was the internet a mistake?

a coin flip for salvation.

My brother once said to me that the internet either saves a person or ruins a person.

Naturally for me there existed a strong pushback against that sentiment, being born in 99’ and one of the first generations fully immersed in the internet from childhood onwards, I’d always felt that the internet was something of a faithful companion; something I couldn’t live without.

Through a childhood in the mountains of Appalachia and a family with more issues than times magazine, it’s easy to say that spending time at a computer was my own personal means of escape. Not wanting to really engage with many of the people around me, I jumped on the early internet surfboard and found myself meeting and interacting with people globally who I often found way more interesting than those who I met in my real life.

Now, I realize it’s because the coinflip resulted in heads, and I was one of the people who found themselves saved.

But did the internet really save me?

Or has it done more harm than good in the years since I’ve watched it grow alongside me?

Connected In The Age of Convenience
Or; How Convenience Becomes a Form of Burnout.

If you were to ask most people my age whether they like the internet or not, I’m sure you’d find that most have a fairly positive perception of it. To many, the internet has brought simply too many good things to be ignored. And who could blame them? Memes, communities, online safe spaces, and mass access to information all have become someone’s favorite part of the newly formed online culture.

The sheer convenience of checking when a store is open or closed, having anything you need shipped right to your front door, finding a restaurant on Google Maps, or learning a new craft such as leatherworking by having a professional walk through their processes on the screen. It’s true that all of these have contributed to a greater accessibility of knowledge and added to the list of the new innovations provided by modern technology.

But what we see as the internet now lives in stark contrast to the internet I found myself surfing when I was younger. The modern internet feels as if it is an empty husk of what used to be flourishing user-created communities and content. Forums for niche subcultures and topics connected like-minded individuals in what felt like a more involved process, where even the design of a website could feel unique.

Instead, what is felt, is an internet meant to serve the uses of a modern technocratic world. Old user-made forums now find themselves replaced with social media run by billion dollar corporations, the lines of subcommunities blurred by algorithms and hashtags.

This homogenization of online communities has led to what feels like a Library of Babel, the user is flooded with so much new information that it becomes overstimulating, and growing acquainted to this constant overstimulation creates effects such as “doom scrolling,” a modern term referring to a person’s inability to stop themselves from continuously scrolling through an endless sea of posts and wasting often hours of the day.

Included and heavily contributing to this library of Babel is the advent of modern generative AI for both images and language.

How can the user begin to examine reality when realities lines are blurred and indecipherable, and when nearly everything you interact with on the internet is or could be, in some form, fake?

This carelessness about the shape of the internet’s cultural form has significant implications for severe Blowback in the future. The amount of traffic the internet sees from both non-human and human users alike is accelerating the planet towards a grim picture of the future. Modern AI models are highly inefficient, leading to rapid carbon emissions and water consumption, just so a user may ask if it’s okay to add eggs to an omelet.

To make things worse, literacy rates across America have continued to significantly decline, leaving the average adult reading at or around a 4th grade reading level, and only 28% of adults on average read at least one book a year. This is no doubt because of the constant ingestion of media which offers little to no challenge for a person’s mind.

Internet used to be an escape,
now the escape is reality.

According to a theory that exists on the internet called the “Dead Internet Theory,” the internet as we used to know it died in or around 2016. This is because at that moment, half of the entire traffic of the internet was no longer human, whether it was “good” bots which monitored the internet’s status and did quick maintenance, or“bad” bots such as spammers, hackers, and other programs with malicious intent.

The fact that this estimate took place in 2016 is the most fascinating part, as now almost 10 years later, it’s impossible to know just how much of the internet’s traffic is human anymore, as entire social networks are filled with accounts entirely built on emulating a convincing human. All so these accounts can leave falsified positive reviews for products, sell generated content through advertisements, or to inflame communities and participate in culture wars on social media.

Now putting aside the conspiracy parts of the Dead Internet Theory, it really does beg the question of how and why we’ve allowed the internet to come to this point. What has been formed within this new emergent culture?

Perhaps an unhealthy diet for the consumer of these online tools.

Has it created a crave for convenience and shortcuts?

A desensitization to “spam” and low-effort content?

A lack of care for the contents’ intentions and consequences?

This is of course only naming a few potential issues.

The vast majority of online users may say they couldn’t live without the internet, but even if this is said in irony, the fact is it really might be true.

And thus, we arrive at burnout.

What makes us stare at our phones screens and swipe away the hours, ingesting an overwhelming amount of information, but somehow peeling away from this addiction and barely able to remember a single video?

It’s really a curiosity, mostly because I myself know exactly how terrible or bad it is for me, and yet I still find myself accidentally endlessly scrolling through YouTube shorts, the time flying nearer to my morning alarm.

Byung-Chul Han describes in his book “The Burnout Society”, a society which is hyperactivity aware of their own burnout and still yet participates in this exhaustion and tiredness willingly. This society is guided by the ideas of firm meritocracy and achievement, where one compares themselves to everyone and everything based on their own achievements vs. those they observe. The result of this is that every person gets tired in complete isolation, unable to speak about their tiredness and unable to see others’ tiredness as well.

What Byung-Chul Han is speaking on here is not a form of tiredness that comes from failing to pushback against tasks or responsibilities, or from other external factors, but instead an exhaustion formed from overextending your own identity and ego. It is an “overidentification with too many tasks.” Which have already been internalized.

My interpretation of “overidentifying with too many tasks” through the lens of the internet is simple. Everytime we see someone who we have deemed as successful or happy, our rigorous internalized critique of ourselves begins. “I am the same age as this person, why do I not have a home of my own, a successful freelance studio, the money, the fame…” and through this comparison, we become both frustrated with our own selves and accomplishments, and we begin to burnout.

Where the internet, and namely, social media comes into this is that it brings to the user more of these successful depictions algorithmically because of a culture built on “meritocracy,” views, money, watchtime, popularity, successful business, mercedes benz with a 2k gold chain. When a culture becomes purely commodified, one will find themselves inadequate for not having anything they see someone else have. A case of our highly individualist culture rearing its ugly head.

