Designers rejoice: yesterday we celebrated the 50th-Annual World Graphic Design Day. The day marks a half-century of creative advocacy at ICOGRADA, the esteemed world body for professional graphic and communications designers. To all those who help make our world a more beautiful, functional, immersive place, I celebrate you.

But 2013 marks another momentous fiftieth anniversary as well: that of the historic “First Things First Manifesto”. Penned in 1963 by the legendary Ken Garland, ratified by 22 signatories and endorsed by 400 industry icons, the Manifesto voiced a dire need for greater Humanism in advertising. “It tried to re-radicalise design which had become lazy and uncritical,” writes design historian Elif Ayiter. “It explicitly reaffirmed the belief that Design is not a neutral, value-free process.”

Later, at the turn of the millenium, a cadre of 33 prominent designers, art directors, editorialists, and advertisers led by Jonathan Barbrook, Max Bruinsma, Chris Dixon, and Rick Poynor revived, revised, and republished the earlier Manifesto as a modernized “First Things First Manifesto 2000". The new Manifesto was featured in respected journals like AIGIA, Adbusters, and Emigre, and roused a stir throughout the Internet design community — though much smaller at the time.

So now, in the spirit of World Design Day 2013, a half-century after the Manifesto’s first publication; in a world more connected and creative than ever before; a world of design popularism and democratization; where trendsetters like Apple, Google, and Facebook cohabit with thousands of “little guys”, bringing better design to the screens and homes of millions all over the world…

I’m bringing this revolution to Medium.

Below, you’ll find my commemorative edition of the Manifesto, updated as First Things First Y50. Premised on the 1999 version from Max Bruinsma, First Things First Y50 contains modifications as sanctioned by digital media designers, developers, and entrepreneurs at the IDEA Cooperative+BipCreativa, and our friends around the world.

But that’s not all.

In keeping with the zeitgeist of Medium and its community, I’m opening the FTF Y50 to signatures from any and all designers, developers, artists, entrepreneurs, writers, marketers, photographers, architects, or other creative professionals who share in the beautiful, conscientious, critical, exploratory mindset of the Manifesto.

To add your signature, use Medium’s notes feature on the right, tweet the hashtag #FTFY50, or email FTFY50@carsonkahn.com — I’ll personally include your name in the post. Together, we’ll ensure designers the world over appreciate those creative priorities which we reinstate below.