Issue One | November 2012 | ÂŁ4.99
First Things First 2000
Sustainable Printing
Working With Values
Conceptualising Design For The Future
Editorial Founded in 1963, Icograda (the International Council of Graphic Design Associations) is a voluntary assembly of organisations concerned with graphic design, visual communication, design management, promotion, education, research and journalism. Icograda promotes communication designers’ vital role in society and commerce and unifies the voices of graphic designers and visual communicators worldwide. The vision, mission and core values of the council are collectively embodied in the statement ‘leading creatively’ and manifested through our Members’ diverse activities to use design as a medium for progressive change. Communication design is an intellectual, technical and creative activity concerned not simply with the production of images but with the analysis, organisation and methods of presentation of visual solutions to communication problems. The Icograda Foundation was established in 1991 for the advancement of worldwide understanding and education through the effective use of graphic design. Designers need to become more accustom to designing with sustainability in mind. This is not just being more aware of what is printed and the impact this has on the environment, but also by tailoring their design projects to incorporate more sustainable materials. In “Sustainable Printing”, on page 10, it is shown that there are many ways in which this can be achieved and implemented into everyday projects. Also, Zappo have created an ingenious process orientated workflow for designing with sustainability in mind, which conveniently fits onto a beer coaster. You can create your own for use with every project on page 16, where you will find the templates ready to be cut out and used.
Icograda. Leading Creatively. Issue One. November 2012.
Contents 04
First Things First 2000 A Design Manifesto
Chris Dixon and Rick Poyner revisit the original 1964 manifesto by Ken Garland
10
Sustainable Printing
A myriad of ways to ensure your next printed project is greener than ever before
16
44
Zappo proves that sustainability is snall enough to fit onto a beer coaster; one that will become your constant companion, and not just for your beer!
18
Turn Around: About Trends And Sustainable Design
24
Working With Values
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Sustainability Fits On A Beer Coaster
How should designers handle the communication process and provide a sustainable approach to production?
Collis Ta-eed enlightens us with his design ethics and why all designers should consider who we want to work for and what we stand for as a designer
Debating Design Integreity
Find out how top designers from around the world communicated their views on the theme of ‘Identity/Integrity’ at the ICOGRADA conference last June
Why Now, More Than Ever, The Non-Profit World Needs Design And Vice Versa
Discover the challenges and benefits of designing for the non-profit world
Design For Social Causes
How much do you care about the impact you are making in helping to improve the lives of people in need?
First Things First 2000 Foreward: Chris Dixon, Adbusters Back in 1964, a small number of British graphic designers lent their names to a quietly radical document. First Things First was a rebuke to their colleagues in the industry for having forgotten their old idealism and lost sight of the things that really matter. It had the force of a flash of truth, inspiring many ad and design people, and so, by way of remembrance, we published it again in adbusters last year. That fall, editor/publisher Kalle Lasn and I were visiting New York City for a branding conference and stopped in to meet the legendary designer Tibor Kalman. Tibor was ill with the cancer that would, less than eight months later, claim his life, yet his eyes were clear. He thumbed through the issue of Adbusters we had brought for him. When he came across the the manifesto he paused and gazed out the window. Finally he turned back to us and said: “You know, we should do this again.” So we did. Joined by design critic Rick Poynor, we re-drafted the original manifesto, bringing the language up to date while trying to retain the original spirit. Ken Garland, the driving force behind the 1964 manifesto, visited the Adbusters office from London and gave his nod to the project. With Poynor, as well as Rudy VanderLans of Emigre magazine, we began soliciting endorsements from some of the most prominent designers around the world. Finally, Max Bruinsma, then editor of Eye, suggested that the manifesto was bigger than a single magazine, and should be launched simultaneously in the design industries most influential publications. This fall, Adbusters, along with the six magazines mentioned above, will renew First Things First and, we hope, launch a new debate around the flash that refuses to fade.
“You know, we should do this again.”
