buffalufagous: August 2008

An elephant in the corner of the studio you say? Never*. Why is it that all studios self promotional rhetoric, involves hearty phrases like positive persuasion and altering attitudinal change, but when it comes to the largest crisis facing humanity, the industry suffers from heaving lethargic fits of nothingness?

Is it because the thought of a green graphic designer conjures the terms oxymoron, hypocrite and contradiction? How can the same person creating high street logos for mass consumerism simultaneously believe in joining the fight to save the planet? Because there is no option - this is the most severe threat to humanity and biodiversity the world has every seen. Any body operating within the content creation practices such as us designers, have a key role in increasing momentum and disseminating knowledge about environmental awareness. Understandable it is very difficult for us who are directly involved in the promotion of increased business activity and indirectly environmental degradation to see a possible role to play especially when considering the added environmental lethargy one may feel as the worlds four largest emitters China, India, Russia and the US are yet to take to cohesive action. But if every single one of us in the educated part of the western world works to educate all everybody else, we will slowly and surely start to see positive change.

There are many little things one can do to play a positive role in saving the planet. Like doing heavily discounted / free work for those do-gooder charities we admire so much (publiczone.co.uk, oblong.com.au, and of course inkahootz.com.au are a few examples of designers doing good). Using personal work as a way to promote positive change within the environment. Being a martyr for your cause; such as refusing to work for or on a project due to the environmental damage it may do - e.g a flyer for the coal industry. Understanding, when creating packaging that less in actually more (just look in your bin - so much wasted crap).
Then there are the obvious things such as limiting the amount of proofs one prints. Turning off machines at night. Ordering your boss a get your studio a recycle bin. Even choosing to opt out of getting another LCD monitor you don't really need (the production of lcd screens let off harmful pollutants that are having a dramatic effect of the ozone). Recycling those harmful little ink capsules from the printer. Convincing clients that they do not need a print run of 5000 to save save on unit cost. Using highest end of Post Consumer Waste stock. Perhaps considering an online DM campaign instead of a print run all together.

One of the big things we little graphic designers have up our sleeves is that we are directly involved in the development stage of any new product or service. It is here that there maybe the faintest of opportunities to influence a new business model towards having a greener tinge. Obviously the larger and older the organisation the smaller the probability of anybody taking note of anything you say beyond your specialised design prowess. I don't think Dell's Chief UK Marketing Exec would have liked to have heard my thoughts on their distribution chain model and how its currently effecting the habitat loss of polar bears, however enjoyable it would have been to see his reaction. If you are thinking of influencing your clients decisions (and why wouldn't you?), firstly make sure you know what you are talking about, or at least make sure you seem like you know what you are talking about (Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers and George Monbiot Manifesto For a New World Order will help).... Secondly, have a stock pile of light-blinding green business case-studies at the ready (Innocent Fruit Smoothies are awesome). Any hard nosed business manager is going to need a some serious coercing with a few cold hard facts. And if this if none of this works, go to 'plan D'- do up a poster of a few crying polar bear cubs with the copy 'going going gone' and send it too there kids.

Go get them!