A Sustainably Minded Design Company

What if sustainable design was not a struggle over cost but a strategic conversation about value? In a world characterized by emerging
resource scarcity and savvy consumers who are only beginning to favor meaningfulness and ethics, respecting the
environment and being culturally responsible can only help to increase a company’s long term profitability.


Whether you need help aligning your brand values
for future success or producing more
sustainable print materials,
we have the tools and experience
to get you there.

Fine Tuning How We Measure the Success of Our Projects.

By analyzing the energy and waste used to create project source materials, possible negative social, health and cultural effects, and the production, transport and end-of-life of our products, we're able to create a grading system to see how well projects come together in the end, as well as possible areas for future improvement. To find out more, visit our section on Project Grading













Recent News
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New International Packaging Standards

Stockholm, Sweden — Experts from 15 countries met in late Decmeber to begin developing standards to cover environmental issues related to packaging such as reuse, recycling and composting.

About 70 delegates from China, Japan, Korea and 11 European countries are meeting in Sweden for the first gathering for the SC4 Packaging and Environment committee. The group is part of the International Standards Organization’s (ISO) Technical Committee 122, which is responsible for all packaging standards.

Source reduction, reuse, recycling, energy recovery, chemical recovery, composting and biodegrading are among the criteria, which is expected to be in place by mid 2012.

Kraft loses 150 million pounds 2 years early

Northfield, IL — Kraft Foods has met its goal to reduce its packaging by 150 million pounds two years ahead of schedule with a variety of lightweighting and material replacement efforts.

Reductions include:
~ Oscar Mayer Deli Creations packaging comes with 30 percent less paperboard, making it smaller and taking up less shelf space. The change is expected to cut out 1.2 million pounds of paperboard a year.
~ The packaging for Oreo Cakesters was reduced by 12 percent and now uses 100 percent recycled paperboard.
~ Packaging layers were removed from Milka chocolate bars in Europe (a change that will also be used in Latin America), cutting the product’s weight by 60 percent less weight and eliminating 5.7 million pounds of packaging a year.
~ A redesign of Kraft salad dressing bottles in Australia is expected to reduce their packaging by 100,000 pounds of plastic a year.
~ A redesign to the zipper on Kraft Natural Cheese bags has eliminated more than 1 million pounds of material a year.
~ Nabob have been replaced with composite paperboard, which weights 30 percent less, contains 50 percent recycled content and reduces packaging needs by 8.5 million pounds a year.

Replacing Tangible Value with Intangible Value

The possibilities of creating value by producing less.

Vancouver through water and glass

Just finishing the rough draft and quotes for ‘Vancouver, through water and glass’.  Beautiful 11.25×11.25″ hardcover with back and spine cloth and image wrap on front cover. Nice! Can’t wait to see the promo pieces in the next couple of weeks.

Benefits: Maximized Press sheet with zero waste,  60% post consumer waste paper, Vegetable based inks with little VOC’s and a limited first edition run. Printed in Canada (we would have loved to afford to print in BC but had to print in Manitoba (1.5 tonnes of GHG added for rail shipment).

Effects: 18 trees saved for future use,   6,500 gal wastewater prevented,  1,200 lbs solid waste not generated, 4 tonnes of GHG prevented.

Project Scorecard: Raw Material Sourcing: 7/9,  Production: 12/14,  Transportation and storage: 2/3,  Cultural and Social: 4/5   TOTAL: 25/31

The True Story of ‘Stuff’



Want an idea of what’s really involved in the cheap little things you buy? Ever wonder how a radio can cost only $20 when it’s materials are sourced, shipped and manufactured overseas and then shipped to North America?

This is the best video you’ll watch this year. Visit the Story of Stuff Site to see their other videos.

Brand Development for Local Publisher

With this project, an non-printable, electronic version of the brand manual is being supplied to all international offices, saving money, time and resources involved in proofing, printing, shipping and total man hours. Keeping this project as sustainable as possible decreased production costs by 95%, while increasing productivity.

Benefits: Electronic Document replaces large printing and shipping bill for international offices.

Effects: 3/3 trees saved for future use, 1,100 gal wastewater prevented, 123 lbs solid waste not generated, 242 lbs of GHG prevented, 1,855,00/2,110,00 btu’s saved.

Project Scorecard: Raw Material Sourcing: 9/9, Production: 13/14, Transportation and storage: 3/3, Cultural and Social: 5/5

Life Cycles at a Glance

Anyone else confused by the hairball of recycling symbols and terms?

Download this Quick Guide for your home or office.



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