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Introduction: Rick Poynor When Ken Garland published his First Things First manifesto in London thirty-five years ago, he threw down a challenge to graphic designers and other visual communicators that refuses to go away. As the century ends, this brief message, dashed off in the heat of the moment, and signed by twenty-one of his colleagues, is more urgent than ever; the situation it lamented incalculably more extreme. It is no exaggeration to say that designers are engaged in nothing less than the manufacture of contemporary reality. Today, we live and breathe design. Few of the experiences we value at home, at leisure, in the city or the mall are free of its alchemical touch. We have absorbed design so deeply into ourselves that we no longer recognise the myriad ways in which it prompts, cajoles, disturbs, and excites us. It’s completely natural. It’s just the way things are. We imagine that we engage directly with the “content” of the magazine, the TV commercial, the pasta sauce, or perfume, but the content is always mediated by design and it’s design that helps direct how we perceive it and how it makes us feel. The brand-meisters and marketing gurus understand this only too well. The product may be little different in real terms from its rivals. What seduces us is its “image.” This image reaches us first as a visual entity – shape, colour, picture, type. But if it’s to work its effect on us it must become an idea: NIKE! This is the tremendous power of design. The original First Things First was written at a time when the British economy was booming. People of all classes were better off than ever before and jobs were easily had. Consumer goods such as TVs, washing machines, fridges, record players and cars, which North Americans were the first to take for granted, were transforming everyday life in the wealthier European nations – and changing consumer expectations for ever. Graphic design, too, had emerged from the austerity of the post-war years, when four-colour printing was a rarity and designers could only dream of American clients’ lavish production budgets and visual panache. Young designers were vigorous and optimistic. They organised meetings, debates and exhibitions promoting the value of design. Professional associations were started and many leading figures, still active today, began their careers. Ken Garland studied design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London in the early 1950s, and for six years was art editor of Design magazine, official mouthpiece of the Council of Industrial Design. In 1962, he set up his own company, Ken Garland & Associates, and the same year began a fruitful association (a “do-it-for-love consultancy,” as he once put it) with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
He was a committed campaigner against the bomb, and his “Aldermaston to London Easter 62” poster, with its huge, marching CND symbol, is a classic piece of protest graphics from the period. Always outspoken, in person and in print, he was an active member of the socialist Labour Party. Garland penned his historic statement on 29 November 1963, during a crowded meeting of the Society of Industrial Artists at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. At the end he asked the chairman whether he could read it out. “As I warmed to the task I found I wasn’t so much reading it as declaiming it,” he recalled later; “it had become, we all realised simultaneously, that totally unfashionable device, a Manifesto.” There was prolonged applause and many people volunteered their signatures there and then. Four hundred copies of First Things First were published in January 1964. Some of the other signatories were wellestablished figures. Edward Wright, in his early forties, and the oldest, taught experimental typography at the Central School; Anthony Froshaug was also a Central typographer of great influence. Others were teachers, students, or just starting out as designers. Several were photographers. The manifesto received immediate backing from an unexpected quarter. One of the signatories passed it to Caroline Wedgwood Benn, wife of the Labour Member of Parliament, Anthony Wedgwood Benn (now Tony Benn). On 24 January, Benn reprinted the manifesto in its entirety in his weekly Guardian newspaper column. “The responsibility for the waste of talent which they have denounced is one we must all share,” he wrote. “The evidence for it is all around us in the ugliness with which we have to live. It could so easily be replaced if only we consciously decided as a community to engage some of the skill which now goes into the frills of an affluent society.” That evening, as a result of the Guardian article, Garland was invited on to a BBC TV news program to read out a section of First Things First and discuss the manifesto. It was subsequently reprinted in Design, the SIA Journal (which built an issue round it), the Royal College of Art magazine, Ark, and the yearbook Modern Publicity 1964/65, where it was also translated into French and German. This publicity meant that many people, not just in Britain but abroad, heard about and read First Things First. Garland has letters in his files from designers, design teachers and other interested parties as far afield as Australia, the United States and the Netherlands requesting copies, affirming support for the manifesto’s message, or inviting him to come and speak about it.
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“We do not advocate the abolition of high pressure consumer advertising.” That First Things First struck a nerve is clear. It arrived at a moment when design was taking off as a confident, professionalised activity. The rapid growth of the affluent consumer society meant there were many opportunities for talented visual communicators in advertising, promotion and packaging. The advertising business itself had experienced a so-called “creative revolution” in New York, and several influential American exponents of the new ideas-based graphic design were working for London agencies in the early 1960s. A sense of glamour and excitement surrounded this well-paid line of work. From the late 1950s onwards, a few sceptical designers began to ask publicly what this non-stop tide of froth had to do with the wider needs and problems of society. To some, it seemed that the awards with which their colleagues liked to flatter themselves attracted and celebrated only the shallowest and most ephemeral forms of design. For Garland and the other concerned signatories of First Things First, design was in danger of forgetting its responsibility to struggle for a better life for all. The critical distinction drawn by the manifesto was between design as communication (giving people necessary information) and design as persuasion (trying to get them to buy things). In the signatories’ view, a disproportionate amount of designers’ talents and effort was being expended on advertising trivial items, from fizzy water to slimming diets, while more “useful and lasting” tasks took second place: street signs, books and periodicals, catalogues, instruction manuals, educational aids, and so on. The British designer Jock Kinneir (not a signatory) agreed: “Designers oriented in this direction are concerned less with persuasion and more with information, less with income brackets and more with physiology, less with taste and more with efficiency, less with fashion and more with amenity. They are concerned in helping people to find their way, to understand what is required of them, to grasp new processes and to use instruments and machines more easily.” Some dismissed the manifesto as naive, but the signatories were absolutely correct in their assessment of the way that design was developing. In the years that followed, similar misgivings were sometimes voiced by other designers, but most preferred to keep their heads down and concentrate on questions of form and craft. Lubricated by design, the juggernaut rolled on. In the gentler, much less invasive commercial climate of the early 1960s, it was still possible to imagine that if a few more designers would only move across to the other side of the vehicle balance would be restored. In its wording, the manifesto did not acknowledge the extent to which this might, in reality, be a political issue, and Garland himself made a point of explaining that the underlying