And because we see so much success in these strangers online, packed into short form content where every 10-60 seconds a new envy is unlocked, we simply want to do everything. We over-identify with too many tasks, and when we fail to meet the results we wished for, we feel as if we aren’t doing enough and need to work harder. We internalize the problem.

I’m not immune to this, in fact you’ll find the topics of this packet are entirely because I am currently attempting to bring myself back from the edge of this exhaustion.

Internalizing the problem here is a key issue because we are attempting to internalize something which is, more often than not, not at all our fault in the first place. By making the source of the problem ourselves, we ignore a thousand separate factors on why we couldn’t accomplish a certain idea. (For example, we feel we haven’t saved enough money or worked hard enough to own a house, but ignore the state of the housing market and economy which prevents us from owning a home at a young age while hammered with student debt and grocery costs. Is it really our fault we can’t save money in the first place?)

This goes as deep as the notion of laziness itself, something which was born out of a capitalist culture which demanded labor and work from us. The true idea of laziness does not really exist, and instead is the culture of “not doing enough” crawling back into our internal critique of ourselves.

Byung Chul-Han also tackles the case for the importance of idleness and meditation in our lives in Viva Contemplativa. He argues that idleness is necessary in our lives (and by that, he means true idleness, not the modern notion of hyper-stimulation through constant exposure to new or old media.)

Perhaps we need to downsize.

Human society was never meant to be as large as we have come to be, in Ecology of Freedom by Murray Bookchin, he argues that humans have subverted first nature, which is the concept of nature in its original or untampered state, and instead have created what he calls second nature.

While this statement might be considered obvious, something I often think and question as an anarchist is how things have managed to not only form into this configuration of society, but also how we have successfully been convinced that any other form of society is impossible. It’s only natural to push back against criticism of what you’ve seen as the default since you were born, but there comes a point where the denial of alternatives becomes more intention than subconscious.

Now imagine taking the entirety of the world and putting it into a convenient box that is always carried in your pocket. It’s simply too much, the system is beyond its load capacity both in an individual and collective sense.

It’s quite possible that the very fact that the internet was kept in smaller pockets and communities across individual websites and forums was the glue keeping everything together. Now that social media has taken the place of that glue, the house of cards is falling down with not much intervention.

Stepping outside of the internet in this case, I believe that this is also necessary in non-digital society as well. Humans as a species have always done better through small communities which form trades and other exchanges with each other. It’s not that a better society on a massive scale is impossible, as it most assuredly is, but it certainly becomes much more difficult to maintain each person’s individual needs when you are actively attempting to factor in 300 million, for example.

This massive online connectedness has instead led to a culture of loneliness, where we may have most people in the world at our fingertips, yet have never felt more alone. Solid proof of this is the covid-19 pandemic which spread throughout the world in the 2020s, as we all were locked within our homes and unable to leave, those who could spent almost all of their time online to attempt to replace their previous social lives.

Instead, most people found themselves feeling depressed and disconnected, even with all of their friends a phone call away.

So, Was The Internet Good For Us?

Possibly? Maybe?

Definitely not. Yet Definitely?

The internet has gone through so many shapes and forms since its inception only a short time ago, and it’s really impossible to say exactly where it’s going. Being a hopeless optimist, I would like to say that we can come back from all this and make the internet a good place again.

The internet was created so that techies could share code and access databases online. Then, it became an open source wild west, maybe even a society of thriving anarchism, as the lack of rules formed many communities and cultures.

Even the design of the time was extremely experimental and fun, it was a different era.

One could say it stands to reason that the internet was probably not good for us. Just like Icarus to the sun or the researchers of Babel, our endless want for knowledge can often be our undoing.

At the same time however, it doesn’t take too long of a search to find the well of amazing and wonderful things we’ve managed to create because of it. I certainly wouldn’t want to give away my days as a kid playing minigames in online games like Garry’s Mod and Runescape, finding friends in digital cities like Chernogorks in Dayz, or telling stories and sharing laughs in Counter-Strike surf lobbies.

Now I realize that I was simply “failing upwards,” to try to put an expression to it. I was lucky. I interacted with the good communities, found nice people, had great times, and learned a lot of life lessons on being part of a community and being good to the people around me. I think I came out alright given my youth was filled with a lot of problems.

I managed to be saved by the internet.

For every kid like me, there were others who fell into alt-right pipelines and became hateful. Others who were relentlessly bullied, and that didn’t stop in digital or physical spaces. Others who were exploited or fell prey to many scams and schemes. Others who found themselves influenced by rampant “incel” culture.

Others who were ruined by the internet.

It’s no exaggeration to say that I view these times with such nostalgic senses, but everywhere I go I hear less of my story and more of those who are ruined. It leaves me conflicted, like I experienced something special that nobody else really got to be a part of, and it’s sad that this era is gone now. Kids on the internet or gaming now are met with a consumerist culture.

Buy Buy Buy.

Skins, trash-talk, competitions,

and $20 Fortnite gift cards.

If you asked me 10 years ago if I’d ever hate the internet, I’d probably have said no.

“There’s no way I could hate all this!” I would say surrounded by an old Dell PC and a messy room, “Just look at all the fun I’m having!”

I would have never expected to become so anti-technology as I grew, but as I said before, maybe it’s not me that’s changed all that much, but instead what I watched grow alongside me all these years.

Untitled, Unventured, Unknown

What do you do when something is both,

when there are so many nuances and complexities?

When it can cause so much damage,

but also bring so much happiness?

Do you cut the cord and count your losses,

knowing that there’s some who might never find their escape?

Or do you leave it be,

hoping one day it improves?

Will it ever grow to be a utopia,

one which we always dreamed of?

Or will we continue to exhaust everything we have,

in pursuit of that utopian dream?

design without hierarchy

wha

t

could

de sign

wit hout

hier archy

lo ok

    like?

But wait, maybe we’re thinking about this wrong? Would an anarchist attempt to create a form of visual design without hierarchy, or is it that hierarchy itself is intrinsic within the eyes of those who perceive art? 

Is visual hierarchy actually the problem in which a young anarchist designer might find themselves at odds with?

Hierarchy, especially that of visual hierarchy, still exists within most work. What an anarchist in the design field might be more interested in working against is the organized structure or hierarchy that is used authoritatively to create power imbalance. Rather than viewing design as a system without hierarchy, perhaps we should view it in which we attempt to make the act of designing a more democratic process for those involved?

