5.11.2009

Green design has got me down

It all started with elation. I thought to my frugal self: “Finally, a universal adoption of stinginess for materials that rivals my own. The model has shifted. yay.” as I continued to rinse my plastic utensils. (Stay tuned for my version of recycled living)

It’s great. It’s meaningful. Saving the future is so much more fun than cell phone baubles and styrafoam.

I didn’t think it was going to affect my graphic design much, except for the opportunity to use green more and do cool leaf and plug logos for our electric truck (visual to follow), but it has. It’s made me recognize a design trap I am frequently guilty of – uber paper consciousness.

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Office warriors battle daily against mountains of paper with the aforementioned little email footer to ‘Please consider the environment before printing this [important] email.

Graphic designers deal with this times ten. At home, I make several trips around the house over the course of a weekend with the task to find paper stuffs to recycle.

This daily guilt leads to cramping content down to half the area that’s necessary to visually communicate the message. It’s the equivalent of storage bins and vertical hangers of information.

I managed to create a class schedule into a bookmark 6-up on an 8.5x11 document. :)
Two-sided. :(

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