Our design organization, Spark, and the AIGA/NY (Association of Professional Design, New York Chapter) are coming together to host the AIGA’s first series of green events for graphic design on April 6th, 2010. As the current President of Spark and Director of Outreach for the AIGA’s Center for Sustainable Design, I will be moderating the panel discussion on “How to Lead Clients Towards Being Green.”
Aimed at principals of design firms and directors of new business, this conversation will dig into the sales process, and seeks to uncover practices that firms large and small can implement to lead even the most ecologically unaware clients towards more sustainable practices.
Skipping the plastic bag while shopping isn’t just great for the environment – the alternatives can also be so much more fashionable. Stockholm’s Stadsmission, the Swedish equivalent to the Salvation Army, repurposes clothes and fabrics that can’t be retailed into super eco-friendly shopping bags. Created in collaboration with the renowned Swedish architecture group Claesson Koivisto Rune, this line of shopping bags is marketed under the brand Remake.
Influenced by the economy, it seems that the eco message in the 2010 Superbowl was heavily downplayed this year. Gone were commercials of companies promoting their sustainable track records and making a difference. Instead there was very little green message at all, except this spot for the Audi A3 TDI® clean diesel. The notable message is, while other cars are stopped in traffic at an eco-check point, the Audi driver is allowed to pass on through. However, based on consumer reactions, the bigger take away seems to be, “There’s those eco-nuts again, overreacting about my garbage and getting in my business.”
Ever feel like you have problems that no one has any solutions to? Help Remedies may have an answer for you.
Don’t know what to wear?
Never been kissed?
Or maybe you just have a song stuck in your head?
Help Remedies have collected humorous (yet helpful) answers to all these questions and lots more. The brand is known for its elegant, minimal design and eco-friendly packaging, but they’ve also come up with great ways to get their customers involved in the brand. The Help I’m Bored page is amusing and a great way to start a Monday morning. It also gives a good idea of what the brand stands for: making it simple to solve simple health issues.
Sheri and I just got back from a trip today to Wisconsin, visiting the folks at Wigwam to discuss the new marketing materials we’re developing for them.
Having been to the Milwaukee airport more than a few times, I’ve grown accustomed to a few routines: the best airline (Midwest), the best time to fly (avoid late outbound flights in winter), the best place to rent a car (Avis), and the best morning coffee after the plane ride. Sadly, this had always been Starbucks, as I hate Starbucks coffee — too bitter, too expensive, and too ubiquitous. (Sorry, Sheri).
Yet the choices at the Milwaukee airport were always much worse, and the caffeine junkie in me is not always rational… a fix is a fix.
That’s why in my post-flight fog, as I approached the familiar kiosk area in the terminal, I did a double-take: had Starbucks been replaced by some funky indie coffee shop named Alterra?
Today is the first day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference. For the next 11 days representatives from 170 countries accompanied by non-governmental organizations, journalists, business representatives, and personal enthusiast totaling an estimated 8,000 people are gathering to advocate reform to prevent global warming and climate changes. We met some of these advocates back in September during the UN’s Climate Week when they were beginning their rally cry.
One of the efforts to raise awareness and support for this global effort is grass roots effort called “Hopenhagen”. The people behind Hopenhagen are volunteers from the International Advertising Association, advertising, marketing and communications industries who have donated their time and resources to do what they do best, create an awareness campaign. Through this campaign, they hope to, “Connect every person, every city, and every nation to Copenhagen. To give everyone hope, and a platform from which to act. To create a grassroots movement that’s powerful enough to influence change.”
In an effort to think cradle-to-cradle Starbucks is taking on the 58 billion paper cups American’s use annually. As a company contributing an estimated 3 billion cups into the waste stream annually, Starbucks goal is to make all paper cups 100% recyclable by 2012.
Be sure to visit the last day of BoHo bodega tomorrow! This temporary pop-up store is reinventing the quintessential NYC bodega by introducing consumers to green food, drinks and household products – all at wholesale price with proceeds donated to charity!
But don’t delay, the bodega will be over, tomorrow October 25th! Kuddos to our new friend Mia Sakai, for making this wonderful project happen. Be sure to check out the bodega furnishings including a recycled cardboard ceiling and tin can lighting. Mia is a real DYIer!
Okay maybe only in my dreams. However, I found this video of a man who has made his own island on top of floating plastic water bottles incredibly inspirational. He appears to be running a completely self-sustainable operation complete with his own food and water supplies. What I appreciate is his harmonious blending of re-purposed materials back with nature.
MSLK is known for previously inundating visitors with statistics on plastic bag use with its installation 2663 Urban Tumbleweeds. It’s trash as conscience, trash as guilt personified, trash as Army of Inanimate Eco Warriors. If MSLK were your mom, you’d be making egg crate caterpillars (with pipe cleaner antennae, remember?), and training them to crawl on people who don’t reuse and recycle. I wonder what being grounded would be like.
But don’t worry, we aren’t grounding anyone. As I told Inhabitat, Mother Nature herself will take care of any punishments that need to be handed out.
After the overwhelmingly positive response to Watershed’s debut at the Figment art festival, our message about unconscionable consumption of water in plastic bottles has become more timely than ever before: a small Australian town recently banned bottled water altogether, capturing the world’s attention.
