Today the concept of sustainable design has become increasingly significant in our modern society. We live in a time where consumerism is a prominent feature in our everyday life and designers are one the biggest contributors to the tradition of over consumption. However, there has been a growing realization that the principles that we have based our way of life on since the industrial revolution is in fact are destructive and unsustainable.
“ The remarkable achievements of the celebrated Industrial Revolution are now beginning seriously to be questioned principally because the environment was not considered at the time. It was felt that the sky was so vast and clear nothing could ever change its colour…Toda we should know better”(Brundtland, 1984, p.45)
More and more designers are changing the way they think and becoming innovators in developing ways in which we can consume more sustainably. We are developing without considering the earth’s capability to provide and the only way that we can ensure we will be able to satisfy our basic needs in the future without destroying the earth along the way is to change the way we think, rethink the way me make things and make things sustainably. In this essay I am going to discuss what it is to be sustainable and why we should become sustainable. I will also introduce the role of Graphic Designers in changing the way we make things and what the ‘Cradle to Cradle’ model is and how it can be applied to a number of design practices in order for them to being sustainable
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generation to meet their own needs”(p.54). In 1984, the WCED (The World Commission n Environment), lead by Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland, issued a report, ‘Our Common Future’ on sustainable development. The report, also known as the Brundtland report, was ‘a global agenda for change’(p.11). It was created to ‘ define shared perceptions of long-term environmental issues and the appropriate efforts needed to deal successfully with the problems of protecting and enhancing the environment”(p.11). The report defined a number of factors affecting our current situation such as poverty and the economic crisis. However, the report was written over twenty years ago and in this essay the main issues to be discussed are our over consuming behaviour and the overestimation into the limitations of earths resources in relations to the way we are living and these relate directly to design. We are consuming at the rate in which the earth cannot keep up with. ‘the simple truth is that all of our major environmental concerns are either caused by or contribute to, the ever-increasing consumption of goods and services’ (McDonough and Braungart, 2002, p. 50) As mentioned, the environment was never a part of the consideration when the Industrial Revolution took place. Therefore the way we make everything today is based on the belief that we have unlimited supply of natural resource, which is untrue. Therefore in order to become sustainable, we need to rethink the way me make everything. One group of people who can help contribute to this change are designers and they can do that so by following the pioneering model into rethinking the way we make things, the ‘Cradle to Cradle’ theory.
Graphic design is everywhere; throughout our daily lives we are surrounded by design. Everything we see today has been designed by someone. Everything we buy has been packaged or advertised to make us feel the need to by them. Designers take a perfectly average product and package it so that this product, no different from any other, stands out from the rest. Everything is fighting to stand out, to be noticed, and to be bought. “Advertising design, in persuading people to buy things they don’t need, with money then don’t have in order to impress others who don’t care, (it) is probably the phoniest field (of profession) in existence today.”(Papanek, 1985, p.ix). Seventy five percent of the communication pieces we design today end up in the trash with in a year. As graphic designers, we help large cooperates use up earth’s resources and turn them into profit. We also help create unnecessary waste, waste that can be prevented. However, designers are problem solvers and we can help minimize and even turn this demolition of our planet into something positive, if we choose to.
“His (a designer’s) social and moral judgment must be brought into play long before he begins to design, since he has to make a judgment...as to whether a product he is asked to design or redesign merit his attention at all. In other words, will his design be on the side of the social good or not.”(Papanek, 1985, p.55)
So, why design anything at all? The more sustainability is considered the closer we come to the conclusion to not buy and to not consume. However, ‘Consumption is both a natural integral facet of human behaviour’(Chapman and Gant, p.6). We cannot ask people to stop consuming, to stop being human. What we can do, as graphic designers, is to redirect their behavior and ‘design for sustainable consumption’(p.6). What we need is a kind of ‘sustainable design that signifies creation, progression and development, and presents the real opportunities for visionaries and heroes to emerge.’(p.4). In ‘ Cradle to Cradle’, William McDonough and Michael Braungart , have done just that.