When I first set out with this question, I remember being asked the question “What would it look like if you designed a book without hierarchy?” At first, I was entertaining the idea of how that could be done. Would said book have the same font size throughout? Maybe it was done in all lowercase? Maybe it played with color to replace traditional hierarchical form?

Yet something was nagging at me, that this question, although a fun thought experiment, wasn’t getting to the bottom of the nature of my thoughts and work in this space. I started to view the question as a fundamental misunderstanding of anarchistic thought and narratives, no doubt due to society’s current lens on the “anarchist” as a violent or subversive force for radical change.

Thomas Pulliam says this about Anarchy’s modern perception in his 2021 article “Anarchy Against Hierarchy”,

Moving forward is impossible unless we learn each other’s language. In spite of all our similarities, all our shared wants and concerns, misunderstanding convinces us we are enemies. Emma Goldman wrote, “Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think. The widespread mental indolence, so prevalent in society, proves this to be only too true.” Words with multiple definitions that change drastically according to context, group, and setting—like anarchy, communism, nihilism, etc.—contribute to this discord. When most people hear “anarchy”, they will often imagine violence and refuse to listen. This hostility frustrates the anarchist, who views it in terms of cooperative, horizontal living.

In saying so, Thomas concludes that the most common agreement that you can find among anarchists is that our theory would generally be more popular if only it wasn’t so tragically misunderstood.(1)

I can’t help but agree with this sentiment as I hear the word Anarchy uttered in reference to chaos, conveniently ignoring the mountains of work created by anarchism and anarchist-adjacent modes of thought that announce a profound form of equality, peace and community not unlike the original configuration of human society.(2)

This isn’t to say that violence is absent in the arsenal of the Anarchist, but instead a challenge of understanding what situations might have caused such violence to have arisen in the first place. For my modern understanding of Anarchist Theory, I find that violence in this sense nearly entirely surfaces as a reactionary attempt to halt some form of oppression or restriction of another’s freedom.

This could take the form of a protest against the unjust killing of a black man, or as a fight against the restriction of rights, and yes, even as the attack on a person spouting hateful and damaging ideology. Yet this form of anarchy which is often misappropriated by media outlets and misconstrued as radical violence or even terrorism.(3)

But, in a world where oppression by the hands of power did not exist, would Anarchists simply disappear?

The answer to that question, of course, is no!

Taking this necessary yet reactionary form of violence within Anarchy away from the modern lens, ironically, would allow Anarchism to be seen and understood as its true form as the advocation of a lifestyle focused on the basis of personal autonomy, equality, freedom, and the flattening of all hierarchy in societal action.

Yet it seems that this form of “anarchist design” is absent within the lexicon of both the canon of design and of design history. Relegated to being simply considered a subset or part of the punk aesthetic, or represented by splotchy paint and the symbolic letter “A” hurriedly sprayed along the underpass of an American highway.(Fig. 1, pictured left)

Where are the Anarchist designers at? Surely there must be more representation than posters from the Spanish Civil War era?(Fig. 2, pictured below)

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Fig. 2.1

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Fig. 2.2

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Fig. 2.3

This emptiness is particularly felt within the academic space, where I commonly find the same classic misunderstandings among fellow designers I am in community with. The negative connotations associated with the term Anarchism alone has caused some to even suggest attempting to find new rhetoric or identifiers to replace the usage of “Anarchy.”

To replace and censor in this sense would, in my opinion, go against the very idea of the subversive nature of my goal as an anarchist within this design space.

This is why we’ve arrived at the first volume of “Unsolicited Design”, and in this section we will inspect anarchy from differing perspectives to answer the question;

Where are the anarchist designers?

The Elephant In The Room

Addressing uncomfortable truths;

I think it’s important to note in this conversation that due to the nature of the design field in its current state, that is, a highly consumerized and commodified field centered around brands and advertising, that the prominent presence of graphic designers with active knowledge of anarchic theory is unfortunately uncommon.

It’s hard to imagine that many of the artists within this bubble would willingly choose to participate in the field of art which is essentially the most close to capitalism in its modern usage.

This is not an admittance of defeat, however, as I choose to believe that Graphic Designers may exist without the need of markets and profit margin. This is simply a thought that crosses my mind when wondering aloud, “Where are the Anarchist Designers?”

This is reflective even in myself as well, as I gathered and bolstered my political senses and theory, I slowly shifted away from traditional work in the graphic design field. I became uninterested in work for clients and corporations, lost my passion for the design field, and then had to regain that passion once I allowed myself to view design from an entirely different angle.

That led me to the pursuit of education as a means of allowing myself the freedom to both work within the field I’ve dedicated myself to, but simultaneously hoping that my perspective brought to the classroom could change (and hopefully heal) some of the ailments I see so commonly in young, disillusioned designers leaving their undergraduate programs.

This is also reflective of the anarchists focus on individual communities and contributions to small organizations across the world. The collective action of anarchists focusing on contributing art to their causes happens often away from the public eye of the media. This could be for many reasons, a social algorithm that represses anarchistic values, a government keen on keeping collective action hidden, or the grassroots nature of the cause itself, to name just a few.

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Fig. 3 Issue of Anarchy magazine from July 1968, this issue is focussed on the events of May 1968 in Paris.

libcom.org/article/anarchy-089

When searching for modern anarchist graphic designers, typically the results appear very dry. Searching the term “Anarchist Graphic Designers” or any variation will usually yield the following few names repeated; Rufus Segar(Fig. 3), Dennis Gould, Jamie Reid(Fig. 4), Aleksai Gan, Clifford Harper.

Many of these artists have direct ties to what we see as anarchist related design now, ranging from 60s era traditional magazine creation to the album covers of the Sex Pistols. When looking at the body of work created by these artists in their times, it’s easy to see a guiding light which moves from the original roots of constructivism and revolutionary art all the way to the development of modern punk aesthetics.

