I am a Graphic Designer, was working as such before coming to school, and thus have been approaching the concept of Sustainability through the lens of design. This lead to the question I posed myself which deals with both sustainability and design, What does sustainable graphic design look like…
I even began my thesis work this way… here I was trying to visualize the message "what does sustainable graphic design look like?" by using a vocabulary of "green" iconography. This was a fairly literal approach, and I ended up abandoning it because my interest was quickly lost, and I did not see this progressing the subject in any real way…
While becoming frustrated with my initial directions, I continued to read and research the topic. As I would uncover new information, find morsels of data or facts I found particularly interesting, I started collecting a visual diary… Each little thing of interest I would try to visualize in some way, be it a phrase, a fact, whatever. This has resulted in a number of pages of graphics, some text driven, some image driven, all sharing the theme of sustainability.
This is a random sampling of what I have thus far… these are all just sayings or data that I came up with or came across that I couldn't go on without sharing—perhaps after further revisions and additions this may all become some sort of zine or web publication…
These don't necessarily move the cause forward as much as I would hope either, but they are definitely down a slightly different path that the first studies shown. And as I have moved towards a more theoretical philosophy of sustainability, these studies have become fewer and farther between, replaced instead by writing.
In order to realize designs with a growing set of ideas, concepts and beliefs, I was in search of a new method. I found this in the "systems-based-design" approach. The idea being that once the data set is selected, a system of rules for its display is created, and then the design is influenced by the data, and vice versa—a synergy between the design and the information is created…
This is something we have been talking a lot about this year, and have had several visiting guests speak towards both last spring and this fall.
The more I have researched this the more I realize my visual work has to be about envisioning the information I am uncovering…Finding "systems" to help do this is good next step for me, it melds well with my thinking processes, and besides, sustainability is inherently about systems…
Each of these examples does a decent job of taking a data set, either textual entries, portfolio pieces, bands in an itunes playlist, or frequent words in a book, and displays or maps them in some systematic way…
The first visual study in my thesis work I did as part of this new approach started with this logo… The We logo was fairly new, and seemed like a step forward in the sustainable-design-arena. At about the same time Wal-Mart had a new branding campaign also with a semi-neuvo-environmental slant. With these as a starting point I continued thinking about the greenwashing of other brands across all sectors, and then thinking about existing brands that have always had an environmental or sustainable message, and how the field was becoming muddled and jumbled and filled with mixed and meaningless messages…
I ended up taking about one-hundred brand's logos. Logos were chosen at semi-random, I had some in mind already, like wholefoods, wal-mart, BP and the We campaign, while others were found by googling "sustainable companies" or things like that.
The final color was achieved by sampling all their brand colors, and then averaging them all together into a new master color… which I like to call, the greenest green.
It actually works pretty nicely this way, but it was intended to exist as a broadside, which is one of my sample pieces on the wall.
This is where I have gotten too graphically thus far, and from this point onward things will be more or less about the concepts and philosophies I am working on.
Underlying concepts: green and sustainable might not be the best words to describe sustainable design
My Initial thoughts about how Green and Sustainable are used as adjectives like any others has actually already changed since I began this process. I have now come to the decision that Sustainability has a heft and reality to it that Green does not. Sustainability is broad, and thus capably used in a variety of situations, while Green is a remnant of the aging environmental cause. With this in mind it becomes very important to try and define what sustainability then really means…
In my attempts to explain to myself what sustainability means, I started with common dictionary definitions. These definitions are broad and simple, and provide a non-specific idea of what the word means. They do not really provide substance—But I am concerned with the substance of sustainability, and how to apply that substance to graphic design. With the addition of some extra reading [Cradle to Cradle, the Death of Environmentalism, In The Bubble, the Viridian Design Manifesto, and more] I started to get my personal definition of sustainability down, and my version of a sustainable philosophy straight.
An underlying theme I have found in nearly every text and work I have read is this idea of a trinity mentality towards dealing with sustainability. Different people use different terms, but true sustainability always comes down to answering Economic, Societal and Environmental needs together.
As a Venn diagram, sweet spots begin to appear where sustainability in one realm overlaps sustainability in another… Each of these areas can be described as being sustainable in its own way, but only when each takes the other two into consideration will "true sustainability" be met. I see this diagram as "sustainability in action"
This lead to this next diagram, which is more the philosophy of sustainability rather than a working model… This describes the Mindset that gets you to the center sweet spot on the last diagram…
It results from the concept that our economy is a construct of society, and thus would not exist out side of it. likewise, we as humans, and thus out society, would not exist without the greater concept of nature, and thus are contained within it… This creates a holistic view to move forward with, once this concept is grasped, one sees that any decision made in one realm will effect the other two as well, so act accordingly!
With these philosophies in mind, I plan on using them to influence my next round of visuals and further thinking. We are in a post-environmental world, and need to expand our thinking outside of any one realm into the others… These are the stepping stones towards my next set of "things."
MAKING SUSTAINABLE CHOICES
With my personal theories and philosophies coming together, I have been spending more time attempting to answer my initial question "what does sustainable graphic design look like?"
Another goal is to construct some sort of framework, at least for myself, that then allows for sustainable graphic design to happen all of the time—something applicable to my personal practice that could also be applied as an example by others…
To do this I have been looking at several examples that set up some kind of framework…
There are checklist models like LEED for buildings and the Sustainable design checklist, where you simply go down the list and try to comply with as many things as possible… These are a less favored model for me, but valid to at least examine (the sustainable design checklist, it is almost all sacrifice driven, i hate this!)
The model for Consumer Chart takes you through the questions one might ask in a shopping process, and based on yes or no answers whether or not you would decide to purchase something… a model like this might be interesting to expand upon in sustainable terms—a map of sustainable choices.
One last model of choice making I have found interesting is the "Oblique Strategies" deck by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, originally created to help them out of stalls in their respective music and painting studios. I can envision some sort of sustainable strategies deck, pull a card and do whatever it says to make your design "sustainable"—a random clearing house of ideas…
Lastly, I have been working on some different conceptual answers to my thesis question in hopes of finding an answer by just thinking about it. I am working on examples in each of the categories that idealize each area and show that there is not one specific answer, but a potential myriad of good answers… Running through quickly, Sustainable design could look eco-friendly, it can just keep on looking the same as any other design, it can be "progressive" or innovative in its look, or, it can not exist… this last one is especially important for me, because I think an increasingly important question everyone should be asking themselves when approaching any project is "does this need to exist?"
END: so what does sustainable graphic design look like? I'm still not completely sure, but working on it…