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political and economic system was not being called into question. “We do not advocate the abolition of high pressure consumer advertising,” he wrote, “this is not feasible.” But the decision to concentrate one’s efforts as a designer on corporate projects, or advertising, or any other kind of design, is a political choice. “Design is not a neutral value-free process,” argues the American design educator Katherine McCoy, who contends that corporate work of even the most innocuous content is never devoid of political bias. Today, the imbalance identified by First Things First is greater than ever. The vast majority of design projects – and certainly the most lavishly funded and widely disseminated – address corporate needs, a massive over-emphasis on the commercial sector of society, which consumes most of graphic designers’ time, skills and creativity. As McCoy points out, this is a decisive vote for economic considerations over other potential concerns, including society’s social, educational, cultural, spiritual, and political needs. In other words, it’s a political statement in support of the status quo. Design’s love affair with form to the exclusion of almost everything else lies at the heart of the problem. In the 1990s, advertisers were quick to coopt the supposedly “radical” graphic and typographic footwork of some of design’s most celebrated and ludicrously self-regarding stars, and these designers, seeing an opportunity to reach national and global audiences, were only too happy to take advertising’s dollar. Design styles lab-tested in youth magazines and obscure music videos became the stuff of sneaker, soft drink and bank ads. Advertising and design are closer today than at any point since the 1960s. For many young designers emerging from design schools in the 1990s, they now appear to be one and the same. Obsessed with how cool an ad looks, rather than with what it is really saying, or the meaning of the context in which it says it, these designers seriously seem to believe that formal innovations alone are somehow able to effect progressive change in the nature and content of the message communicated. Exactly how, no one ever manages to explain.
potential and meanings, designers who have grown up in a commercial climate often find this hard to believe. “We have trained a profession,” says McCoy, “that feels political or social concerns are either extraneous to our work or inappropriate.” The new signatories’ enthusiastic support for Adbusters’ updated First Things First reasserts its continuing validity, and provides a much needed opportunity to debate these issues before it is too late. What’s at stake in contemporary design, the artist and critic Johanna Drucker suggests, isn’t so much the look or form of design practice as the life and consciousness of the designer (and everybody else, for that matter). She argues that the process of unlocking and exposing the underlying ideological basis of commercial culture boils down to a simple question that we need to ask, and keep on asking: “In whose interest and to what ends? Who gains by this construction of reality, by this representation of this condition as ‘natural’?” This is the concern of the designer or visual communicator in at least two senses. First, like all of us, as a member of society, as a citizen (a word it would be good to revive), as a punch-drunk viewer on the receiving end of the barrage of commercial images. Second, as someone whose sphere of expertise is that of representation, of two-dimensional appearances, and the construction of reality’s shifting visual surface, interface and expression. If thinking individuals have a responsibility to withstand the proliferating technologies of persuasion, then the designer, as a skilled professional manipulator of those technologies, carries a double responsibility. Even now, at this late hour, in a culture of rampant commodification, with all its blindspots, distortions, pressures, obsessions, and craziness, it’s possible for visual communicators to discover alternative ways of operating in design. At root, it’s about democracy. The escalating commercial take-over of everyday life makes democratic resistance more vital than ever.
Meanwhile, in the sensation-hungry design press, in the judging of design competitions, in policy statements from design organisations, in the words of design’s senior figures and spokespeople (on the few occasions they have a chance to address the public) and even in large sections of design education, we learn about very little these days other than the commercial uses of design. It’s rare to hear any strong point of view expressed, by most of these sources, beyond the unremarkable news that design really can help to make your business more competitive. When the possibility is tentatively raised that design might have broader purposes,
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Original Manifesto: Ken Garland, 1964 We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it. Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession’s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best. Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse. There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help. We propose a reversal of priorities in favor of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication - a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design. In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent. Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart.
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Signed: Jonathan Barnbrook Nick Bell Andrew Blauvelt Hans Bockting Irma Boom Sheila Levrant de Bretteville Max Bruinsma Siân Cook Linda van Deursen Chris Dixon William Drenttel Gert Dumbar Simon Esterson Vince Frost Ken Garland Milton Glaser Jessica Helfand Steven Heller Andrew Howard Tibor Kalman Jeffery Keedy Zuzana Licko Ellen Lupton Katherine McCoy Armand Mevis J. Abbott Miller Rick Poynor Lucienne Roberts Erik Spiekermann Jan van Toorn Teal Triggs Rudy VanderLans Bob Wilkinson ...and many more.
amounts of water and energy to meet global demand. The process creates water, land, and atmospheric waste, and relies almost exclusively on fossil fuels. Commercial printing operations use energy-hungry equipment that often requireharsh chemicals and processes to lay inks, coatings, and adhesives on paper.
