Just when you’re pounded by clients and far too busy to think about updating your blog, Print magazine publishes a nice little write-up pointing readers your way:

“Most designers agree, even insist, that design is more than clever imagery selling goods and services — it also influences how societies function. Social Design Notes, a remarkably informed and highly useful blog edited by John Emerson, explores design’s sociopolitical power and inspiration. A New York activist and designer who oversaw Web sites for Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch, Emerson launched his blog is 2002 as a ‘bridge between design activism — to push designers to think about acting in the public interest and to help activists see how design can facilitate their campaigns.’ Emerson explores how design is used to support and challenge the status quo, posting one historical note about the ‘Black Panther Coloring Book’ created by the FBI during the civil-right movement, and another about South Africa’s use of the comic book to prepare its citizens for their first election. Emerson also discusses the built environment, praising former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani for having championed design to improve the lives of the disabled. And Social Design Notes’ Resource page contains tools — such as free stock photos — designed to convert readers into true reformers.”

The July/August 2005 issue also has a several excellent articles on sustainable design, and is worth checking out for this alone.

But it makes you wonder — why doesn’t the magazine itself use recycled paper? Despite the “In Print” column which touts the magazine’s “early environmental outlook,” this is not addressed. So, do they care about sustainability or not? I know design magazines are hardly a lucrative venture, but the article “Fiber Optimistic” on page 57 points out that cost differences between recycled paper and not are nowadays “negligible.”

But then why not take it a step further. If toxic printing processes and non-recycled paper are harmful to the environment, why not consider sustainability as a criteria for your annual design competition?

Imagine what a massive force the AIGA could be if they required printed entries to their annual showcase use recycled paper.

Would this punish designers for the choices of their clients? Perhaps, but then why shouldn’t judging the beauty of a product take into account the nature of physical object itself? If designers care about competitions, why shoudn’t they push their clients that much harder? Why don’t all design competitions consider sustainability as a criteria? Does this impose some kind of “political” viewpoint? One could argue that not requiring this broadcasts a political viewpoint just as clearly.

Would the AIGA’s dues paying members revolt? Certainly some, but as the issue of Print notes (p. 11):

“This year the AIGA formed a national task force to develop policies and programs for the organization in support of sustainability. Following a poll revealing the environment to be the profession’s most pressing concern, the Worldstudio Foundation and the AIGA, through their ‘Design Ignites Change’ collaboration addressing social issues on a local level, made sustainability the focus of their first project.”

Hell, the AIGA’s last national conference was largely devoted to discussion of sustainability.

So at what point does sustainable design cease to be a “special issue”? When does it become incorporated as a fundamental part of what we do? And when do our design institutions take a stand and show some leadership? When do we start demanding it?

Is this all unreasonable? I would point out that it’s already happened once before. The American Institute of Architects, another national design association, went through a very similar internal debate years ago and came out embracing the green.

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Update July 18, 2005 — Print responds:

“It’s true, Print does not currently use recycled paper, but we are looking into doing so as soon as our current supply of paper is fully depleted. It has been an economic issue in the past, but we are hoping to persuade our publishers to spend a little extra on this aspect of responsibility.”

Via that same issue of Print I found this interesting matrix of recycled and tree-free papers assembled by Celery Design. About the guide:

“Most graphics professionals are searching for a few simple things in a paper the highest quality, the easiest functionality, and the lowest price. The goal of this guide is to help you add one more critical consideration to the decision making process: the environmental impact of the paper you specify.

Through your paper choices, you are directly connected to the preservation or the degradation of land, water, air, and the creatures that dwell therein. Paper reps and printers provide guidance on finding the best quality, functionality and price, but often can’t help when it comes to preserving the environment. This guide fills that information gap and points you to the very best recycled and tree free papers on the market today. You will discover that most of these papers are also very competitive in terms of quality, functionality, and price.

The recycled and tree-free papers listed here generate fewer toxins and impact the environment far less than typical virgin wood, chlorine-bleached papers. There are options here in nearly every grade, format and price category. We encourage you to contact the paper manufacturers for samples, pricing, and ordering information, and work with your clients and printers to specify these papers. We developed this guide as an easy-to-use, practical tool that makes it simple to change old paper-buying habits. Use it and share it with your friends. With the right information and a bit of initiative, each of us can reach a higher standard for our graphics projects.”

It’s not clear when the guide was last updated, but do bookmark the page at http://www.celerydesign.com/paper/matrix.html

What’s missing from the list are more tree-free, “synthetic” alternatives to paper like:

• TerraSkin, a biodegradable paper made of mineral powder.
• Yupo, made of 100% polypropylene. Not biodegradable, but easy to reconstitute.
• NatureWorks PLA, a biodegradable corn-derived polymer, primarily used for packaging.

