Alternative Design

In the late 1960s and early 1970s there were many writers and thinkers who looked towards alternative ways of living and consuming. These ranged from hippy communities that sought to reject the materialistic values of consumer society to those who adopted a more design-oriented moralizing approach, as in Victor Papanek's Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change (1971), or a more philosophical approach arguing for a decentralization of the design process, as in Eugene Schumacher's Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (1973) and Ivan Illich's Tools for Conviviality (1973). American hippies rejected what they saw as the restrictions of consumer society, reacting against the clean cut looks and cosmetically enhanced appearance of mainstream Americans in favour of long hair, beards, and wearing brightly coloured and ‘style-less’ clothing rather than the tailored, branded outfits of the majority (See Adhocism). There were also many underground magazines such as Fritz the Cat and Mr Natural, illustrated by Robert Crumb, and Fat Freddy's Cat and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, illustrated by Gilbert Shelton. In Britain magazines such as International Times (later retitled IT) and Oz, launched respectively in 1966 and 1967, expressed similar values.