To my understanding of Helen Armstrong’s “Introduction: Revisiting the Avant-Garde” she talks about how designers should have a sense of anonymity. Have the work be known but not the designer. This is something she states in the reading, “Design is a social activity. Rarely working alone or in private, designers respond to clients, audiences, publishers, institutions, and collaborators. While our work is exposed and highly visible, as individuals we often remain anonymous, our contribution to the texture of daily life existing below the threshold of public recognition.” Then she also states how in the early 20th century graphic design was built on anonymity and goes on to say that in the 50s and 60s “Swiss-style design solidified the anonymous working space of the designer inside a frame of objectivity.”

In the Bruno Munari reading, it seems like he is trying to say that art is mass & public affair and it should not be only accessible to the wealthy. He also mentions how artists should be humbled by getting down from their pedestal and design a butcher’s sign (if they know how to do it), and to cast off “the last rags of romanticism and become active as man among men.” He also mentions that an industrial designer is an engineer of sorts, but a designer in terms of graphics/art is a planner with an aesthetic sense, gives equal weight to each part. Which helps a designer play their role sufficiently as a communicator, someone who relays a message and informs the public.

One problem designers face is social responsibility, something that Armstrong talks about in her reading. She mentions how designers are being critical by using their designs. Instead of being complicit with corporations. Which dates back to when Rodchenko and Lissitzky where active. They were trying to bring about change, something revolutionary but when international style came into the scene, designers became part of corporate America. Then it began to change again as designers began to rebel, they began to critique society, they began to work with activists, they began to bring social changes. Basically, I think she is saying is that while yes we do need to make a living, there comes a point where are social and moral integrity does not get undermined by the corporations and clients we work for.