Anyone know of other good resources on alternatives to paper?

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Update July 27, 2005:

More suppliers of tree-free and recycled papers are listed at Rainforest Web

Update August 28, 2005:

The San Francisco AIGA’s Ecological Guide to Paper lists 20 papers that are either 100% recycled, tree-free, or some combination of both

Update October 31, 2005:

Conservatree has lots of good information:

• Paper types
• How to choose paper
• Paper listings
• and a Guide to Choosing Paper

They also offer consulting services.

For more on changing your organization’s paper policy, see the Environmental Paper Network’s Environmentally Preferable Paper Purchasing Guidance (436 Kb PDF).

What’s the best online donation service for non-profits and activist groups?

This is one of those simple questions that seems to come up again and again.

At last, the LINC project has posted a nice comparison of four options.

(This does not address tax-deductible status, which is another matter entirely.)

I’m still new to the literature of sustainable design, but I find again and again that much of the writing consistently ignores the political, addressing the social only peripherally, usually in the analysis but not in the response. Instead the authors pursue solutions based on individual design and purchasing choices or through technological fixes — creating cool new materials or processes — hoping the market will sort things out once the ‘good’ is cheaper than the ‘bad.’

Is this a matter of expedience? Cynicism? Organizing to set standards or pass legislation is messy and slow and often involves other people.

And yet so many materials and processes already exist around us. Why they are not used more pervasively is, I think, a political problem.

The same technologies are generally available in the U.S. as the E.U. And there’s no doubt the E.U. is light-years ahead of us down the path towards sustainability.

And yet, even among those pursuing “market” oriented solutions, folks seem focused on making new, better, cheaper things rather than intervening in the market to, say, make the polluting more expensive. The former approach ignores the huge subsidies and political weight of industries invested in the old ways of doing things.

Still, if one wanted to pursue a market-based solution, why not require the Federal Government to purchase such products — say, requiring all government printing use a percentage of recycled paper. This would create an enormous demand for ecological goods and ultimately lower the prices of such.

But folks seem to focus on individual choice rather than industrial requirement, ignoring the power of the State altogether. Yeah, cleaner technology is cool and good, but I’m not convinced we we can just invent ourselves out of, say, deforestation without shaping the force of law.

And how to pressure the State? Building a movement is hard. Grassroots organizing is slow. And battling clients every day certainly makes me want to focus on making things instead of dealing with other people. But something’s got to give.

Protesters against Israeli ‘disengagement’ from the West Bank and Gaza have taken to the streets flying orange ribbons in support of the settlers.

Only Palestinian groups protesting the occupation have been using orange ribbons for years.

Via Reuters, July 1, 2005:

“Israeli Arabs sue settlers over orange protests

An Arab party has asked an Israeli court to stop right-wing Jews using orange in protests against withdrawing from Gaza settlements, saying the colour was already theirs.

‘If we appear now in a march in the streets with orange, people will think we are settlers,’ said parliament member Azmi Bishara of the Arab Balad party, which is fundamentally opposed to settlements on Israeli-occupied land.

Orange, displayed on ribbons, flags and shirts, has emerged as a powerful pro-settler symbol in the run-up to the pullout. It is the municipal colour of the main Gush Katif Jewish settlement bloc in Gaza.

Bishara said his party has used an orange flag and logo since 1999, and launched the lawsuit after being flooded with calls from constituents.

The Balad party was concerned that use of the same colour by ultra-nationalist Jews would damage its image and confuse its anti-occupation message, he said.

It filed its suit in Haifa District Court on Thursday to prevent the Yesha settler council and other right-wing groups from using orange, saying the colour was now sending a ‘colonial, racist message’ that would make it difficult for Balad to continue using it.

‘You build an image. If you look at our logo you will see it is orange. Our flags are the same flags,’ Bishara said. ‘Real damage has been done.’

The Yesha council said it knew nothing of the suit.”

First their land, then their symbols. Oddly enough, this Haaretz article notes that while orange is the season’s hot color elsewhere in the world, it has become a fashion faux pas in Israel and Palestine.

My third piece for Communication Arts. I guess that makes me a contributer. This one ran in the September/October 2005 issue, the “Interactive Annual.”

I started taking notes for this a year and a half ago at Designs on Democracy. There’s plenty of advice around for designers starting corporations and for freelancers protecting themselves, but I couldn’t find anything on design collectives. So I wrote it myself.

Consider the Collective

More than business as usual

Some of our most venerable institutions started out as collectives. Before they were Push Pin Studios, they were a network of freelancers in a shared studio space. Before they were Pentagram, they were a partnership of three. In its twenty years, the French studio Grapus grew to encompass three collectives under the same roof.