Sustainable Printing Susan Ritcey
Here’s How... Print is an inextricably human development dating back thousands of years. Our ability to communicate via the printed page is (no pun intended) part of the very fibre of our being. But as with other resource-intensive manufacturing processes, the printing industry is under heavy scrutiny today as greater awareness of the global ecological impact of human activity grows. Print’s own inconvenient truth is that, at a base level, it is the product of oil being applied to dead trees. The magic of conveying a message, a feeling, or an idea on a printed page is in danger of losing some of its luster if its creation is deemed wasteful and/or threatening to the global condition. In addition to harvesting forests, pulp and paper production also requires massive
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As the scarcity of our natural resources and the impact of global warming become increasingly and painfully obvious, those responsible for producing print are responding by implementing eco-friendly business and manufacturing practices to minimize or eliminate any adverse effects of their activities. Canadian designers, production personnel, and print buyers are the individuals called uponto execute the environmental visions and mandates of their employers or of their customers. As such, these producers have a myriad of ways to reduce the environmental impact of their print, ranging from the basic design and specifications of their projects, to their choice of stocks and inks, to their selection of commercial print suppliers. The following guide highlights some of the eco options available. Green Design and Production Considerations Graphic arts producers/buyers are always striving to create more persuasive, compelling print and constantly finding equilibrium with the ever shifting priorities of the client: budget, aesthetics, colour, size/weight, and – more than ever before – environmental sustainability. Optimized Sheets Determining the optimal sheet size for a particular print job is a decision often left to the commercial printer – not a bad idea, since reducing paper waste usually translates to larger profits for printers. But not always. Printers generally pay more for custom sized sheets compared to the house stocks available in bulk quantities. The decision to stick with a house sheet and waste a bit more paper might be the fiscally correct option to keep a project on budget, but not necessarily thebest for the environment. That’s why it’s imperative to work with your print supplier as early as possible in the planning and design stages
“The magic of conveying a message, a feeling, or an idea on a printed page is in danger of losing some of its luster .”
“Recycled stock was the environmental star of the show in the past.” andcommunicate your (or your client’s) environmental objectives. Keep in mind that custom sheets can take longer to reach the printer’s doorstep – another reason to plan well in advance to ensure you’re printing on the best-sized sheet. Another tip is to be mindful of bleeds when designing, which sometimes require a larger sheet size than might otherwise be needed for designs without bleeds. Changing Jobs The same goes for gang running multiple jobs on the same press sheet. Print producers are likely already doing this for budgetary reasons, but using the same stock (and ink) for multiple pieces within a campaign will not only save paper, it will also reduce the number of makereadies and significantly decrease the environmental impact of your production. Printing For An Audience One Can your client’s direct mail objectives be achieved by delivering your message to a smaller and more targeted (i.e. more relevant) audience? Advances in one-to-one digital variable data printing allow marketers to harness customer data to create a customized piece that speaks more effectively to the recipient. Studies have proven that response rates are exponentially higher on variable print campaigns versus the mass market approach of blanketing an entire demographic with a static printed piece. In addition to making great business sense from an ROI perspective, oneto-one marketing reduces the amount of paper and ink required to achieve the same objective, thus reducing the footprint of the campaign. Extend this thinking to Web-to-print ordering and fulfillment with on-screen proofing and the environmental benefits quickly begin adding up. Selecting Stocks And Ink If recycled stock was the environmental star of the show in the past, today’s line-up extends beyond recycled to include stock certified to be sourced from sustainable responsibly managed forests. Choosing certified stocks is a great way to show your environmental commitment, but there are considerations to keep in mind.
Certified Paper Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification is one of the most widely accepted and recognized environmental initiatives in the graphic arts community today. The FSC is an international non-profit organization that certifies pulp and paper companies who adhere to rigid forest stewardship standards. Users of FSC certified paper are assured that the wood used in its manufacture came from well-managed forests. Print service providers achieve FSC Chain of Custody certification by demonstrating their ability to warehouse, print, and segregate FSC paper, thereby guaranteeing buyers and users that the printed product can be tracked back to an approved source. Hundreds of printers across the country are FSC certified (see list beginning on page 60), and more are being added as user demand increases. Carrying the FSC logo on your printed materials shows concern for the promotion of environmentally and socially responsible forestry. FSC also recently launched the FSCXpert Program which allows designers and print buyers to obtain a designation identifying themselves as being environmentally conscientious by verifying their ability to source
Policy. See the organization’s eight tips at www. marketsinitiative.org. EcoLogo paper certification sets standards and certifying products in more than 120 categories, including printing papers and printing services. EcoLogo helps users identify, trust, buy, and sell “green” goods and services. EcoLogo certified papers contain at least 30 percent content from postconsumer recycled paper but must also meet other criteria throughout the manufacturing process.
and manage projects that use FSC paper. Upon completion of a comprehensive educational program and exam, you receive a unique identification number and are added to a published database of FSCXperts.
