As a newbie to the world of design, it blows my mind how much of a social impact the design industry can have. One of the many examples is this awesome charitable organization called Project H Design founded by San Francisco designer/entrepreneur Emily Pilloton. She started this organization to apply product design solutions to social issues in ways that would improve the lives of people across the globe. There are many initiatives spear-headed by Project H, including a product called Life Straw, a filtration device designed to eliminate waterborne disease bacteria, parasites, and viruses. This well designed product brings clean drinking water quickly and reliably into homes, preventing life-threatening disease from spreading through unclean water. Its amazing!

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That’s right guys, Mother’s Day will soon be here. What are you going to get the woman who endured the painstaking stresses of giving birth to you, made sure your nose was snot-free, that boo-boos and ouchies were kissed and cared for, and forced you to eat brussel sprouts and carrots to keep your colon and vision healthy and strong? My Mom has a smart, eclectic style so I can’t just walk into a Hallmark Store and find her the “perfect gift.” Also, with me being the oldest, my ego won’t allow for my gift to not be the most favored out of the three.

Then there is the Mother we all have in common. The life-giving nurturer and sustainer of life, Mother Earth. Since the beginning of time she has given our biosphere the necessities for existence. So, I’ve been searching for gifts that are unique, functional, well designed, and also green, to show my appreciation for my Mom as well as Mother Earth. Here are some cool sites with products that incorporate all of these elements:

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As a consumer, I can spot an “organic” or “green” product from a mile away. The packaging is usually plain, some off-beige color - just falling short of being wrapped in a brown paper bag - with a green colored font (or even a leaf, I guess to signify its friendliness to the environment). This is the maker’s way of letting us know the product fits within the parameters of our desire to be considerate of the environment as we purchase our household products. But how did it come about that green had to be so not sexy?
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I know we’ve been doing quite a number of “green” themed posts lately, and hopefully you’re just as interested as we are in the conservation and longevity of our natural resources. If you’ve been reading the blog you’d of course recall our mentioning some of the things we are doing to be greener graphic designers.
For me particularly (because of my background in architecture) I am extremely interested in green building technology, so I was very intrigued at the news that Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), one of the premier architecture firms in the world has designed the very first ‘Energy Plus’ and ‘Carbon Zero’ office building (70,000 sq m), to be constructed near Paris.
The entire roof of the structure will house solar panels and the resulting power will be enough the run all air conditioning, heating and lighting required to keep its 5,000 occupants comfy. While most modern buildings of this scale consume between 80 and 250 kilowatts per square meter (older buildings as much as 300kw/sq m), this new building will employ a new type of insulation that will help cut consumption down to as little as 16kw/sq m. [1 sq m is equal to roughly 10.8 sq ft].
Admittedly this is quite an ambitious undertaking and has required some big-name backing to bring it to this point, but hopefully this will be the first of many projects that radically change the way we view large commercial structures and their impact on the environment.
Click here to read more about this project.

It’s a mouthful of a name but from the sounds of it, a very cool competition that asks the question: “What does it mean to be a truly green product when thinking about computing technology?”

Dell’s opened an invitation to students, professionals and design educators to share their ideas about cutting edge environmentally friendly computer technology products. As ubiquitous as personal computing products are, and regardless of my personal feelings towards Dell, I think it’s great that there’s thought being put towards the full life cycle of our next generation of computer products.

We’re not product designers, but like most people, we do use computers a lot and we’re very interested in all things “Green” so we’ll keep our eye on this one to see what innovations come about.

For the Environmentally conscious Package Designers among us there’s a Sustainable Package Design Workshop and Designer’s Resource Expo January 29 – 31, 2008 just a couple of hours away from us in St. Petersburg, Florida.

from the website:
“The workshop will provide structural and graphic designers with
actionable answers, tools, and resources. It will go well beyond
speakers simply talking about outside influences that affect package
design and sustainability.”

Promising to not be the usual “high-brow, stuffed-shirt” kind of workshop, this sounds like it’ll be very informative.

Christmas is usually a time of traditions, and none more wasteful than the annual post-Christmas throwing away of the Christmas cards. This year, in line with the our efforts to be a more sustainable family, my wife came up with a brilliantly simple replacement for that tradition. She made these Christmas ornaments out of the Christmas cards we got last year.

So instead of dis-carding try re-carding…

image courtesy of stock.xchng

This old adage seems fitting right now as it pertains to my attempt to fill my head with information and inspiration on becoming a “green” designer. It’s not just the feeling of helplessness I got when I thought “what can one designer do?” But it’s close. As I read more and interact with the numerous communities out there catering to designers with a social conscience I’m feeling more empowered as a member of a profession that has a real chance at affecting change.

However, the deeper I delve into this subculture the more overwhelmed I feel as my brain screams “there’s too much to read and think about…where do I start?” I’ve frantically been adding links to our “sustainable resources” category on this blog but frankly each site is so dense with useful information that I haven’t been able to fully go through most of them.

In an effort to eat this baby one bite at a time I wanted to share something I read in the February 2008 issue of print magazine. The article “warm regards” by Rick Poynor dealt with design-thinkers who’ve taken up the charge for environmental responsibility at the same time issuing a challenge to the rest of us, “how will we help?”.

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Yesterday, Susan and I participating in the latest PaperSpecs webinar called “Sustainability - Hands On”. It was an incredibly informative session especially for someone like me who’s new to the world of green design, and who better to lead the session than the guy who wrote the book… literally… on Green Design Brian Dougherty of Celery Design Collaborative and Sabine Lenz, founder of Paper Specs. I’ve written up a few of the main points brought up during the session.

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Some time ago we made the decision to begin the journey of “greenify-ing” our design practice. Obviously we’re by no means trendsetters where this is concerned, (not only are there lots of other studios doing much more on the sus-design front, but conferences, groups and resources to forward the cause) but we’d like to think that there’s no time like the present to start trying to make a difference.

We’ll highlight more of the resources and information that we find as time goes on but this posts focus is a Master’s thesis study by Rebecca Green on “What can be done to promote Sustainable Design in Brisbane Australia.” Although the study is geographically focussed in Australia the insights are applicable to any market. I know there’ll be something of use for designers and non-designers alike in there (even if it’s just a great history lesson) and some inspiration to do your little part to forward the cause of Sustainable Design.

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