Not at Your Service

Multiple answers to the question of what design can be and achieve today.

Not at Your Service: Manifestos for Design brings together the broad spectrum of beliefs, subjects and practices of designers at Zurich University of the Arts. It offers different approaches and insights on the present-day role and impact of design. It is not conceived as a finished project, but as a fluid document of its time.

Collaborative design, interaction within complex systems, attention economics, the ecological shift, visual literacy, gender-neutral design, "quick and dirty" design ethnography, social responsibility, the value of ugliness, death futures, immersive technologies, identity and crises, design as a transformative discipline – all of these topics are presented for debate with passion, conviction and professional expertise.

• A compact collection of discursive texts on the many roles and functions of design.
• Contributions to the current debate on the social role of design.
• Statements by experts from one of the leading universities of design.
• All texts are in German and English.