There are many things Graphic designers can do to become ‘less bad’. We can recycle, use soy based ink, buy only FSC( Forestry Stewardship Council) certified paper. But to fully become ‘good’ we need to change the way that we make things. Particularly since the Industrial Revolution, the principles that we have based our industry on is the ‘Cradle to Grave’ model. “ Resources are extracted, shaped into products, sold and eventually disposed of in a ‘grave’ of some kind, usually a landfill or incinerator.’(McDonough and Braungart, 2002, p.27). We are the consumers but we actually ‘consume’ very little of what has been used to make the product. We eat the food, use the product for a certain amount of time, everything else goes straight to the ‘grave’. The packaging, the energy used to produce the good, the raw materials and etc. William McDonough and Michael Braungart have introduced a new way of making things. ‘Cradle to Cradle’ is a new paradigm of human and natural activity. Instead of a product going to its grave after its life cycle has ended, it is ‘reincarnated’, in fact, the life cycle doesn’t end at all. The ‘Cradle to Cradle’ design proposes that all design can learn from nature to become effective, progressive and sustainable. The model is based on three fundamental principles. The first one is the concept that waste equals food. In nature nothing is wasted, every single organism is a part of a cycle. One organism’s waste is food to another. For example, “ A cherry tree makes many blossons and fruit to germinate and grow. That is why the tree blossons. But the extra blossoms are far from useless. They fall to the ground, decompose, feed various organisms and microorganisms, and enrich the soil.” (p.92). This principle needs to be considered right at the beginning of the design process of everything we make. Instead of only focusing on the product getting to the end user, we must consider what happens after it has reached the consumer. The second principle is We, as designers need to recongnise that materials can be designed as nutrients that flow through a metabolism whether that would be a natural or a designed one. The second principle is to celebrate diversity. Nature thrives on diversity and healthy ecosystems are complex communities of living things. Each organism has different responsibilities to its surroundings working alongside other organisms sustaining a healthy system. “ The vitality of ecosystems depends on relationships: what goes on between species, their uses and exchanges of materials and energy in a given place.” (p.121). So, if nature is our model, how does the industry fit into it? They are “Industries that respect diversity engage with local material and energy flows, and with local social, cultural and economic forces, instead of viewing themselves as autonomous entities, unconnected.”(p.122) The last principle is to use current solar income. Every living thing flourishes under the energy from the sun. It is vast, powerful and necessary. The Cradle-to-Cradle system taps into current solar income using direct solar energy. More and more technological advances on collecting solar energy are emerging and it is becoming easier to access solar power in the energy marketplace. It is difficult to apply all three principles to Graphic Design specifically. However, it is still possible to create work that is based on the cradle-to-cradle model. You can design a packaging or a communication piece with a consideration for longevity and the life cycle. The process of manufacturing, from getting the raw materials to printing to delivery can be taken into account and the best result for the clients and achieving sustainability can be gained if the designer works along side the people involved in such process. The energy source, however, is perhaps the more difficult principle to follow as we, Graphic designers do not determine where our manufacturers or transporters get their energy from. But over, if Graphic designers take all of these principles into account before they even start designing anything. They are not being ‘less bad’ they are being sustainable.
The picture above is a piece of packaging design by Steve Haslip. This is an example of an eco Graphic Design piece which demonstrates that designers are problem solvers and how this and the cradle to cradle model are linked. “The concept was fairly simple: I buy t-shirts online and they always come wrinkled and I always run out of coat-hangers. So I designed a sustainable, reusable way to send and keep your t-shirts. As you open the package you create a coat hanger. The packaging could be made from recycled material whether it is card or plastic”(Haslip). The packaging won first prize in the D&AD student’s awards in 2007. This piece of packaging design is not directly based on the Cradle-to-Cradle model but it fits very satisfactorily under the principle. The simple and effective design ensures the longevity of the product’s life cycle. The packaging, which would normally be thrown away straight after the product is bought, is instead transformed into a hanger. The packaging becomes the storage equipment. Nothing is wasted but becomes something with a new purpose. This can be related back to the idea of waste equals food. The packaging is made form recycled material, which is the first go to rule when designing for sustainability. There are still two other Cradle to Cradle principles to be considered. There are always other factors effecting the design process and not just the designers principles and aspiration to created a fully sustainable product. How does one control where the energy used for the production process comes from? Your position as a designer and the to control every individual involved in this process. The more you look into the Cradle to Cradle model and this piece of design, it is being less bad, but how good is it. Perhaps there are a limitation of how much of this principle you can apply to everyday design depending factors beyond your control.
To conclude, as graphic designers, we are problem solvers and our problem is that the only way we know how to make things is the wrong way. We have based our industry and our way of life on the cradle to grave model which, joined by our over consumerism culture is using up earth’s limited resources. Designers are branded as a catalyst for such process, we encourage people to buy things they don’t need with the money they don’t have. Therefore, instead of being part of the problem, we can use our creativity to solve it. As Papanek rightly put, “ design must become an innovative, highly creative, cross-disciplinary tool responsive to the true needs of men. It must be more research oriented, and we must stop defiling the earth itself with poorly designed objects and structure”.(Papanek,1985, p.X). Sustainability is the answer and William Mcdonough and Michael Braungart have introduced us to a solution of becoming sustainable. The Cradle-to-Cradle model, which is based on the mechanisms in which every living organism in nature use. The model proposes that we can learn from nature and transform design into some progressive, sustainable and good.
