As a manifesto of uncooling and demarketing, Design Anarchy is high-octane ammo, an attempt to recapture a little of what was going on in Paris in the late ’60s and what the Situationists had been hoping for: an end to the solemn existence of modern man, and more joyful displays of spontaneity.

Since Adbusters was founded in the late 1980s—back when it was dubbed a “journal of the mental environment”—it has been charting how the world continues to lose its way, detailing nations that have become corporate beasts beholden to the likes of Nike, G.E., and Microsoft. Fortunately, Kalle Lasn, publisher of Adbusters magazine, is here once again to give us a kick in the pants. Like its predecessor Culture Jam, Design Anarchy is a wake-up call for everyone mindlessly living out their days in a consumer cycle that is not only killing the planet, but dulling one’s sense of self and place in the world. Lasn ponders the dangers of such corporate indoctrination and loss of identity, offering a blueprint for artists in the form of this striking textbook.

As a manifesto of uncooling and demarketing, Design Anarchy is high-octane ammo, an attempt to recapture a little of what was going on in Paris in the late ’60s and what the Situationists had been hoping for: an end to the solemn existence of modern man, and more joyful displays of spontaneity. It is Adbusters’ way of twisting the branding of everything—from the cars we drive and the food we eat, to what we wear, and what we watch—that uncovers consumers digging themselves deeper and deeper into a cultural abyss they may never be able to crawl back out of. By not realizing the true costs of actions and desires, consumers are failing, and this book seeks to level the playing field in the arena of propaganda.

In his book, Lasn presents not only arguments, but the beginnings of a user’s manual, a simple introduction to culture jamming, which he has said “is, at root, a metaphor for stopping the flow of spectacle long enough to adjust your set.” From creating uncommercials and spoof ads, to arguing with professors and interrupting lectures, just about any action shows the beginning awareness, and this scrapbook helps record those efforts.

Lasn defines design as “the most ubiquitous of all the arts. It responds to needs at once personal and public, embraces concerns both economic and ergonomic, and is informed by many disciplines including art and architecture, philosophy and ethics, literature and language, science and politics, and performance. Graphic design is everywhere touching everything we do everything we see, everything we buy...” Design Anarchy sticks firmly to this characterization, re-imagining physical structures, personal images, and communal thinking in a large-form book with ideas as striking as its design.

Not so much political as polemic, Lasn’s tact yearns for simplicity, an end to wholesale mass consumption and the blind devotion sometimes a little to eagerly given to corporate identities. In Culture Jam, Lasn wrote: “For an enormous number of people, the idea that they should set limits on themselves is unthinkable.” It’s an interesting argument, especially here in the United States where the president touts shopping as a patriotic act and choice has become the ultimate civil right.

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