The inner workings of our research studio

This past year has left us a bit breathless. So breathless, in fact, we've often neglected keeping our readers updated on all the behind-the-scenes activity. So, in the spirit of transition, we thought we'd take a minute to recap and let you all know what you can expect from Re-nourish in 2010.

What we've done so far

We've managed to accomplish a fair amount in 2009. Our merger with Rethink Design this summer resulted in a core team dedicated to delivering practical, reliable sustainable graphic design resources unlike any currently found online. Not only did we completely overhaul Re-nourish.com, we've laid the groundwork for a new organization whose primary aim is to break through the politics and platitudes of a trend-based design industry to provide working designers with real tools and information to make real change.

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
-- We've expanded the Resources section to include practical overviews of sustainable print, packaging, and digital design.

-- We've developed a comprehensive, scalable roadmap of sustainable graphic design methodologies that designers can implement immediately in their daily work.

INTERACTIVE DESIGN TOOLS
-- We've launched an interactive Project Calculator that allows you to easily and accurately reduce on-press waste, saving both natural resources and client budgets.

-- We've assembled comprehensive databases of legitimately greener paper options and printers. All entries are thoroughly screened to ensure compliance with Re-nourish's sustainability standards.

INDUSTRY INITIATIVES
-- We've developed a beginning framework for understanding what "sustainable" really means when applied to graphic design projects and studios.

-- We've begun laying the groundwork for several industry-wide initiatives, such as a sustainable graphic design standards working group, that have the potential to create seismic shifts in how the graphic design supply chain handles sustainability issues.

RECOGNITION
-- We placed third in the Sustainable Organization category of the AIGA (re)Design Awards.

-- We were in the top three finalists of the Cooper Hewitt People's Design Award, part of the Smithsonian Institution's National Design Awards.

-- We received great press and support from the likes of Communication Arts, GreenBiz.com, GD USA, Konigi, and others.

Where we're going next

Re-nourish is now at a critical growth stage. We've got big plans for 2010, and are now focusing our efforts on refining our current offerings while expanding our reach. We'll need your help for this; after all, Re-nourish is your toolkit.

LEGALIZING OUR  ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
We've spent a lot of time identifying the most effective way to structure ourselves for maximum impact. After a lot of discussion and agonizing, we've decided to launch a limited liability company focusing on consulting and design work as a way to keep Re-nourish fully independent from financial and political interests. Once formed, we'll seek B Corporation status, which entails writing social and environmental responsibility into our articles of incorporation. We'll then form an affiliated 501(c)3 nonprofit to help bring in additional funding for specific initiatives.

We believe this will allow us to maintain credibility and independence, while ensuring a self-sufficient organization. We're wide open to opinions on this approach, because our ultimate goal is to serve the industry, not merely ourselves. Please do leave your thoughts in the comments section, below.

FUND RAISING
This will be the focus of our most significant efforts over the months to come. Re-nourish has been entirely self-funded (along with the incredibly generous contributions of labor from our awesome volunteer team). While we believe in putting our money where our mouths are, the fact is: we need more money. In order to build a truly interactive site that encourages information sharing and self-education, we need to invest in a dedicated development team. We also need to be able to pay for large-scale initiatives and outreach. The incredible response we received post-relaunch made it abundantly clear that is no longer simply a pet project, or a labor of love: this is a movement. And movements need money. (So if you're looking for a good investment, give us a call.)

SITE IMPROVEMENTS
We've been hard at work on some really cool new features for the site that will make everything work better and your design job that much easier:

-- Project Calculator: You'll soon be able to calculate the environmental footprint of every print project you run through the calculator, including water and wood pulp use, energy use, CO2 output, and solid waste impact. You'll also be able to calculate your resource savings when you specify papers with recycled content.

-- Client Reporting: The environmental footprint of your project calculations will be available in a free, print-friendly report that you can keep on file, and/or deliver to your clients on completion of your projects.

-- Free User Accounts: While you can currently sign up for a free account (go ahead: see for yourself!), we're expanding this area of the site to include full project tracking. The My Projects feature will allow you to track projects over time, as well as export projects for tracking in your own spreadsheet software, or just print out reports directly from your account page. Eventually, we'll be expanding user accounts even further, adding additional interactivity and reporting features.

INDUSTRY INITIATIVES
While our mission is to put practical tools directly into your hands, we also feel a responsibility to try and move the industry as a whole towards more sustainable practices. This means working with stakeholders up and down the supply chain - vendors, paper and equipment manufacturers, printers, designers, nonprofits and industry associations, academia, you name it.

This is the less sexy side of social change: it's often slow-moving, politically-charged, and hard to know when you've made it. But we've already laid the groundwork for some pretty hefty initiatives.

-- Re-nourish will be launching a sustainable design standards working group to explore the concept of standards and metrics. How can "sustainable design" really be measured? This is a vast issue, and one that won't be easy to solve. But we believe that a consensus-based process in which all stakeholders--from the individual freelance designer working from home right up through the massive paper companies--must be represented if we're to achieve practical change that can be implemented in the real world. We've been in talks with several national and international design-related organizations who have expressed interested in signing on, and we'll be formally announcing our approach in the coming months.

-- There are a couple of other campaigns we're exploring, but because they're in the early stages of development we'll hold off on going into too much detail. Suffice it to say, any future endeavors will focus on facilitating sustainable practices along the graphic design supply chain.

An ongoing conversation

Finally, at the risk of sounding like an Oscars speech, we feel it's necessary to acknowledge that we could not have come as far as we have in 2009 without the support of our colleagues, fans, users, friends, and family. The amount of input, advice, and support has been overwhelming.

It's very clear that the design industry is shifting in significant ways. Be it the rise of new models like crowdsourcing, new approaches like service design, or new values like social impact and environmental stewardship, it's obvious that designers are poised on the edge of something big. Communications technology has linked people to creative production in a way never before seen, and that means our role as designers will inevitably change to accommodate that.

Re-nourish promises to work as hard we can to play a valuable role in this shift. But we need you to help us do that - please tell us what you think. Ask us questions. Voice your concerns. Because at the end of it all, we want to be useful to you, the working designer, the design student, the educator, the engaged citizen.

Happy New Year!

From,
Eric Benson
Yvette Perullo
Jess Sand