Less Design
For 2006 my new year's resolution is Less Design.
A lot of people wonder how they can make a difference to the world's decent into waste hell. I think designers have a unique oppurtunity to make a difference.
I can't believe how much 'design' I throw away into my bin. Who isn't sick of it?
Can we lead consumers (and ourselves) out of this mess instead of feeding fuel to this pollution? It's really up to us. As society becomes more and more intersted in design we have an unprecendented chance to do just that.
7 Comments:
that's a real problem…
design nowadays became more of a powerseller-tool than instead being connected to an idea of something ( read e.g. wim crouwel's interview in the last wallpaper-magazine). having thought about that recently with a few friends it seems like graphic designers don't have a direct impact since product designers, architects etc. are able to produce even more powerful solutions to that.
anyone a suggestion?
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How ecologically friendly is webpublishing actually? Ha never thought about that one!
Too many blogs too much energy consumed!
Sorry Marc, you will need to be a bit more precise before I can get the point.
Are you talking about us as designers contributing to the fact that people buy things they don't need, thus contributing to the "decent into waste hell" ?
Because, as much as we like to believe the design-hype, the fact is that we are part of a chain and if you want to make a change, you certainly have to start up higher...
How about Less Advertising?
Less Marketing?
No more ads on kids TV?
Less Christmas?
More consumer information?
How about seperating your waste in the UK, like you do in Europe? I cannot believe we still have to throw everything into the same bin! My mum in Germany has 4 wheelie bins for her waste.
So as for the points above, I can completely subscribe to them.
I think we have a responsibility as designers to choose environmentally safe techniques, colours and papers for example and even more importantly to turn down jobs that we cannot support morally (I have turned down all cigarettes jobs we have been offered for example), but to think that WE are selling a product alone is IMO taking ourselves a bit too seriously...
As always, if you can make a change as part of the chain, you should - so don't get me wrong.
I just don't think that design is the main problem or the main solution.
And it's difficult to see this for us, as we are so much closer to it than non-designers.
Over to you...
JB
To clarify:
I was saying as designers, we can show clients more sound paper stock, more economical packaging solutions, that kind of thing.
Of course the whole responsbility doesnt lie on our shoulders, just saying we actually have a chance in our proffesion to make a difference with those aspects. which is actually quite a lot!
By the way recycling in london is in full swing now (I recycle every tuesday.) The problem is that some of londons recylced waste goes straight to the landfills in Indonesia. If you live in Islington for example, your councils recycled waste contracters are doing this.
I agree, and thanks for the heads up on the recycling.
I think avoiding waste in the first place is the new recycling.
Like buying your veggies straight from a shop like Fresh & Wild or your local shop, rather than getting prepackaged ones from Tesco, etc.
And I still don't understand why Tesco doesn't charge for their bags. You can get like 30 in there and no one complains. They may be bio-degradable, but what's the point. It's still a waste of energy to get them produced and they end up in the bin.
I think people's attitude towards waste in the UK lags far far behind Europe and one day it's going to bite back big time.
Also, to be clear on my comment, I just didn't feel it was an issue of Less Design. It's a question of conscious design and packaging.
JB
If I can put my thoughts into this discussion I probably come at it from a different perspective. One of the main concerns with packaging is just how much of the UK consumer budget gets spent on it, something of the order of 10-20% of yearly spend is on packaging. That’s 20% of your money that’s being spent on stuff that you throw away before you use the goods.
There is an argument that can be made against recycling paper on the basis that a large proportion of paper pulp originates in Finland where they plant 5 trees for every one the fell for paper and therefore comes from a renewable source. Seven of the ten most polluted sites on earth are paper-recycling plants due to the serious industrial chemicals they use to bleach the pulp back to a useable state.
Plastics on the other hand do come from a depleting resource of petro-chemicals and therefore there is a better argument for recycling them. Although this is also a price issue as we still have large oil reserves, but the price of oil that these stocks become harvestable at is quite high (see last months Wired for a simple overview of the subject). The argument against recycling them is that they lock in the carbon associated with oil, preventing it from being burnt.
Carbon dioxide emissions are a serious problem. Ignoring the weather effects it is quite clear that we are poisoning our environment with carbon dioxide. Some studies say that at current emission levels within 200 years the atmosphere with have a carbon dioxide concentration equivalent to a 8 hour World Health Organisation exposure level. This is a level that will cause infant mortality to skyrocket, it will be like a bird flu pandemic that never stops.
And where does the majority of carbon dioxide get emitted from in most industrialised western countries? Buildings. I have the view that we, as a society, need to take this issue far more seriously. Talking about reducing your personal consumption by one cardboard box a year is like putting a sticking plaster on an gaping wound. The same effort spent both improving buildings and making other people aware of the issues would serve society much better.
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