in Australian graphic design, and whose work you might see in a future issue.

1. How did Open Manifesto come about?
To be honest, I had been thinking of the idea for about eight years before I decided to finally go ahead and do it [in 2003]. So why did it take so long? Well, to start with I didn’t think I was qualified to produce anything like Open Manifesto, considering I was not a writer, an editor, a journalist, or a publisher. But I have a very curious mind, so–for better or worse–I figured that was qualification enough. But there were two specific turning points that led to creating Open Manifesto.

The first was when I was Joint Creative Director of Saatchi Design, Sydney. We were staging an exhibition of our work inside the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, partly for our clients and partly to further explain what we did to our advertising colleagues. At the time, we were fortunate enough to have also won a D&AD Yellow pencil. So I was standing in this room, surrounded by what we considered to be our best work and having just returned from London with a Yellow Pencil. I was 29, and I felt surprisingly empty. I asked myself: Is this it? Is this the height of what we do–take a brief, come up with a good idea, design something well, hope to win an award… take a brief, come up with a good idea, design something well…etcetera. I saw a hamster wheel of repetition ahead of me and, considering I had achieved way more than I had ever, ever expected by age 29, I decided perhaps I needed to leave the industry and learn something new.

But the alternative was just as interesting and challenging. I decided to question what it is that I do, and to question it deeply. That meant looking at how creative people in society think, which ultimately leads them to what they ‘do.’ I was interested in the ‘why’ and also in the connections between things. Most projects that a designer gets involves some aspect of research. But due to circumstances the research is narrow and myopic, simply because it needs to directly relate to the business, client or topic at hand. Open Manifesto allows me to pursue wider and deeper research and–to be honest–it saved my career as a designer.
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