Green Options

You drink coffee. Tea. When it’s at home, it’s organic, and when you’re out, you do your best. In so many ways, you live a green lifestyle. And yet, there’s one sticky point: the cup.

Botas Dacca Boots made out of recycled plastic bags, are hot to trot.

They are made exclusively by a noted Chilean industrial design student named Camila Labra. The interiors are constructed to be comfortable and soft with a natural piqué and the green highlight is that the exteriors are made mostly of recycled plastic bags.

I’m reading a book about wood. The title is “Wood,” by Harvey Green. It’s written a bit like the slightly more popular and accessible books by a different author titled “Salt” and “Cod” by Mark Kurlansky. But “Wood” is about our use of wood in home construction, furniture, machinery, packaging, religion—everything. In this book, the author makes many interesting observations, like the fact that although the saw was developed independently in many parts of the world and they are strikingly similar, some cultures designed saws to cut on the push stroke (Western) and others to cut on the pull stroke (Eastern). I think this is fascinating.

He also writes about a time in our past when almost everyone had some knowledge of working with wood because everyday activities like farming, cooking, cleaning traveling, required implements that needed to be made out of wood.

Now that I have read it, this seems so obvious. Back in Laura Ingalls’ time, you couldn’t just go to the store and buy everything you needed like we can today (alas, Mr. Oleson’s store was well stocked but not like what you can find at Wal-Mart). Still, what a cool common bond they all had. I feel a little envious of what seems like a really artistic skill, but then I think that this is sort of how computers are for us today. Almost everyone has to have some knowledge of a computer interface in order to help get our jobs done (supposedly) faster and more efficiently.

If you go to the mass retailers today, it’s likely that you’re going to pay more for sustainably designed, developed, manufactured and shipped products. In some cases, like my Timberland boots, the products will be superior in all ways that matter and the sustainable attributes will be an added-value. But in most cases the product will either be harder to find, quicker to wear-out or less aesthetically pleasing than the less-sustainable competition.

It’s tempting to point out the many examples beyond my Timberlands, which are sustainable without the sacrifice or the bloated price tag. Sure, they exist but they are the minority–a miniscule struggling minority. If we all start to question why, we can shift every product manufactured towards a more sustainable approach. Every product.

Sustainability is gaining popularity among every industry, and the graphic design community is no exception.

When I was writing my thesis on sustainable and socially-conscious graphic design just a few years ago in college, good resources on the subject were hard to come by. Now it seems that discussion sustainability in design is cropping up everywhere, and design organizations and studios are jumping on the green bandwagon. All I can say

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