It’s also impossible not to note Anarchism’s influence on some of the most famous artists discussed today, such as Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat, Man Ray, Robert Henri, Wassily Kandinsky, Rockwell Kent, Frans Masereel, and even Mark Rothko.(4)

Many artists who’ve had this connection to anarchist levels of thought or influence have typically had their anarchistic roots whitewashed for the sake of the narrative being told. Even today we can see the political nature of figures such as Einstein, Orwell, or Martin Luther King Jr. be conveniently changed or left out to teach a more government favored version of our history.(5)

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Fig. 4 Gould designed this poster, based on several of his own poems, during the anti-nuclear protests of the early 1980s. Published by the Freedom Editorial Collective and typeset and printed by Aldgate Press in Whitechapel, 1983.

www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/the-creative-anarchist

However, in this association of Anarchism with these artists, we may find ourselves slowly attempting to categorize these artists into the idea of what anarchist art and design might look like. David Graeber says in his Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology;

…if one compares the historical schools of Marxism, and anarchism, one can see we are dealing with a fundamentally different sort of project. Marxist schools have authors. Just as Marxism sprang from the mind of Marx, so we have Leninists, Maoists, Trotskyites, Gramscians, Althusserians...

Now consider the different schools of anarchism. There are Anarcho-Syndicalists, AnarchoCommunists, Insurrectionists, Cooperativists, Individualists, Platformists... None are named after some Great Thinker; instead, they are invariably named either after some kind of practice, or most often, organizational principle. (Significantly, those Marxist tendencies which are not named after individuals, like Autonomism or Council Communism, are also the ones closest to anarchism.) Anarchists like to distinguish themselves by what they do, and how they organize themselves to go about doing it. And indeed this has always been what anarchists have spent most of their time thinking and arguing about. Anarchists have never been much interested in the kinds of broad strategic or philosophical questions that have historically preoccupied Marxists.(6)

Graeber is speaking here on why there might be more Marxist based thinkers present in the academy rather than anarchist thinkers. Although this writing is not particularly to compare Marxist thought with that of anarchist, I see a value in bringing this up when speaking on what an anarchist designer who is present in the academy(other than myself) might be thinking.

The Neoliberal Punk

So do Anarchists even have a “style?” 

Immediately you may be drifting off to The Clash’s London Calling album cover (Fig. 5), diving into cut out text, gritty pattern work, handmade illustration, and poppy colors. When we think of the stereotypical idea of the traditional school punk, a rebel in leather who does graffiti and hates authority, is it correct to call them an anarchist?

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Fig. 5 Clash (Musical group). London Calling. New York, NY

Epic Records, 1979.

This is especially present now, where media literacy is at an all time low. A teen within the city may spraypaint the anarchist A on a wall. Then, putting on their store bought pre-patched leather jacket(an example of anarchist patches found across the internet) and studded jeans, they will go to a party and tout their punk and anarchy. Meanwhile, said person may have absolutely no idea why the punk movement even started in the first place, or the historical significance of the circled A they drew earlier. Have they ever visited the Anarchist Library and read theory? Likely not, yet it does not stop them from calling themselves Anarchists.

So no, the school punk isn’t any more anarchist than the average school student if they lack the knowledge and theory of what makes anarchism work. What I’m describing here is the illiterate use of symbols, or essentially, a neoliberal understanding of Anarchism. The chasing of “punk” and “anarchy” as an aesthetic over an actual political theory.

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Fig. 6.1, By Seth Tobacman

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Fig. 6.2, By Clifford Harper

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Fig. 6.3, Unknown Designer, hootenanny.indiemade.com

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Fig. 6.4, Unknown Designer, Chat Noir Class War Patch

We, as designers in the trendy hustle culture of consumerism are no different. When a modern design student logs on to Pinterest in interest of looking for “visual influence”, they may come across a grunge or punk poster design and think “wow, cool.” Next day, they arrive at the critique with a poster highly reminiscent of James Reid’s punk style (Fig. 7), but they have no idea why the poster was made to look that way in the first place.

They have taken an aesthetic shortcut, arriving from point A to C without the process of point B, which is the knowledge and understanding of the history and process behind the design. This part is extremely crucial, yet in my experience almost entirely absent due to the nature of how we work in the digital age.

Unfortunately for us as educators, modern design students want those shortcuts. They want to copy the trends and “good” designs imprinted on them by their professors, make it through college, and get a decent job. To win capitalism.

I’ve talked a lot in the past about the nature of the classroom driven by personal aesthetics, which can be found on my blog, but why am I bringing this up?

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Fig. 7 The artwork for the Sex Pistols’ single God Save The Queen, designed by Jamie Reid. It was designed in 1977, during the height of the punk music scene and in the year of the Queen’s silver jubilee, making it a very topical and controversial piece.

All of these contribute to the cultural understanding of what makes an anarchist. When the teen punk touts themself an anarchist, they are directly associating themselves with Anarchism and, by extension, creating a cultural image of what an anarchist is. When they make a mistake or commit a crime in their youth such as vandalism (through graffiti, the smashing of windows, or any of said nature) that same image is projected onto all anarchists as violent or vandals, yet most would not even consider the teen an anarchist at all. News and media grapple onto these small stories and blow them up to paint the anarchist as violent. Parents watch the news, teach their children as such, the cultural cycle continues.

The internet reinforces the same ideas, as it can be a space where you can find and interact with real anarchist thought and theory, yet most will find themselves at the surface level, never diving deeper and simply seeing anarchism from the lens of google results and twitter posts.

This extends to the designer who is looking to create something for a project. When searching online for inspiration, they come across an aesthetic that uses blacked out lettering and prints made with older techniques. They like the style, they make the style, they sell the style. Is the style anarchist?

Are they now an anarchist designer?

Who even is an Anarchist Designer?

Okay, but seriously, who even is an Anarchist Designer?

Am I even an Anarchist Designer?

Well, I know Anarchist theory,

I call myself an Anarchist, and I make designs,

so I guess there’s no question right?

Does that make subverting hierarchy in design a necessity? 

Or would it be more naturally anarchic to simply make whatever I feel like making?