Recycled Paper For almost two decades, bearing a recycled paper logo on your printed material was accepted as a sufficient environmental effort in and of itself. Specifying paper with a decent level of postconsumer recycled paper is still a step in the right direction, but is generally considered the minimum effort in today’s climate of environmental responsibility. The good news is that there has been a dramatic improvement in the quality and printability of recycled paper. Price premiums once associated with recycled paper are no longer the standard, and “runnability” on press is comparable to most virgin stocks.
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is a similar forest-certification organization. SFI is a North American program in which participants practice sustainable forestry but also influence millions of additional acres through the training of loggers and foresters in best management practices and landowner outreach programs. Third party accredited certification audits similarly ensure the integrity of the program.
Today recycled content is expressed as an equation in conjunction with the commonly recognized recycled logo. The equation denotes the percentage of recycled content; the total amount of recycled content is shown first, followed by the percentage of post-consumer material. For example 100/30PCW means that 100 percent of the paper is recycled, and 30 percent is from post-consumer waste.
Ancient Forest Paper Ancient Forest Friendly (AFF) papers are free of ancient forest fibre and contain 100 percent recycled fibre or 100 percent FSC virgin fibre. Papers with high recycled content and the remainder of the fibre being FSC are also considered AFF. Vancouver-based Markets Initiative, one of the nation’s major proponents for the protection of ancient and endangered forests, lists eight steps businesses can take to “go AFF,” including the development and communication of an Ancient Forest Friendly
Remember, post-consumer waste (PCW) content means the fibre comes from paper that has already been “used” by a consumer, while pre-consumer waste refers to paper that contains fibre that has been recycled from a printer or mill (usually from trimmings and plant waste) or from unsold publications. Total recycled fibre (TRF) content means all of the paper contains 100 percent recycled material, but it can be a mix of both post- and preconsumer waste. It’s not enough to accept a supplier’s word on your paper being “recycled;”
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“Bearing a recycled paper logo on your printed material was accepted as a sufficient environmental effort.”
“UV inks are a benchmark for environmental printing practices.” make sure they specify what kind of recycled content it contains as well as the “pre” and “post” percentages. And always aim for little or no virgin fibre whenever possible. Green Power Sources Paper companies are implementing various practices to reduce greenhouse gases and their overall impact on the environment, including the use of alternative energy sources like wind power, biomass fuels, and other renewable energy. Literature available from your paper supplier will highlight their efforts in this area. Chlorine Bleaching Another important characteristic of paper that environmental stewards will want to consider is its chlorine content. Bleaching pulp with elemental chlorine was a practice used by pulp mills to whiten papers and make them stronger. The process was extremely harsh and produced huge amounts of hazardous chemical waste that harmed ecosystems across the world. Most mills have alternatives for bleaching pulp today. Process chlorine free (PCF) paper is made from recycled fibre that has not been re-bleached with any chlorine based bleach, but some chlorine may remain from the manufacture of the source material. The totally chlorine free (TCF) designation means that no chlorine was used at all in the pulp making process. Today’s TCF papers are generally as bright as ECF papers and are a suitable substitute for those seeking to divert harsh chemicals from the environment. Papers designated as elemental chlorine free (ECF) are virgin papers that used a chlorine derivative instead of elemental chlorine in the pulp making process. The derivatives, however, still produce dioxins, making ECF papers the least eco friendly alternative. Ink Choices There are a number of ink- and coating-related guidelines the eco-conscious print buyer will want to be aware of. Unlike solvent inks, UV inks are a benchmark for environmental printing practices because they release no volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions into the atmosphere. UV presses
generally produce faster makereadies, which ultimately reduces the amount of paper and ink used in the set-up process. Soy and vegetable based inks are widely accepted as the environmentally friendly choice when compared to petroleum based inks. Not only are they made from renewable resources, they emit dramatically fewer VOCs than conventional inks. The goal of buyers with sustainability in mind should be to push their suppliers to use the lowest VOC rated inks available. Equally important is what the printer is doing to steer ink materials from landfills like proper inventory/scheduling practices and reusing/recycling of unused inks. Fluorescent and metallic inks are generally more toxic with higher carcinogen levels and therefore are more hazardous to groundwater and hard to decompose. The Coating Selection Coatings add beauty and durability to printed products, but do have an impact on the environment. Aqueous(AQ)- based coating emit fewer VOCs than their petroleum-based varnish counterparts and are therefore considered a better environmental choice. Printed material
other aspects of their operation to make a sound choice when comparing suppliers. Has the printer been recognized by third parties (paper companies, environmental groups, print industry/design associations, etc.) for award winning projects or programs? Is the printer an active corporate citizen contributing to local or regional environmental initiatives or educational programs in the community (tree-planting, etc.)? Does the printer have a published, documented environmental policy on their web site? Does it contain performance improvement goals and objectives? If your supplier shrugs his shoulders when you ask about specifics of their environmental practices perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate the supply pool.
