The New Post-industrial Renaissance
The business philosophies and strategies of the last two centuries have accomplished a lot for part of the world, but the create-to-destroy mentalities that got us here, are unable to move us forward. In an emerging world of overpopulation, pollution, diminishing natural resources, and growing amount of consumers looking for ethical companies that create meaningfulness and value, pursuing business-as-usual as progress is both an ideological pathology and a recipe for long-term market incompetence. While sustainable ethics are completely optional today, tomorrow they will be a requirement for companies that don’t want to be left behind.
“Today, we find that innovation without emotion is uninteresting. Products without aesthetics are not compelling, brands without meaning are undesirable, and business without ethics is unsustainable”. Marty Neumeier
Short and Long-term benefits of Sustainable design for business include: Increased Efficiency, Competitive Advantage and Greater Market Share, Profitability and Higher Sales, Increased Brand Perception & Equity, as well as Company Morale.
Designing for Change
When we sat down to consider the real outcomes of the work we’ve done over the last year we had a heart-wrenching decision to make, either quit what we were doing and join Greenpeace, or find a better way of doing things. When you consider what’s at stake – everyone we know and love, the planet, our future – it really becomes hard to talk about anything else.
The paper manufacturing process is the third most polluting industry in the world.
Over 80% of design work usually ends up in a landfill within 6 months.
Paper with potential for recycling makes up over 1/4 of typical landfills.
In our search for a better working system, we came to the realization that reducing waste is really a limited and temporary solution that can make it easy to stop at a lower level and mistake it for something higher. While we are slowly loosening the chains of the quantitative-over-qualitative mentality of the Industrial revolution, real change – the kind that creates materials intended for reuse or as life building nourishment for the planet – is beginning to show, but some of the best options we have right now are to create solutions that slow resource depletion and lessen social, cultural and environmental impacts.
Process Design
Because great (and effective) communication design relies on being intentional, and has as much to do with intelligence and abstract logic as it does with creativity, we spend 80% of our project time planning and researching through critical thinking and 20% actually designing. Whether it’s defining an complex international brand strategy or working on a brochure campaign, we strive to find positive solutions that meet both corporate, consumer, environmental, and social needs. After the initial project briefing, before prototyping and research, we start to evaluate the project’s end requirements and work backwards from the end-of-life of the product to the materials and energy invested into it. Along the way, we consider main areas of contention and benefit with competing objectives like cost and sustainability.
Services and Areas of Expertise
Branding consultation and conceptual development right from the emotional selling features of products and services, to product positioning, visual brand identity and corporate objectives.
Print collateral from Annual Reports to Packaging.
Web and Interactive design from Video work to complex CMS Systems and ecommerce websites.