Collectives, also known as “co-operatives,” “cooperatives” or “co-ops” are groups of individuals who join together to undertake an activity for their mutual benefit. Co-ops may be for-profit or not-for-profit, unionized or not, and legally incorporated or not — what’s different about a co-op is that it’s owned and operated by its members.

You may be familiar with a neighborhood food co-op or credit union. These are consumer co-ops which pool resources to offer discounted services to their members.

Graphic design collectives are “producer co-ops,” owned and operated by their employees. This is quite different from a firm with an employee stock ownership program. Co-op workers share in decision making and responsibility, as well as profits and losses.

Why form a cooperative? One argument is that organizations owned by the communities they serve are more accountable, and can emphasize service over profit. When employees govern their own workplace, they can design a happier, stable and more equitable work environment.

But there’s also the value of organizing according to one’s ideals. Though we are supposedly living in a democracy, most of us spend our days working for private tyrannies. Living and participating in a democracy should consist of more than just voting once a year. We should be able to participate in the decisions that affect our lives.

One member of a cooking collective sums it up: “We’ve tried not only to feed people well, but also to treat people well. Over the last 30 years our company has come to represent something bigger than we ever anticipated, and something better than the usual business.”

Globalization has devastated your local industries. You can’t raise tariffs or subsidies for fear of international sanctions, but you can try to create a local demand for your local products.

From the Christian Science Monitor, December 27, 2004:

In Ghana, a different kind of ‘Casual Friday’

“Duck into any government ministry or executive boardroom here on Fridays these days and you'll notice a little extra splash of color. Loose shirts with geometrical patterns in red and maroon have replaced stiff pin-striped suits. Bright flowing wax-print dresses have nudged out conservative skirts and blouses.

The Ghanaian government is urging civil servants and office workers to abandon their Westernized business attire in favor of local fabrics. But unlike in the US and elsewhere, where khakis and an open collar is the boss's way of bringing a little ease to the end of the week, Ghana’s ‘National Friday Wear,’ launched last month, has bigger things on its mind. Its goal is two-fold: to celebrate African culture, and, more important, to create jobs by reviving a textile industry that has all but collapsed. Ghana imports some $43 million worth of used clothes annually, more than any other African nation, says the International Trade Center, based in Geneva. By contrast, its clothing exports — mostly socks — totaled just $4 million last year. The country that once employed some 25,000 textile workers now has just 3,000.”

The article strikes me as a little condescending, but the strategy described is interesting nonetheless. It seems a quite similar to various “Buy American” campaigns against Japanese automobiles. These also invoked a kind of “national style.” What could be more American than owning and driving an American built car of your own?

Both invoke a national style to create local demand, both reinforcing and manufacturing a style and a narrative of what it means to be a citizen and how one can participate.

Promoting “traditional” wear as appropriate for business positions the citizens as a community in opposition to the international style of capitalism — at the same time embracing international business as woven into the fabric of local tradition.

Launched with the program is a Venture Capital Fund to restructure the garment sector by granting small businesses access to credit.

While one goal of the National Friday Wear campaign is to create so much demand that “the cost of the fabrics so low that it could be afforded by all... given the low purchasing power of Ghanaians,” ultimately, the goal is “to help the country position itself to launch into both the American and the European markets.”

That is, national style as a springboard for international export.

OurMoneyToo.org is a grassroots campaign to alter the design of U.S. currency to make denominations recognizable without purely visual cues:

“Can you tell the difference between a one dollar and a twenty dollar bill in the dark?

Blind people use money just like everyone else, but since American paper currency is all the same size and texture, blind people can’t tell the bills apart independently. We all deserve the personal security of knowing what’s in our wallets.

Even those with sight would benefit from making paper money accessible by feel

• It would simplify paying the bill and counting change in a dark restaurant
• It would make it safer to get out money for an upcoming toll while driving
• It would allow everyone to count money more discreetly in public

Please write or call your Congresspeople now! Our Contact Congress Tool makes this fast and easy.

...

OurMoneyToo.org is an independent volunteer organization committed to the dream of having currency that all Americans can use safely and independently. Our first job is to educate the public about the positive effects of being able to differentiate between bills without having to look at them. We hope that one day we all will be able to count the money in our wallets more discreetly, no matter who we are or where we are, without the fear of being cheated or robbed.

The U.S. Treasury Department doesn’t have to invent any special technology to make our currency more accessible. In fact, they’ve already done it in roughly 100 countries around the world, including Canada, Great Britain, and the countries of the European Union (see http://books.nap.edu/html/currency/appendixd.html). The American dollar is one of the most powerful currencies in the world. We are committed to making it safer and easier for everyone to use.