We’ve since been very busy investigating other venues and opportunities to exhibit, and are pleased to announce that Watershed will be on display again in NYC in the fall — this time in the Brooklyn neighborhood DUMBO (aka “down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass”).
The dates are September 25 – 27, 2009, and we’ll keep you posted as to exactly where you can see it, as we’ll be conducting site visits over the next few weeks.
Every time I see the new Prius commerical, it make me instantly happy. It’s a far cry from the generic, sleek, celebrity-voiced-over car commercial. Instead of shooting the car in some dramatic, coastal landscape, they’ve created their own landscape with carefully choreographed people. In fact, every element of the landscape is a person. As the car drives through, the people transform into elements such as trees, clouds and water. The craft is so amazing that I almost didn’t realize they were people. The concept of integrating man with nature is fantastic, and the execution is flawless. My favorite touch is the subtle pulsation of movement that is created by each of the participants moving independently. It’s the perfect balance between focusing on the individual people and the larger scene unfolding. Pure magic.
Check out the behind the scenes clip showing the making of the commercial after the jump.
After a day of hoisting, tying, tugging, and lifting, Watershed was installed by MSLK yesterday on Governers Island without a hitch. Please join on Saturday at Figment for our Art Picnic and experience Watershed for yourself.
I filmed some brief clips, along with a time-lapsed version… take a look:
I recently purchased this modern and simply styled pair of black sandals by the brand, Melissa. I chose them over the other options because their elegant design matches my minimalist aesthetic and could easily be dressed up or down. What I NEVER realized until reading a recent article on Inhabitat is that their rubber design is also eco-friendly. Nothing on the shoe, box, or at the retail display conveyed to me that this product was also green, which would have made my decision to buy much easier.
Why are legitimately green companies recently refraining from marketing their green efforts?
In keeping with our water theme this month, one of our readers reached out to me with a hot tip that a documentary about the bottle water industry, entitled Tapped, will be debuting July 10th at the Maine International Film Festival.
It’s amazing to me how many of the same issues we are addressing with Watershed are touched upon in their trailer. From the producers of one of my favorite films, “Who Killed the Electric Car,” this seems like an eye-opening film not to miss.
Here at MSLK we are keenly interested in the effects of society’s mass consumption of plastic. It seems that the things that are most transient to us such as disposable bags, silverware, applicators, packaging and bottles are made from plastic, a material that is very enduring.
When we created 2663 Urban Tumbleweeds last year, our goal was to visualize the effects of this mindless consumption with 2663 plastic shopping bags, a number equal to 1 second of US consumption. This year, we are beginning to work on a similar idea focusing on plastic water bottles.
Water has become an important subject for me this year. I am very concerned about what we are doing to our oceans and waterways. In my humble opinion, I see water as resource more valuable than oil and one we may soon find ourselves scrambling to preserve and protect from all sides of the table.
It seems to us that if there is one area we can quickly and succinctly eliminate the need for additional plastic waste, it is in our consumption of plastic water bottles. There once was time when water was not bought or sold but rather consumed straight from the tap and we need to evolve back to this simpler, more efficient method.
Hence the subject for MSLK’s 2009 eco-installation, Watershed.
wa·ter·shed (wô’tər-shěd’, wŏt’ər-) n. A critical point that marks a division or a change of course; a turning point: “a watershed in modern American history, a time that … forever changed American social attitudes” (Robert Reinhold).
This installation will first be tested at the FIGMENT art festival on Governors Island in NYC June 12-14th, 2009. Watershed will ask participants to shed the feeling that they need to purchase water in plastic bottles when we have the best quality drinking water in the world coming out of our taps!
This installation will expand August 31st-September 7th, 2009 when we collect used water bottles from participants at the Burning Man art festival. Keeping with the 2009 festival theme of Evolution, our installation will evolve through out the week and ultimately display 3600 gallons of water, a number equal to approximately one day of on-site consumption by festival participants.
To get involved and donate to our project, please email me. We are currently seeking 1500 empty water bottles of any shape and size for our June installation.
We hope that with your support we can initiate the kind of reform that efforts like Urban Tumbleweeds in 2008 had for plastic bag consumption.
Here at MSLK we are keenly interested in the effects of society’s mass consumption of plastic. It seems that the things that are most transient to us such as disposable bags, silverware, applicators, packaging and bottles are made from plastic, a material that is very enduring. What happens when we are done with these single use items? Where do they end up? And more importantly how many of these things are we mindlessly using every day?
Many of us in the office have experienced the challenge of riding a bike in the city. Though there has been some progress made to help make bike riding safer in New York, anybody who’s ridden a bike in the city will tell you it’s not enough. Bike lanes are still pretty scarce, and cyclists are given little to no presence on the road. Lightlane is a new concept that allows cyclists to bring the lane with them.
I received this promo in the mail the other day from HSBC. You place it in your freezer for five minutes to determine if your freezer is set too low. If the plus sign becomes a minus, your freezer is colder than it needs to be.
So what does the temperature of your freezer have to do with HSBC? Technically nothing, but the story they’re telling is one of financial sustainability. They’re encouraging people to be more responsible with their money by making small changes. Responsibility seems to be an emerging theme for 2009 (for some companies at least). Corporations are attempting to regain the trust of the American people by changing their image with communication pieces such as this one. Successful or a sham?