I think the answer lies in that last line. Anarchy is a theory in which every person who identifies with it will come to a slightly different conclusion, something that makes the idea of anarchist communities so beautiful in the first place. Can we really attempt to categorize and bundle anarchist artists together by visual style, or should we instead attempt to focus on bundling them by their belief in anarchism in the first place. As David Graeber says, we are dealing with a fundamentally different form of project.7

Fig. 7 Issue of Anarchy magazine from July 1968, this issue is focused on the events of May 1968 in Paris.

libcom.org/article/anarchy-089

For myself, there is this weirdness in between. I am in love with the visual style of the post-modern punk, the maximalism and grunge aesthetics are like candy for my eyes. Yet, I also love the minimalist look of modern design, the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright (Fig. 8), and even the Swiss style that I learned to use throughout my undergraduate degree. (Fig. 9, 10)

What if I reject those labels, what if I design with hierarchy but against hierarchy? Would it be metamodern?8 Would it be hypocritical? Would I not be practicing the ideals I preach?

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Fig. 8 “08 weingart”,Tübingen, Germany. Kunstkredit 1978/79, 1979, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Poster Collection

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Fig. 9 Beethoven Poster, Josef Müller-Brockmann, 1955

Design Against Hierarchy, With Hierarchy

Wrapping around from the very beginning, what if you design without hierarchy? Although it is most certainly possible to do so, and I see that there may be room for the usage of such tactics in the future, I choose to remain designing with visual hierarchy. I don’t believe this makes me less of an Anarchist at all, in fact, to simply make what I feel like making is the highest reflection of freedom I could give myself.

I choose, out of my own freedom and autonomy, to use hierarchy as the pendulum between the modern and postmodern as my design swings back and forth. It is not a case of the master’s tools.9 I say this because I reject the idea that the master in this case may own our art or design at all in the first place. Designers may be lost in the complex web of capital, but we will break free of these chains one day. 

I believe that, eventually, something beautiful is going to happen.

---

1 - Thomas Pulliam, “Anarchy Against Hierarchy” 2022

2 - “We are usually told that democracy originated in ancient Athens—like science, or philosophy, it was a Greek invention. It’s never entirely clear what this is supposed to mean. Are we supposed to believe that before the Athenians, it never really occurred to anyone, anywhere, to gather all the members of their community in order to make joint decisions in a way that gave everyone equal say?”
- David Graeber, “Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology”

3 - US Government Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a bill in 2023 which would deem the organization “ANTIFA” a domestic terrorist organization and would permit “the use of all available tools to combat the spread of such terrorism (done by) antifa.” This, of course, is an attempt at silencing the voice of the anarchist-based organization and its outreach as a form of government control. (https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-resolution/202)

4 - Josh MacPhee and Erik Reuland, Realizing the Impossible: Art against Authority
(Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2007). Page 4.

5 - “They attempt to silence his cries for a more monetarily equitable society. They deliberately obscure the final few years of his life. This sanitized, “white-washed” version of King, presented in everything from children’s textbooks to internet memes, purges the intense radicalism of the strike-leading preacher.” 50 Voices for 50 Years Series, Poverty, Racism, and the Legacy of King’s Poor People’s Campaign.
By Keri Leigh Merritt

6 - David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
(Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2006), Pages 4-5.

7 - David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
(Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2006), Pages 4-5.

8 - The “metamodern” is a form of design that I have done research on before. It is the consideration of what comes after postmodernism, where designers are now finding an intersection between the postmodern and the modern. By oscillating between these two like a pendulum, the metamodern takes advantage of irony and authenticity, fragility and cynicism. This creates a new form of design synthesized out of all of these concepts, one based on empathy and connection.

9 - “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” is a quote by Audre Lorde, a Black lesbian feminist writer and activist. Lorde said this in 1979 at a feminist conference in New York.

logocultism (writing)

The experience of contemporary education in graphic design can often feel like a “Logo Cult,” that is to say that we are taught from a perspective of client based work being the supreme form of design. When in my undergraduate education, focus was placed on each designer's role in the corporate setting.

We were shown examples of the many different studios or agencies creating bright, flashy and vibrant work. Nearly every single studio introduced focused either on freelance client jobs or creating for large name brands both local and international.

Something that always felt off to me was the lack of mention or even perspective towards “real world designers”, those who worked in company structures doing daily jobs such as creating infographics, or those who used their degrees to create endless pamphlets and signage for the corporation they received minimal pay from.

It makes perfect sense to me why most Professors in academia would not like to mention this lifestyle. It wasn’t glamorous, it didn’t support the “American Dream” of stardom, success, and high salaries that many young students enter the field expecting with complete naiveté. 

Instead, we completely ignored the fact that nearly every student in an average class will end up at those boring corporate jobs, if they are even able to find an in-industry job at all. 

It seems most modern academic settings view a students ability in corporate branding as a measure of their value to the field, it is given utmost importance. Classes focus on branding on various different levels: Branding of the self, corporate identity, packaging, and often even more.

We throw out other forms of design careers, cutting off the “fat” in an attempt to bring students up to date in the real world of design. Who dictates what the real world of design even looks like, especially when it is based on the singular individual experience of one teacher? 

When this “real world of design” on offer too often leaves many feeling lost and confused when entering a field completely foreign to their four years of education?

No, instead we are indoctrinated into the Logo Cult.

One day, I was sitting in the corner of the graphic design lab at my university, which I worked for as a monitor to keep the lab clean and open. The lab itself was a small room with a handful of macs, some various printers, and a few cutting workstations. It was decorated with past student work in the form of posters, branding, stickers, etc.

A few students from my cohort came in to work on their books for our publication class, which required that we physically build the books we designed from scratch. Many would complain why we had to do this, citing that the modern design world would never require this level of craftsmanship. 

There was validity in this claim, as most professionally done books would usually be printed at a print shop in bulk order. However, there was also legitimate use of being capable of creating your own prototypes, not to mention the practicality of expanding our abilities and having a new skill at our disposal.

While having a conversation about the class with them, the topic of whether publication design is even useful also came up. One student remarked that her ability to create book layouts was unnecessary, as she would be a logo designer anyways. That meant it didn’t matter if she wasn’t great at making books as long as she could create good logos. Many agreed with this sentiment, viewing publication design as more of a “niche” within the profession.

At the time I found it strange that there was such a pushback against publication, but I always had a bias towards creating books and layouts myself. The irony, however, is that many of those cohorts now work in corporate design fields, and engage with brand guidelines without any say in the branding itself.

