This past spring, I taught a junior-level graphic design methodology studio course in which I was excited to focus the bulk of the term on educating the students about sustainable design processes and theories. Back in January of 2010, when I was planning the class, I struggled mightily to balance the amount of readings, films, research and discussion with actual making. Lessons learned from past classes taught me that reading books and articles on the topic helped form a better foundation to understand the topic, but the more the students read, the more confused they became and the more time was taken away from the studio component of the course. The texts are imperative, however what specifically is being digested and discussed in c… Read More>
If you’ve ever worked as an in-house designer, you know that bureaucracy can be a real pain in the keister. Just try getting co-workers to throw their soda cans in the blue bin, or walk over to the printer to load it with scrap paper, and you’ll quickly realize it takes a lot more than threats to our planetary survival to change our daily work habits. I was reminded of this by an email exchange with one of our readers, in which we were asked to provide some input on how a school might make their paper purchasing more environmentally responsible. It prompted me to pull together a quick guide to implementing a sustainable paper plan in your own office or school. We could probably write an entire book about i… Read More>
As a university design student “making” was my raison d’etre. It was a ritual to trek up to my studio (in any form of weather) to meet a quota of the somewhat unrealistic number of explorations I aimed to meet daily early on in my career. I felt spiritually satisfied if I met my creative demands, and bitterly frustrated when I missed the mark. This regimented process was influenced by professors who demanded precision and perfection on every project. I found their expectations impossible to meet, but reveled in the chance of getting “close”. Reams of paper, alcohol-based markers, and charcoal pencils were my initial tools for making that changed over time to become layout software and dozens of laser print… Read More>
Graphic design education is missing a critical component. Students receive intensive training in many areas, such as foundation, design history, typography, and composition. But where does environmental sustainability fit on this list? At what point on our path as designers do we learn how to be better stewards of our environment? The topic of sustainability in traditional design education is consistently an afterthought, if thought about at all. When sustainability is thought of, it usually takes the form of a single project set apart from real world expectations and limitations. These projects seem to be designed in a bubble as if students may only take environmental sustainability into consideration wh… Read More>
Sifting through the hundreds of environmental certification programs currently available just to find the perfect one for your organization is no easy task. I know, because the Re-nourish team has spent a lot of time wading through them while developing our own Sustainable Graphic Design Standards. These programs vary wildly: some are nonprofit, some demand high fees, some have extremely high barriers of entry, and almost all of them have different requirements and certification processes. Finding a credible, appropriate, attainable third-party certification system can be seriously overwhelming - unless you take the following approach. Start within: look at your own organization … Read More>
Yvette Perullo, for her MA at the New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University, collected direct mail for four months with her family to produce a 6'2", 106-pound installation for her graduate thesis exhibition. This was done to help the everyday citizen visualize how much direct mail the average American household receives in one year. She further printed the gory statistics of waste and deforestation on stacks of direct mail next to the sculpture to help inform designers visiting the exhibit on the issue and also how to help. Direct mail is a perfect example of why graphic design, … Read More>
Four years ago I noticed a number of beautiful direct mail pieces that I spent countless hours designing in a trash bin near a bank of apartment mailboxes. It dawned on me that warm summer evening that everything I had previously created and in the future will design would end up in the landfill or be incinerated into our atmosphere. During the seemingly innocuous process of choosing a nice weight/color of paper and burning a CD of files for the printer, I was helping to destroy the forests where I loved to wander, breathing in their wisdom. This awakening led me to question whether there was a mo… Read More>
"The single most important problem is our misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem." - Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography at UCLA. (From the book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." Penguin Books. 2005.)It is fairly simple to call a few printers in your local area and find one that gives you the best price on paper and printing that meets your busy schedule. It's a job well done as soon as you drop off your CD packed full of files at your chosen printer and take a breather before starting your next big design job. But what if price a… Read More>
"Sustainable design gives an authentic value to the consumer." - Katarina Graffman (Ethnographer)In the second portion of this continuing essay, I turn my focus to another integral component to the graphic designer's daily language: ink. Ink was developed, for commercial purposes, by the Chinese thousands of years ago and was constructed of various mixtures of pine soot, lamp oil and animal gelatin. Color was added through combining berries, minerals and a variety of plants/roots. As commercial printing (as we now know it) grew in demand from economic expansion fueled by th… Read More>
"There is no business to be done on a dead planet." - David Brower (Sierra Club Foundation Founder)We've heard a lot lately about global warming and its connected dangers posed to our civilization and current way of life. But what does this mean for the graphic designer besides possibly investing in a stylish new bike or replacing a few incandescent light bulbs with some compact fluorescents (CFLs)? In this first installment of a multi-part essay, I'll focus on why sustainability is important for the future and current success of our craft by looking at the material that th… Read More>
