The Holstee Manifesto: “Do what you love and do it often.”
At TEDActive 2012, TEDActivators opened their gift bags to find a copy of the Holstee Manifesto, the famous poster beginning with the words “This is your life.” Here, we’ve collected ten other inspiring quotes, manifestos and beautifully designed graphics that speak to us. What are the words that inspire you?
1. Austin Kleon’s “Steal Like an Artist” is a creative manifesto made from the ten pieces of advice he wished he had heard when he was starting out.
Need more inspiration? Click through for more of Austin’s drawings and sage writings.
2. Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” Ryan McArthur successfully captures the complexity of Emerson’s words with his minimalistic design.
Ryan McArthur has an Etsy store with more fabulous prints of famous quotes.
3. Maptia‘s goal is to build an inspirational map created from memorable experiences. Maptia’s Manifesto is “a pledge to be open to new things, to always stay curious, and to go explore the world – whether it is just around the corner at home or on the other side of the globe.”
Help the Maptia Manifesto travel. Take a photo with the Manifesto and add to Maptia’s growing collection of photos from around the world.
4. “I live under the sky too” is Shilpa Gupta‘s art installation erected in Bandra, Mumbai. The text is written with LED lights in three different languages — English, Hindu and Urdu — and the words from each sentence are interwoven into the other. The lights go on and off highlighting each version of the sentence.
It’s a big sky that we share. Click to see the Youtube video of the lights cycling through the words.
5. Remember: A spark is all it takes. Charlotte Estelles Littlehales put together her art piece using 2,600 matchsticks in the course of 720 minutes. Within a minute, the entire project was engulfed in flames and ash.
6. Bruce Mau, lauded designer, wrote a design manifesto in 1988 titled “Incomplete Manifesto for Growth.” We especially resonated with his first piece of advice: “Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.”
7. You are here. So, deal with it. An eco-friendly wall sticker, designed by Antoine Tesquier Tedeschi, may be the reminder you need to stay present and just deal.
8. “I will do one thing today.” We know you TEDActivators are busy folks. You probably have fifty things on that to-do list. Let’s start with one.
Pretty Bitter makes these cool notepads!
9. Designer James O’Connell dedicates this illustration to “the few people who can’t digest the sense of sharing or helping.” So, what are we waiting for? Let’s all do good together.
10. And finally, we have the very wise words from workisnotajob. Their company name also serves as their motto and their goal is to inspire you to do more.