There are many other occasions where I’ve had similar experiences of a general denial of design outside of brand identity. It seemed that many undergraduates were entirely convinced that the role of the designer was simply to create brands, and all other forms of design were to support the creation of brand identity.

Typography, for example, was emphasised in many classes. With rigid rules and examples of “good and bad” forms of type. Although the beginnings of typography focused on posters and forms of expression, it seemed type was taught as a means to the end of creating support for a logo or brand identity.

This couldn’t have been more obvious at the end of our undergraduate education curriculum when we arrived at Practicum, where we emulated design studio culture and took on pro bono work in small teams with rigid structures. We used corporate management tools similar to Monday.com, and assigned roles such as “team lead, creative director, and communications manager.”

Playing house like this continued to affirm what the role of designer was in education. Almost every client who flies through the beehive looks for brand work, often because of the fact that it is free which leads them to take the cheap route for the sake of “helping kids.” 

I think the funniest part is that even when working for clients, the teacher gets final say on what designs go through to the client, not even managing to escape the personal aesthetics of the classroom. It becomes a parody of itself, playing out a stage play of idealized client work with a complete disassociation from “real world design.”

If a designer felt as if they wanted to branch out and develop further skills after graduating, perhaps it was because they felt their portfolio was lacking in meaningful projects because of the abundance of rushed projects in undergrad.

So then the designer could turn to online classes and digital platforms such as skillshare and youtube, which a quick search returns results such as Logo Design with Draplin: Secrets of Shape, Type and Color by Aaron Draplin, or the latest video from popular design centered youtube channel “The Futur” ran by Chris Do, Why Most Creatives Will Fail in 2025 (Unless They Learn This) alongside their other videos such as Want YOUR Logo to Stand Out? Watch This Now!

The Logo Cult is all around us, slowly but surely it has taken over every mainstream aspect of our field.

Frankly, I don’t believe the field consigning itself to becoming a factory for the tools of corporate propaganda is really a good look. Why is it that most students aren’t allowed to flesh out or explore their personal journey as an artist until they reach the graduate level? 

Do we really fail to trust young adults with information beyond the rigid conformities of a formal education in graphic design? Why is it the first mention of “place” happens in the graduate level, rather than at the origin point of a new artist's story?

I’ve tackled the idea of whether creativity is dead before, but perhaps the invention of the word creativity itself could have marked the concept for doom. When we’ve distilled our ability and consciousness towards the arts down to skills and attributes to be harvested for personal gain, maybe the rise of the logo cult was inevitable.

Furthering the removal of freedom in education subconsciously, we are actively failing the students who enter our classrooms. As educators, it is our responsibility to show students the joys and fulfillments of the field we teach, and our role in it. However, it is also our responsibility to prepare them for the reality in which they have decided to place their careers. 

It is of utmost importance that we are transparent to them about the failures or problems with design, to show them the branching paths of the career, and to prepare them with the tools to step out into this world with confidence.

We need to correct the way that we teach from a logocultist -centered perspective, the same as we must avoid the eurocentric canons of design history. 

Logocultism is becoming a canon in and of itself.

logocultism (poem)

With digital tools I carve myself

For society to look upon me

The panopticon of social media 

Gazing coldly down, judging my worth

Creativity crushed by consumerism

I navigate through Metamodernity

Without monetary gain I cannot live

I research trends and copy styles

I read metrics to distill my personality

Cutting away pieces with sharp scissors

My worth grows more through followers

I filter my life to appear perfect

With this brand, I become a slave

Oppressed by tools which declare freedom

Born of creativity, dead of design

I am the modern designer

do designers dream of vectored sheep?

A designer gets home, work long and dull

Excitements from the past now forgotten

Instead the thought of bed brings glee

So the designer lay down, sleep drifting

Deadlines pervade this peaceful moment

Even here we must be problem solvers

Begrudgingly awake, the designer counts

In attempt to force about quick rest

Vectored sheep leap along illustrator files

Vaulting over fences of em-dashes

The counting is displayed in Helvetica

A quick glance finds the pen tool outlining clouds

Our designer awakes in cold sweat

They can’t help feel the forming of tears

Spending so much time in love with this field

And now they cannot escape from it

the role of designer

The Designer sits in their comfortable office, happily preparing a Nike advertisement. Never once have they thought about the shoes they happily design for.

The digital png of “Air Max” mens shoes has never had to be produced by human hands. The seams are not real, never sewn by an exploited worker in a factory.

This is nothing out of the ordinary. This is what we have done as designers since the days we first designed. Tools of industry, pens for the ruling class, entities of global consumerism, we have perpetuated capitalism and its systems.

What does an escape from this look like for our Designer?

Will they ever pack up their office and leave, sickened by the company in which they work?

Could they ever make a decision like that without first having the security of a comfortable home and warm food set out for them? 

When that time comes, The Designer notices they are chained to the desk.

Human instinct, the need to break free. The Designer struggles for a while in vain. Eventually they give up. There is a family waiting for them, a good life of comfort and conformity. It’s not like they’ve seen the exploitation firsthand.

Besides, they are just a designer for Nike. It’s not actually the designer who should be held accountable.

The moment of critical thought passes as the machine in front of them hums. The designer rests their hands on the mouse and keyboard, and returns to work.

middletonism, education, and the design field

Previously we established what “Middletonism” could possibly be and defined a manifesto based around my belief systems. When thinking about the design field; how can we incorporate all these beliefs and maintain this level of freedom both within myself as an educator, but also within those who I will be teaching and influencing in the future.

We are born free. All of us.

From the moment we are born into this world, we are free. Acting as authority, society bottles up and compartmentalizes that freedom. Humans are separated by margins, class, race, intelligence, and many other factors. Like an assembly line, we are tagged and marked, ready to move onto the next stage. 

Conditioning starts early, and never stops. In a society where freedom is neutered at birth, I wish to fight to counter that culture. Choice should no longer be taken away from the equation. 

In the lens of myself, I interpret the pursuit of freedom as the escape from the system of capital. I simply want to live while being able to pursue and explore whatever and however I want, without the worry of authoritative hierarchies, the need for money, the stress of paying for what should be rightfully ours, and the fight to live.

In the lens of the educator, I do not wish to force any ideas or concepts onto those who I am teaching. They are free to do and believe as they wish, and if they are interested in exploring further I will be a more than welcoming guide. 