coated with AQ can be recycled and doesn’t require solvents for clean-up on press. UV coatings are liquid formulations that cure (solidify) on press under ultraviolet (UV) lamps. Though the lamps use a great deal of energy, the process doesn’t emit VOCs or solvents into the air. With any protective coating, a good practice is to minimize the amount used by limiting the coating to only the heavily inked areas, as opposed to a flood coating which covers the whole page. Choosing A Supplier There are printers across the country who share your interest in minimizing their ecological footprint, but it’s up to you to evaluate their “greenness” and to engage them in this critical issue. Designations, Certifications, Associations The most immediate way to determine a printer’s commitment to sustainability is to evaluate any designations or memberships they may have. We’ve discussed some of the major paper designations above (FSC, SFI, EcoLogo, etc.); if a printer has any or all of these seals of approval, it’s a great start. However, you’ll need to dig a bit deeper and evaluate
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Process And Technology Digital printing eliminates the need for the plate making chemistry and makeready waste associated with lithographic printing, and is therefore a more environmentally friendly process. However, the choice of which printing process to employ is almost always determined by the run length and format size of the desired piece. With all other things equal or comparable (cost, quality, etc.), going digital is by nature a better eco choice. The vast majority of lithographic printers in the industry have already made the switch to computer-to-plate technology (CTP) for a number of economic and quality reasons. From an environmental standpoint, printers who have not yet converted are still requiring an intermediate film step in the creation of their imaged printing plates, resulting in a host of harsh chemicals, solvents, and developers for processing and clean-up. Choose a CTP printer over one still using film. Depending on the equipment they have, CTP printers still require some chemical processing for their plates. Many are taking an environmental leap forward by eliminating the need for even this chemistry by converting to chemistry-free printing plates, which require a harmless rinse or go directly from the CTP machine to the press. If your CTP printer is using processless plates, you can be assured your production is “cleaner” than it otherwise might
“It’s up to you to evaluate their greenness and to engage them in this critical issue.”
“Designers have an obligation to themselves and to their profession.” be. If your printer isn’t processless yet, they should be taking steps like adding neutralizing solutions to the developer before it is goes down the drain. Asking your printer about their waste treatment procedures shows that you’re thinking about improving the process as a whole, rather than taking their logo designations at face value.
purchasing ‘carbon offsets’. These are credits that fund energy efficiency projects elsewhere, such as wind farms or solar installations. By purchasing these credits, individuals offset their own emissions and reduce net climate impact. Explore with your printer ways to make your projects carbon neutral.
Waterless Printing Waterless printing is a type of lithographic printing that eliminates the water or dampening system used in conventional offset printing. It uses a special silicone rubber coated printing plate, special ink, and temperature control on press. As a result it eliminates dampeningrelated VOCs from the printing process, and therefore doesn’t contribute to ozone depletion and global warming. Also, since the process gives printers the ability to achieve colour and register faster across the press run, it ultimately reduces the amount of paper waste associated with achieving makeready. Choosing a printer with waterless printing capabilities is another way to make your next project a greener one.
It’s Up To You According to the American Institute of Graphic Arts, “Designers have an obligation to themselves and to their profession to seek the knowledge and skill required to move sustainable design from the margins to the mainstream of design practices and business communications of print.” Print buyers and production personnel need to extend this mentality even further into the choices they make in the selection and procurement process. From using materials with less impact and toxicity, to encouraging reuse and recycling of raw materials and finished goods, to selecting suppliers who share your concern for print’s long term sustainability, the choice for a greener future is yours. PM!
