Grassroots Projects: Design Can Change

Last week’s UN conference in Bangkok about climate change made it clear once more: mankind has to change its consumption patterns pretty soon to save the planet. For today, PingMag is trying to show some possible small steps towards that: instead of ranting about environmental issues, Canadian design agency smashLAB made a start to raise awareness amongst graphic designers. With their web project Design Can Change they want to provide a forum for all sorts of information regarding sustainability, for example a Green Paper Guide, a list of paper companies using less chemically treated paper. PingMag talked to Eric Karjaluoto from smashLAB about a few things every graphic designer could easily keep in mind.

Written by Verena

Eric, when did you start with the Design Can Change project?

We started looking at how we could become more sustainable about 3 years ago, but it was only about a year ago that we really started to research it more: most of the resources available were for architects or product designers - but not for graphic designers that mostly work with posters, books, magazines, or brochures.

So your own work was the initial trigger?

In our situation, we just wanted to know how to waste less energy. As a small firm, we can only make so much of a difference in our own work. But if we get other designers to share the same idea we might have more power to make a difference. That is why we try to provide the Design Can Change forum online. It is necessary that people share information as rapidly as they possibly can.

Ah, your main idea is building an ecologically conscious community, then?

Exactly. It’s funny because designers are in this unique spot where they are connected to all of the businesses and can actually affect things starting from the concept stage. For example, I met someone today who works for a company that prints brochures and catalogues in 40 different countries and ships thousands of catalogues around. If he just switches to using more friendly paper, that might have an impact. Or, if you convince a client to use a digital brochure like a PDF file for their annual report, this wouldn’t only be far more cost-effective…

And Design can Change is non-commercial?

There wasn’t a way to do it commercially, and it wasn’t intended to create a profit. Perhaps a notion was the responsibility our profession has to do something good overall, I suppose. It is an ethical thing, as it doesn’t make any business sense. Of course, we were very careful about the fact that we weren’t sustainability experts by any means. We are just a design shop that aggregated information and wanted to share it with the community.

On the Design Can Change website you present a Green Paper Guide, a list of paper companies using less chemically treated paper, a Checklist For Sustainability for double-checking throughout the designing process, and a pledge for graphic designers to change their attitude. First, your Green Paper Guide is a list of papers from various companies and their scale of eco-friendliness: where did you gather all the info?

It was a mix: we sourced a couple of other organisations who had similar data out, and we went through all the different paper manufactures we could find to collect their data. But it is really difficult to keep up as the paper companies are changing quite rapidly. In addition, it is very much focussed on North American. Even as it was, it took quite a while and to do it on a global scale would have been an enormous amount of work.

By the way, all of your PDFs have a nice phrase on top, saying: Please do not print this document. It looks nicer on your screen and can help save a tree. Nicely put… Do you think people might switch completely to digital paper in the future?

There will always be a need for printed material - books are so tactile. But a brochure is a good example: people print because they are in the habit of printing. That is not necessarily the most effective way of communicating a message, and it often gets thrown in the trash immediately anyway.

Let’s get to the guide lines: Sustainable Design Checklist, the Design Can Change pledge tries to influence the designer towards a sustainable mindset. Do you have any action in mind as a next step?

The first step was to share a general notion. We are spending a lot of time trying to contact as many designers as possible, to get them on board. For a while now, as a company, we are going to take a bit of a break and let it bubble on its own. Also, we had more suggestions from people who do parallel work in other organisations, like for example Eric Benson from re-nourish. Also, the AIGA has a sustainability effort.

Lately, Vancouver seems to me a place where several environmental initiatives and other kinds of aware organisations seem to come from. Any suggestions why that might be?

Maybe it is the proximity to nature, I guess. Vancouver seems to be a relatively distracting city, a lot of people are outdoors and doing things. I wonder if David Suzuki has had an impact on that. He has been a very passionate activist for the environment for years now and has spent so much time to raise awareness, for example with his foundation.

Thank you, Eric Karjaluoto! We hope that more projects like Design Can Change and the related ideas on ideas blog will come along. Everybody should at least think about how he or she could do something. Well, everything starts with small steps, doesn’t it?

9 Comments

1. I really like the final message that designers have the potential to be the heroes of the 21st century. kudos to a gread idea/project.

   Posted by: aaron on May 7th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

2. [...] PingMag has a great interview with Eric Karjaluoto from [...]

   Posted by: Cardboard Monocle: An Art/Design Blog » Blog Archive » smashLAB: Design Can Change on May 8th, 2007 at 12:16 am

3. Well Designers play a important role in each and every activity. Better design better result

   Posted by: Helen on May 8th, 2007 at 4:55 pm

4. Interesting, I need to get a solar panel to power my computer. Check out chris jordan’s protrait of mass consumption…shockingly beautiful

   http://www.chrisjordan.com/

   Posted by: Steinar on May 8th, 2007 at 5:36 pm

5. [...] small steps can sum up to a big whole. Think about how public opinion and fashions [...]

   Posted by: randform » Blog Archive » change on May 10th, 2007 at 4:05 am

6. I really love the way they have designed their slides on global warming :-)

   Posted by: Kast on August 14th, 2007 at 12:30 am

7. [...] Entrevista en PingMag [...]

   Posted by: Design Can Change, los diseñadores y el medio ambiente « el50 on October 16th, 2007 at 11:17 am

8. [...] PingMag - Grassroots Projects: Design Can Change [...]

   Posted by: DUTULESCU.COM » Design Can Change, a designer’s pledge for climate change on April 14th, 2008 at 5:28 am

9. [...] from here.) Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]

   Posted by: Time For A Change | Confessions of a Social Climber on May 26th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

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