In the classroom, the voices of the students are paramount. 

If they do not like a project, why not change it up? Why not let that student do something entirely different from the class if they wish? Who says we need to stay strict and firm with every person at all times.

Create empathy within each other.

There is a common myth revolving around the belief that people who think like myself are radicalized by politics and other radicalized thinkers around us. Although it is true that we learn from all things around us including propaganda, familial values, social conditions, etc. There is a simple reason for this line of thinking.

Empathy. Basic human empathy.

I did not get “radicalized” by reading leftist leaning literature, in fact I didn’t get to those books until well after. I got “radicalized” by watching bombs fall on innocent children. Is it so extreme in this modern society to feel for someone other than yourself or your family?

When I look to the east and see bombs fall, the south to see hurricanes rampage, the west to see people starving, and the north to see ice caps melt. I looked at the world and the world was crumbling, I wanted to know why. I was angry, I was sad. 

Are you not sad? Are you not angry? Do you not wish to understand why all this is happening?

In an educational setting, I think it’s very important to give a real and accurate depiction of the world these young students are going into to work, live, and possibly make change. 

Slacktivist design projects that leave no deeper meaning other than to pursue a surface level issue for a grade as a sense of validation from your “master” are not welcome in my classroom. If you are pursuing design as activism, actual research and dedication is an absolute necessity.

Reach for a world without constraints.

The cliche of the schooling system is that it teaches you that every person can be whatever they want to be. An astronaut, an engineer, an artist, whatever you wish is within your reach.

Reality, however, tends to disagree.

This illusion of choice ignores the millions of problems the world faces. For every hope and dream students may have rises more issues and constraints. Consider the challenges of an oppressed minority to become an astronaut, let alone the conditions they may have grown up in providing proper education to be allowed to get into a good college. The strings of privilege are thin and hidden, but ever still present.

Realistically, the dream of being whatever you want to be is always going to be myth as long as we live in capital. The system needs its slaves, those working minimum wage to keep the cogs of modern society moving. How ironic to spout these ideals of freedom to the children in which you fully intend to keep working forever; in debt or in grocery stores.

Break down the barriers of capital.

Bridging from the last section, we need to separate our lives from the grips of capital. In this system it is completely understandable to just wish to make a living. To hope to be well off enough that the capitalism pill is a little easier to swallow until retirement.

However that is not the only path, understanding there are other career paths outside of the traditional designer was not something I had the privilege of learning until I got to masters school, so I spent my time learning traditional logo design and publication with the intention of working for a boss or corporation. 

Writing, Art, Activism and all felt infinitely far away.

For students I want to make sure this is understood as an option early. That you can be more than a corporate shoe–shiner with your career. That there are educators, critical thinkers, writers, and more. Students should be taught to be prepared for corporate work (It would be cruel to not teach that and throw them into the field), but also given the opportunity of expanding their personal work and interests.

We must respect the time and freedom of the students. We must recognize that there are issues outside of the classroom that they could be facing. We must recognize that they may be taking 6 other classes and juggling a job out of necessity. We must change accordingly to each student's needs, not push their needs into a mold of our making.

Something not common in the undergraduate space and sometimes lost even on the master level.

Never stop learning; Nobody does.

A common misconception that seems to be present all too often is the idea that the teacher in the classroom is a master, here to impart their knowledge upon the student as a one way relationship. Paolo Friere called this “The Banking Model of Education.”

My major problem with this model is the idea that the teacher as master in this situation believes they can not be wrong, thus creating an environment where students are creating work in pursuit of the personal aesthetics and beliefs of the master. This cuts off creativity in favor of fast reproduction and the chasing of validation.

An educator never stops learning. They are only human as well. They are not the leading authority on the field, they simply spent their time learning to get where they are now. The problem of ego steps in, experience, accomplishment, and age becomes a weapon of infantilization.

This removal of this hierarchy will create issues of course, any change will. However, a classroom without hierarchy may find a greater sense of purpose and education. 

The mental state of students is as important as their careers, and by showing them that we are also vulnerable and cognizant of these problems, we may be able to begin making the world a little better.

Respect and use all forms of media.

Growing up in the age of technology, I recognize that some of the greatest lessons I’ve learned have come from within the digital world. Music, Games, Art, Literature, Manga, Anime, Movies, etc. There is intention and motive behind all pieces created by the hands of humans.

Academia seems to discredit many of these options as sources, seeking only refuge in its traditional means of education through classic literature and the occasional film. Although it’s gotten a lot better now, there’s still possibly a level of the student being uncomfortable with the idea of converting these topics due to a past experience with it.

Every person experiences media differently, some may become extremely deeply immersed in it and start to analyze every part. Even if we fail to understand or lack context, is it right to invalidate their experiences? 

Some people learn better in control of a character rather than reading about them on a page, and that’s a perfectly valid form of learning.

Write to change perspectives.

I was not born to hold a gun. Nor was I born to kill another being. My idea of revolution is a little different, instead I write to bring forth new perspectives and foresights into the world that may help to slowly create change in our field and outside of it.

A lot of the discourse in modern society comes from a lack of understanding. It takes a lot to step into the shoes of another person and see things from their point of view. Once you add the spices of your personal beliefs, a wall is created between you and the other side.

This is not to say that some are beyond mutual understanding. There are times in life where beliefs had to be fought against, such as the rise of fascism in the 1940s. The wave of fascism feels as if it is rising again, and it is truly terrifying.

If I can use my writing and unique perspectives to help change the views of even one reader, then I have accomplished something worth fighting for.

Aim to create personal revolutions.

I want my readers, students, community, friends, and family to walk away with these new perspectives and outlooks on life, and then use that to attempt to the people in their life in a similarly meaningful way. I call these personal revolutions.

In the classroom, these revolutions can come in the form of new ideas and furthering a collaborative effort towards a new, more healthy classroom environment mixing all of the ideas from before. Fostering growth and community among those who I am advising towards their futures. Perhaps change will happen, perhaps something will come out of it all.

Realize that this is not a selfish act.

There exists a feeling of selfishness, or indulgence within the idea of believing both my work and my teaching can have such an impact. Or that I am not just rambling to myself, bitter about the world and hoping desperately for change.

