Green Ideas continued...

Having a passion for Graphic Design and the Environment, I could not resist spending more time on this vital issue. Not only can these tips apply to Graphic Design Studios and Agencies, but most business could adapt at least one of these tips.

1) Direct Recycling. When I was scanning the internet for things that interest me I came across gogreengraphicdesign.com. They recommended taking a cereal box (cereal removed, preferably eaten), and printing on the interior. Use it for announcements or even business cards. Take the middle man out of recycling and do it yourself! The cereal box exterior can make an interesting graphic statement on the back of your print. Chipboard for food boxes is thin enough to go through most printers. Make sure you limit yourself to dark inks, because lighter colors won’t show up. If you do want to use light or vibrate colors, you can screen print any color over chipboard. I did that with some sketchbooks I made for myself. Colorful monoprints on recycled chipboard, and leftover lined and graph papers for the interior makes great sketch books. I made them for my bridal shower and my cousins loved them. This makes quite the GREEN statement.

2) Multifunctional designs are not only a greener option, but the increase the time a customer spends with your mailer or product. This Increases the chances that they will purchase more with your company, because they are thinking more about you.

3) Smaller can be better?  Your client originally wanted a large postcard? Well help them save money and give yourself a challenge to work within a smaller space.  Anything you can do to reduce paper size. It does not always have to be smaller is better:  finding out what press sheet size your printer is using and then working within those restraints to reduce waste can be better than going small as possible.

4) Changing the lights. We have to have lights in our offices right? Switch to fluorescent or compact fluorescent to save electricity. If you want to save electricity and the dangerous mercury that can be found in CFLs, switch to LEDs. LEDS take very little energy to use, and do not contain any mercury. They are also very small, which means less materials had to go into making them. Prices and Light quality is always changing for both CFLs and LEDs. Make sure you use proper disposal of any type of light, because mercury can leak into the environment.  Do not throw conventional lights or CFLs into the trash!

5) Work from home. Many graphic designers are freelance, and work from home. If you are like me and don’t have that option, ask your boss about one day a week where you can telecommute. Not every boss will go for it, but if you can get one day where you are not driving your car to and from work the more you save the environment for your car exhaust and traffic congestion. It also takes you out of the mundane of everyday being in the same location to do your work. If you are going to work from home, you should have a home office area, where you can focus on the task-at-hand and not goof off.

There are many possibilities for going green. Green does not mean that our designs are recycled and old hat, but working within limits can actually make a better design. Making your design work with green is the start of a beautiful harmony of Graphic Design and sustainability. Green Note: if you are leaving a room for more than 7 seconds, turn off the light.

Earth Day

It’s Earth Day, so like many others we are celebrating sustainable design. Particularly in graphic design there are simple things you can do to create greener designs.

1) Recycled paper has come a long way. Paper can come in a variety of green levels: recycled (in a variety of percentages), post-consumer recycled (also in a variety of percentages), and sustainably farmed paper. Now costs on all of these tend to be more, but the price has come down to match virgin bleached paper. Encouraging clients to go even as little as 10% recycled helps save some trees and the energy to harvest those trees. For general copy paper that we use around the office, buy recycled copy paper. Office Depot in their store brand has several options for recycled copy paper. Take advantage, and it is pretty much the same price as regular. If consumers can use their buying power to voice that we prefer recycled paper to regular, I think we will find that recycled becomes the new norm.

2) Cutting Waste is easy to do too; you just have to think before you act. When you print off a sheet of paper for layout purposes or to show a client a quick mock up, make sure you use the back for sketches. Or start a recycling bin. It won’t take too much effort, some people have recycling at home that they can volunteer to take it home with them or many grocery stores and stores like Walmart and Target have bins for recycling office paper, ink, and general small electronics. If you have something larger that you would like to recycle such as a TV or computer Best Buy now has a recycling program. Graphic designers naturally use a lot of paper. It is a part of our trade, because print is not dead yet. The more you can reuse or recycle, the better.

3) Soy Inks have good and bad qualities. Soy ink does not have the mix of metals and VOCs that cause headaches and dizziness for employees at printing copies, and these chemicals often leak into soil and ground water. Soy ink degrades faster, which is great for the recycling process. Heating point is greater than conventional ink so the colors will stay truer longer. Soy ink has some drawbacks. Soy Ink is not all soy, it is still partially petroleum. Most soy is not produced in the US and forests in foreign countries are being cut down to make way for Soy farms. They make soy ink for large presses (ask your printers) and there are soy ink options for your personal printers in your office.

4) Electronic Messaging. Encourage the reduction of a company’s direct mailers, for email or other ways of electronic direct marketing. There are companies that can provide lists for a target audience with emails and even ads on Facebook and Google. A drawback is that it is easier to ignore an email than a physical piece in your hand, but emails are cheaper to produce and you can send that email to many more people. Just because it is cheaper, does not mean you want to spam email. People will then see you as more of a nuisance than a company they want to do business with. If the client would still prefer print encourage them to view your projects digitally.

Check out more green ideas on my blog on Monday! Until then…think before you act. What can you do today to make your designs greener? Green Note: reduce water waste by shutting off the water while soaping up your hands.

Doing GOOD

Recently I have been looking at GOOD.is site. They have an amazing breadth of infographics. This particular one is based on the amount of e-waste which has been and will continue to be our growing problem around the world. Most of the time we just leave products to junk and rust at some junk yard or even in our local dump. I encourage you to look at what digital products you don't use or thinking of getting rid of them and find resources in your area for recycling. Most places have free recycling but even if you have to pay it will be a cheaper price now than the one we and our children will have to reap later.


http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1010/digital-dump/flat.html

Growing Packaging

It's hard to develop packaging these days and not consider making it a little more green. Whether going green means limiting the packaging used, the chemicals and ingredients that make up the packaging, and whether it can be easily recycled by customers. Something that could fit within all these categories is bio-polymers. They are degradable, durable, able to be safely used with food packaging, and some are even compost-able.

As designers we not only need to be concerned of how our product looks, but its function and its longevity on this planet. In order to provide a better future we have to be designing our products now for future.