Renewable Energy One of the most significant ways a printer can take responsibility for its environmental impact is through the use and promotion of renewable energy. Although the thought of a wind farm in a printer’s backyard is still far-fetched, a handful of Canadian printers are taking the lead by purchasing Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) from certified green power facilities to offset the energy used by their printing operations. BC’s Hydro Power Smart program and Ontario’s Bullfrog Power are two of the more high profile programs, and printers who subscribe to their services are truly minimizing the impact of their operations. Similarly, print buyers can negate the impact of their actions by purchasing – or asking printers to purchase on their behalf – carbon neutral certificates. Going carbon neutral is a relatively new way for people to take responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions they create in everyday activity. When you engage in an activity that spews emissions into the atmosphere – driving your car for example – you can effectively negate them by
Sustainability Fits On A Beer Coaster Christhard Landgraf, Zappo Berlin
We’ve put sustainable design and printing on a coaster. With it sustainability becomes a handy, easy to understand, constant companion. The coaster allows you to immediately analyze, evaluate and improve any project during a meeting with clients or partners. The coaster helps you to have an open, goal-oriented discussion and encourages you to find alternatives in design and printing. These 85 square centimeters of cardboard show all the important issues and all factors that need to be considered in a designer’s work and its subsequent realization. How does that work? With the help of the radar or spider chart it is easy to evaluate and compare a product according to certain criteria. For printing and design we have devised six main criteria each. And each of them is defined by further points of action. So now you can quickly navigate the areas of sustainable design and sustainable printing with little effort. “Design and Sustainability” facilitates the complex, process-oriented approach to design. It is the basis for the way in which a modern designer works. It is important to remain open-minded and to constantly broaden your horizon, for applying the principles successfully to your work. “Printing and Sustainability“ focuses on the environmentally friendly production. Of course you need a thorough knowledge of materials, technologies and processes. The search for alternative options is at the center of both “Design and Sustainability” and “Printing and Sustainability“. How does it actually work? You rate each criterion on the concentric circles (1 = worst to 10 = best), i.e. how well a solution meets or should meet a criterion. This can be based on an objective analysis or your subjective assessment. You need to mark each solution with a different color and connect each point of a color with a straight line. The result gives you rating profiles for each solution. Do not forget to include solutions already realized. Solutions with lines furthest from the center are better than those with lines closer to the origin. The area itself has no meaning as it is defined through the individual weighting of various criteria. This process should be iterative. You should constantly strive to find an even more sustainable solution. And it’s actually quite fun to do! Try it. Cut out your Sustainability Coasters from the facing page.
usage production accessibility material technologies intelligibility
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Design Repertoire
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optimize the workflow avoid mistakes ideal cooperations regional collaboration
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choice of paper recycled materials ink finishing
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form and aesthetics subject and function semantics
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design function production use reuse disposal
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analysis concept development design management implementation and verification 6
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paper stock ink consumption print run
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choice of paper recycled materials ink finishing
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Working With Values Collis Ta’eed
As a freelancer newly started in the design business, I’ve been on the receiving end of many such a comment from helpful, if somewhat jaded friends and co-workers. The perception of business as a sphere of life where values are not just out of place but in fact detrimental to success is a surprisingly persistent one. Call me naive but I don’t agree. There is no reason why values should not be a part of a business strategy, particularly that of a design business. As designers we find ourselves in a field rife with loose ethics. Having worked for the last year in the property advertising industry I can personally testify to the sorts of subtle deceit and exaggerations that we perpetuate every day in our work for what are all too often products, services and ideas of no particular benefit to anyone. Applying a system of values and ethics in your design practice is almost certainly something you’ve thought about at some point or another,
probably in some hypothetical question relating to doing work for a cigarette manufacturer, oil company or the like. However I think a fuller more complete approach is necessary. In this article I’ve briefly examined a few of the issues that all designers should seriously consider. Choosing Projects From An Ethical Standpoint Touched on in many a university course and perhaps the most obvious ethical issue in the creative industries, this can be quite a dilemma for the struggling agency. In my own experience I was once approached to produce a string of adult sites complete with all the latest bells and whistles and with the prospect of a very large sum of money. I immediately said “yes, lets have a meeting!” but as the day proceeded my conscience started to kick in. I tried to convince myself that as long as I wasn’t creating the content I could stay neutral, and that if I didn’t do the job somebody else would. In the end, though, I decided I couldn’t feel right about it and called the whole thing off. While not everyone might feel the same way about adult sites, it’s important to have some general guidelines as to the sort of projects you think are ethically sound. The hard part is sticking to them no matter how much money is waved in front of you. It’s tempting to give in to the money, or the alluring idea that it doesn’t really make a difference what you do, but for
“This is the real world.” “There are no friends in business.” “Its all about the bottom line.”