In these moments, I have to let go of these thoughts and remind myself that I am here.

That it is not selfish to act out of self interest when it is not at the expense of another. 

It’s okay to believe in myself and my ability. 

It’s okay to be upset at the systems around me.

It’s okay to talk about subjects beyond the design field. 

It’s okay to make mistakes, to not be perfect.

It’s okay to wish to…

Be Free.

That is the Middleton manifesto. or at least a first draft of it? To claim to ever be finished would be contradictory to the lessons I teach myself. Slowly my point will grow sharper, my words imbued with more direct intention. I am always learning, and I am always attempting to improve.

This is what it means for me to pursue freedom.

“your gift to design”

So we talked in the previous writing about what the idea of “Middletonism” could be, an attempt at defining what makes myself unique in a field where many are doing the same. At my residency in Colorado this past July, I was asked the following question by Natalia; “What do you think the gift you are willing to give to design is?”

I think I took that question a little harshly. I started by simply saying my intentions in the field, donning the mask once again. Suddenly, a clear shift is noticeable, and I start attacking the question itself. I know I’m breaking the rules by sharing this (Natalia asked us not to share our words with others), but comparing it to the writing previously I find it to be very interesting to dissect.

What do you think the gift you are willing to give to design is?

“I want to make people think about the world from new perspectives outside of established canons, through the lens of storytelling and media.

I view many things from a different outside perspective, practicing and studying anarchistic viewpoints, connecting media, music, games, and other stories into the greater narrative of the design ethos. Let's talk about, rather than how I do that, instead how I can start to do that more.

The chemical slurry of designer, anarchist, young video essayist, photographer, multimedia creator, artist, writer, storyteller. I want to acquire those labels for myself as I venture further into VCFA and push myself into a world where I can both make for myself, and simultaneously create value for the world.

I want to entertain, create meaningful discussions, and foster more empathetic and creative thought all wrapped up in a pretty package for the viewer to easily digest. I want to talk about the world and how it operates, and show my students how that work may not be different now, but how it can be in the future.

Let's be honest, living sometimes isn't really the best thing, yet something we have to do. We're born into the world not of our own volition but instead of the choices of others. I think the key factor here then is what we make of this life we've been (forcibly) given.

Many are caught up in the belief that they must give a “gift” to society, that they are in debt to the government or an organization over them for allowing them to live peacefully. I don't follow that train of thought, especially in the context of a capitalist society that requires you to pay into the very idea of being alive in the first place.

It is not selfish, or evil, to want to rest on a beach and watch the waves. It is not selfish, or evil, to expect education and housing to be free. It is not selfish, or evil to want to be free from the chains of currency.

That being said, it is up to you to decide whether you wish to share a gift to society. There is no requirement that you have to. Your work or art can be meaningful to you, instead of others. Not all work has to be for others.

I chose, not of my own volition, but out of necessity. The freedom of choice in modern society is an illusion. I must make monetary gains for my services, I must provide a gift. The question then lies in the nature of our choice and our field, and how we can make the most of our situation and figure out how to live happily in this environment.”

So much here aligns very well with what I said before, but there is a key difference between this and that of “What of Middletonism”; the intention to share.

Without any intention to share this, I let loose and allowed myself to freely speak to what I believed. The mask came off, I realized that in this small moment that I was alone in a room with myself, only echoes ringing out. Yet, like a switch being turned on, these words now come out easily as if they were repressed emotions. I had no intention to share, but now I do, and yet I’m still speaking the same way. In my writing, I do not need the mask.

This small writing I made and my others from that session had me thinking all throughout residency, and as I spoke to my beliefs in the conversations that proceeded that day, I found the filter was loosening more and more. Without that key moment, I don’t think I would have answered “What is Middletonism” the same way, I would have donned the mask and talked on and on about my grandiose intentions and ideas about how my work would be.

When did I let myself become so obsessed with work, when did it become more important to me than my personality, when all I needed to answer was “What do I believe?”

I can feel a clear shift in my attitude with writing now. I know that I used to be so caught up in a pressure that I couldn't explain. Teachers, Friends, Family; I felt as if I needed to become great in every person's eyes. This hasn’t gone away completely of course, it’s only human to hope that others will like you for who you are.

When that want becomes a limiter, stopping you from releasing your true thoughts and feelings into the world, this becomes an entirely different problem. Who cares if someone reads my work and scoffs at the idea, calling me a disillusioned anarchist and throwing out my opinions? I need to realize that this work I am doing isn’t for them in the first place. That I’m working not only for myself, but for those who are open enough to be willing to hear these ideas.

Being genuine is not an easy task, but I feel now more than ever it is a necessity for us as a society. We must shatter our masks and bring down the barriers we have built between us. If we are not able to talk to one another, we will come to the conclusion that we must fight to make society better. There are times when that is in fact necessary, but only as an absolute last resort. Even as an anarchist, I can easily see that.

So what should my gift to design be? What should I willingly give to the design world which I am so conflicted on?

I had a great start in this previous writing, but let my frustrations leak out and take over the question. Post residency, post “What is Middletonism?”, how would I answer that question if it was to be asked to me now?

Well, really what I’m doing is propaganda. I want others to believe in my vision for the world, I want them to learn a more empathetic and open response to differing opinions and ideas. A key difference however is that I do not want to force anyone to believe in my ideals. I simply want to offer opposing viewpoints and arguments in a “Hey, have you considered this?” sense. 

This doesn't change the fact that it is still propaganda. Any person with a belief creating with the intention of changing the opinion of another is still making propaganda, whether there is hostile intentions behind those ideas or not.

I believe in a lot of things. I think this is a great strength, a strong moral compass and the ability to critically analyze all things in front of me. I’m natural to opposition, my stream often flows uphill. Together, I can attempt to use these unique abilities of mine to make small changes in the hearts of others. Whether or not that change happens is yet to be seen.

I know one thing clearly now. I want to be here, writing and formulating these thoughts to carry forward to my peers. This time, and possibly for the first time, I’m not working for the sake of others. 

I’m creating work that I want to create, and finding a path in the world that allows myself the freedom to continue making, writing, living, and learning for one more day on this earth.