by Namhee Hyun
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research question “Can graphic design motivate people to recycle and reduce the usage of plastic products in order to prevent further Marine plastic pollution?�
RESEARCH PROPOSAL
More than 4.8 million metric tons of plastic wastes end up in the ocean each year, causing marine pollution. About 80% of the plastic debris comes from the land including the beach litter. This plastic pollution has a critical impact on marine wildlife, where more than 100,000 marine animals die from getting entangled or ingesting plastic debris each year. So many seals andturtles dies by getting entangled by disposed fishing lines, sea birds and whales’ digestion system breaks down by plastic ingestion and eventually starves to death. But unlike the other environmental and ecological issues such as ‘deforestation’ and ‘greenhouse gas emission’, there are few people who are aware of ‘marine plastic pollution’ amoung us. That is because the scientists have overlooked the potential threat of the growing plastic debris, deceived by the vastness of the ocean and the abundance of marine wildlife. Now we must learn and change.
Although it is impossible to fix the marine pollution at once, it can be significantly prevented if only people remember to purchase recyclable products only, always recycle the plastic products after use, and reduce the usage of plastic products. This research aims to figure out a powerful way to change people’s habit of plastic recycling by encouraging and raising awareness of plastic pollution done in marine environment through persuasive graphic design.
PLASTIC
PLASTIC
PLASTIC
Mass production of plastic just began 1950’s
PLASTIC PLASTIC PLASTIC PLASTIC PLASTIC PLASTIC PLASTIC PLASTIC
In
1988
In
2010
30 million tons of
plastics were produced.
265 million tons of plastics were produced.
Over 170
marine species have been recorded to ingest plastic wastes.
More than 100,000
marine animals dies each year from ingestion and entanglement of plastic debris found in ocean.
SIMILAR PRACTITIONERS 01 Aurora Robson "Plant Perception" famous for interpreting plastic debris (mostly PET bottles) as the materials for her organic sculptures and installation.
SIMILAR PRACTITIONERS 02 Aurora Robson is a multimedia artist famous for interpreting plastic debris (mostly PET bottles) as the materials for her organic sculptures and installation. She is a founding artist of Project Vortex, international group of artists, designers and architects working with plastic debris. Until now, the plastics debris she has salvaged from oceans and landfills estimates about 30,000
Lli Larratea "Play Rethink board game" This creative and ecological game challenges the players to ‘rethink‘ of the everyday objects with alternative design solution based on the principles of eco-design.
SIMILAR PRACTITIONERS 03 Dave Brown and Gen Nagy "Tree Ring Magnet for Greenpeace" A guerrilla campaign by Greenpeace. Printed magnets mimicking a section of a tree-trunk, which says, “If you and every other household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of paper towels with 100% recycled ones, we could save 544,00 trees.”
SIMILAR PRACTITIONERS 04 Adam Taylor "Our Oceans Aren’t The Only Ones In Danger" This poster series is also a ‘marine plastic pollution’ campaigning poster for Surfrider. The playful replacement of the humans taking the role of marine animals that are threatened by plastic debris strikes (bitter to say this) more attention and impaction to the viewers.
contextual relevance 01
Necropsy found large mass of plastic debris protruding from it’s stomach and an empty intestine, which lead to the conclusion that the swallowed plastic debris likely caused a gastric rupture and eventually died of starvation. (De Stephanis et al. 2013)
02
Marine wildlife is impacted by plastic pollution through entanglement, ingestion, bioaccumulation, and changes to the integrity and functioning of habitats. (Vegter et al. 2014)
03
Zoos Victoria similarly reports more than 1400 seals become entangled in Australian waters each year, along with numerous sea birds, reptiles, and other marine mammals (Zoos Victoria, 2013). (Pearson et al. 2014)
creation PROPOSAL
Many people are aware about the environmental and ecological issues around us thanks to many campaigning efforts, but there are very few who knows why it is a problem, what are causing the problem and how we can make a change to the problem. Not to mention people’s lack of awareness about Marine Plastic Pollution compared to the other environmental and ecological issues.
Through this project, I aim to increase the knowledge of the public about the Marine Plastic Pollution (what is it ? what is causing it? why is it a problem?) and to guide them what behaviours can be changed to help the marine wildlife. In this campaign, I’m going to introduce three marine animals that are threatened by the plastic debris–the sperm whales of Mediterranean Sea, the seals of Australia, and the endangered leatherback turtles of French coastline.
01
ideas . . .
THE LOGO & THE MASCOT
Some call-to-action slogans, the campaign name, the logo design, and a marine animal as the mascot of this campaign.
02
ideas . . .
SERIES OF POSTERS
Series of posters showing (How to keep our beaches clean of plastics): 1) the impact of plastic debris has on the marine wildlife, 2)the cause/factor of the plastic debris in marine environment 3)the behavioural action people can easily take to protect the marine wildlife
03
ideas . . .
A WEB GAME (a.k.a. browser game)
a web-based game created to raise awareness of the Marine Plastic Pollution and to provide basic cause & effect information on the threatened marine species, to approach the public in much easier and entertaining way.
04
ideas . . .
MOCK-UPS OF REUSABLE PRODUCTS
MOCK-UPS OF RECYCLED PLASTIC GOODS WITH LOGO AND FACTS ON • Reusable shopping bag • Reusable-travel kits • Reusable-lunch box kits • Precious recycled plastic bracelets
work to progress
POSTER DRAFTS...
enjoy your meal.
plastic ocean
work to progress POSTER WORKING ON
the
great plastic soup
ReflectION
I feel doing this research very happy because, although the readings and research are sometimes stressful, I learn a lot during this, such as, the social issues I haven't known or haven't take care of and the great practitioners who have crafted their works thoughtfully to raise awareness of the social issues. I have come to think about design differently.