We are not affiliated with any other organization. We do not actively solicit donations.

...

In 2002, the American Council of the Blind (ACB) filed a lawsuit against the Treasury Department demanding that U.S. paper money contain features that will enable blind people to independently distinguish between denominations. The government is continuing to fight the suit, claiming that such modifications would be too expensive.

The Treasury protested that this would cost too much because it would require redesigning the currency — but in the meantime, they have spent millions of dollars to redesign nearly all of the denominations in circulation! As the Treasury continues to develop new bill designs with new anti-counterfeiting features, they should include accessibility features useful to blind people, people with dyslexia, and people who work with cash in low light.”

Making design usable by a differently-abled minority (old, young, tall, short, sighted, not, or otherwise physically different) often makes it more usable by all.

Danish anti-war posters hit Iraq:

“On Friday, Iraqis started hanging over 1000 posters created by the artists in the most populous and important quarters of the capital, including the diplomatic Green Zone in the very heart of the city. Artist Claus Rohland, 50, explained to Aljazeera.net why he and fellow artist Jan Egesborg, 40, had got involved and what message they hoped to send to ordinary Iraqis.... ‘We as Danes are part of this so-called coalition and are taking part in this war. But Denmark is a very small country that has not been at war for many years. We need to question what we are doing and what is happening,’ Rohland said. ‘None of the warring parties — neither US-led forces nor Iraqi rebels — present a solution to this war. The ultimate solution needs to come from ordinary people. It may sound naive, but we would encourage people to keep faith in themselves that a final solution rests with them.’”

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North Dakota has no plans to alter Sioux logo:

“The NCAA considers the logo and nickname ‘hostile and abusive,’ and has ordered the school to cover up all Fighting Sioux references for the NCAA playoffs. The arena, which operates separately from the school, is holding the West Regional hockey tournament in March. [Jody Hodgson, arena manager,] said there are no plans to alter any logos, which can be found on floors, walls, seats and railings. Eliminating them would be too expensive, he said.”

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Electronics industry urges federal e-waste action:

“A nine-member panel appearing before the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on environment and hazardous materials expressed concern that the current trend of varied state and local laws targeting e-waste management would breed inefficiency, confusion and higher prices for consumers.... The best approach, [Renee St. Denis of Hewlett-Packard] said, is for federal lawmakers to create a system in which the manufacturers themselves set up recycling programs and bear the necessary costs.”

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Deal for Public Toilets in New York City. Only 20 toilets, but it’s a start. The winning company will rebuild all city newsstands and bus shelters, too — and sell the ad space. Not sure how I feel about a private corporation owning all that public space — but then the NYC gov pays nothing. More on the the long history of trying to build public toilets in NYC here and here.

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Alcaldía favorece proyecto de biogas. Nicaragua’s biggest garbage dump in the Barrio La Chureca in Managua could be used to create enough electricity to illuminate the nearby municipality of Ciudad Sandino. The joint U.S.-Nicaraguan company Conjuris says they can create four megawatts of electrical energy from the gases emitted by burning the garbage. The company is willing to invest US$5.25 million in the project in return for a twenty year contract.

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It’s great to see graphic designers come together at displaceddesigner.com, the AIGA, and Design Observer to help other graphic designers affected by Hurricane Katrina. I’m all for community and solidarity. But then it’s really not the professional designers that are hurting the most, no?

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Only one more month until the October 31 deadline to submit your radical graphics to Reproduce & Revolt. And it looks like Favianna has joined the project!

Via the National Design Awards I discovered the work of Sergio A. Palleroni:

“Sergio A. Palleroni, research fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development at the University of Texas, Austin, runs 10-week-long design/build studios around the world in marginalized communities. Participants learn to use hands-on construction and design skills, maximize locally available, recycled, and inexpensive materials, and implement lighting and energy systems that help to reduce energy costs and promote conservation. In turn, communities mobilize indigenous resources and develop long-term practices that sustain cultural identity, dignity, and stability.”

How rare to find a development program that actually seems to engage with the local community and context. Not just ‘humanitarian’ aid, but actual education and collaboration.

Add this to my growing list of architecture and development programs:

• Architecture for Humanity
• Architects Without Borders
• Association for Community Design
• Barefoot Architects
• DesignCorps
• Over the Rhine
• Habitat for Humanity
• Rural Studio
• Sustainable South Bronx
• Voluntary Architects Network

I’m sure there are others I’m leaving out. It’d be instructive to do a closer comparison of the methodologies, politics, and assumptions of various architecture-based anti-poverty programs.

Quite apart from Planner’s Network who work for more fundamental change.