your own sake, be prepared to take a stand on issues you care about and to draw the line on projects which you think detrimental to society. In the end, the global community is made up of nothing more than individuals making small decisions every day, but its these decisions that affect us all. As a designer you have a lot of power held in your hands. You have the power to make almost anything seem desirable or even essential, to change the way people see whats around them. This may sound exaggerated, but consider how important Hitler saw his propoganda ministry. It was paramount to his success in getting Germany to its pre-WW2 attitudes. While you will doubtless never be involved in anything so overtly wrong, you should bear in mind the implications your work has the potential to have. Here are some examples of the sorts of projects I personally would stay away from. This is by nomeans a definitive list, but some areas our practice chooses to avoid: - Anything detrimental to the environment overfishing, uranium mining, etc. - Gambling, Cigarettes, Alcohol - X-rated adult projects - Marketing aimed squarely at children for products which have little real benefit - Companies on the global offenders list (companies that use child labour in the making
of their wares, take advantage of developing countries, or grow genetically modified ingredients) I have been amazed by how many creatives have sung the praises of certain multi-nationals for their huge budgets and creative thinking without a minutes thought to where this money is coming from. These companies can often seem like a dream client, until you realise that their huge budgets are made off the back of child labour or shoddy environmental practices. Creating Value, Not Just Making Money This is by far the most subtle issue and involves a bit of mindshift. When considering your business it is very tempting to think of everything in terms of the bottom line, to measure success only in monetary terms. Now I am by no means saying you should forget that aspect of business, particularly if you want to last out the year. However there is more to what you are doing than just bringing in money, there are a variety of benefits that you and your business will be providing for those around you. The best way to illustrate this idea is with an example. Imagine a hypothetical business, lets call it Anderson & Sculthorp Design (ASD) with ten employees in various capacities. Now even if ASD were to only be just breaking even every year the business would still have value, and I’m
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“Ever been to a mechanic who said they’d do an oil check for free in the hope that you’d get them to permanently service your car?”
not referring to the business assets. There are ten people whose livelihood is provided, who are gaining experience and living off ASD, and there are clients who have a relationship and rely on the ASD team and so on. Taking this to its logical conclusion meansthinking of a business as an entity interconnected with those around it. Rather like a parent might provide for their family, in the same way a business provides for its employees and clients. My own agency Good spends a significant amount of money for web hosting every year. While we on-sell much of that hosting we also provide free hosting for organisations who we think shouldn’t have to pay, or put another way, who have better uses for that money. Thus our agency is providing a service to the community and regardless of its profitability has created value. Free Pitching Every design practice is called on at some time or another to provide a free pitch for a job. You know the story, great client, big project, you could really use the cash flow, but they have asked for some ideas and mocks up front - for free. It may seem harmless enough, especially if you get the job, but what you are doing is effectively crippling the design industry. Every time an
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agency pitches for free they are creating the impression that design is cheap and that it’s not really necessary to pay for their or any other design agency’s time. No other service based industry provides a sample of their services for free. Have you ever been to a mechanic who said they’d do an oil check for free in the hope that you’d get them to permanently service your car? Or how about a doctor who gave you your first visit to see if the “relationship gelled”? Of course not, but this is the sort of thing that design agencies do all the time, and unfortunately clients ask for constantly. By all means show your portfolio, chat to the client, give costings and quotes, but don’t work for free. Sustainable Materials Interesting designs and formats with unusual materials are probably the highlight of print work. However, its important to bear in mind when choosing stocks, sizes and materials the environmental cost of what you are doing. There are a variety of things you can do in this regard too, for example choosing recyclable materials over non-recyclable, biodegradable over nonbiodegradable, keeping paper sizes relatively standard to prevent huge wastage in offcuts, selecting a printer or manufacturer that has a commitment to the environment and so on.
The key factor to remember is that in virtually any print job, there will be a run of thousands of copies, so a small change will make a large difference. It may cost slightly more (though certainly not always), but you can simply pass this cost on to the client, explaining the reasoning. If you aren t proposing anything outrageous and they are a reasonable sized client, they will more than likely accept, no sweat off your back and you can sleep better at night knowing you’ve made a contribution.
Maybe he’s a bad guy, maybe he’s a good guy, maybe he’s you. We all hope that once the guy gets there he’ll make his own decision, but this stuff works, so it seems he doesn’t. Why do sports cars have half naked women draped over them? Why do they then sell so well? We are all so much easier to fool than we’d like to admit. The point is, advertising is all well and good, but you should always use your best judgement in marketing products and services and keep things in check, exactly the way I did’ t.
Telling It Like It Is Now we all know that advertising is about glossing over a product’s failings and focusing on its strengths and this is a great way to market things. Occasionally however advertising falls into the domain of outright lies. I once built a website for a property development billed as being the ultimate in design and location. The property itself, a perfectly ordinary looking building in an ordinary location near an airport with planes constantly flying overhead. Now I dutifully went about my job and listening to the client went about cropping images in such a way as to only highlight parts of the building, zooming in on the view of the coastline to make it seem closer and so on.
Ethically Sound These few points are just the tip of the iceberg, and there will be issues that you believe in as an individual more than others. But hopefully the distinctions that we at Good believe in have got you thinking. If our businesses are ethically sound, we will have a more prosperous community.
Who loses out in such a scenario? The average guy on the street who is out buying a home.
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icograda.org
Icograda actively promotes the value of design practice, thinking, education, research and policy, representing more than 200 organisations in 67 countries and regions globally.