The No Design Manifesto: Curb Your Enthusiasm

The No Design Manifesto argues that the design field is caught between meme-driven social media, government policy and business practices, and that its ethics-focused self-critique has not yet produced a way out. The text says design has acknowledged its role in overproduction, consumerism and inequality since the 1960s, and it questions whether "ethics" has become a narcissistic exercise for individual practitioners. It describes a corporate consultancy framing of design as a solution to a curated set of "wicked problems," with designers who refuse that role treated as part of the problem. It also presents precarity in design education, where only students with wealthy backing can pursue the field, as a central concern.