Design can change

I took a pledge that

In my professional practice, I will endevor to:

Learn: Engage in the topic and seek to understand the issue
Think: Make a sustainable mindset second nature
Act: Put my knowledge to use in my daily work
Inform: Share information and build awareness for sustainability
Unite: Spark change though collective strength


Design and strategy
- Design for re-use
- Maximize the shelf-life of your design
- Scrutinize the efficiency of your selected method
- Compare the impacts of each concept you develop
- Employ targeted efforts instead of mass mailings
- Do your proofing on-screen
- Encourage rich PDFs for annual reports
- Eliminate blank pages in your booklets and brochures
- Use office scrap paper or a tablet for sketching and brainstorming
- Learn about greenwashing, promise never to engage in it, and call out
any product guilty of it

Production
- Use local vendors who are committed to the environment
- Print on PCW stock
- Try running your next project on cotton or kenaf fiber if it's available to you
- Maximize use of the entire press sheet
- Minimize ink coverage
- Learn the words chlorine-free and vegetable-based and insist upon them
- Choose products that are manufactured with renewable energy
- Keep tabs on the latest printing and production technologies
- Avoid transporting printed proofs by using printers with synched
and calibrated monitors for review

Your business
- Make best use of your website and limit your reliance on printed promotions
- Provide preferential pricing to organizations who embrace sustainability
- Treat your commitment as a competitive advantage in marketing efforts
and when bidding on projects
- Become an expert, and counsel your clients on how to become more
sustainable in their practices
- Get connected with local environmental groups and pool resources
- Go paperless: invoice digitally or sign-up for online bill notification

Around the studio
- Use your knowledge of green design in revamping your workspace
- Recycle all of your computer equipment and ink cartridges
- Use rewritable formats and web services instead of disposable media
- Turn off the lights on a sunny day
- Go vegetarian at lunch
- Get a filter and drink water from your tap
- Walk to meetings, ride a bike or take transit
- Limit use of motorized couriers
- Consider buying energy credits
- Embrace a green lifestyle when you leave the studio

I need to read

Cradle to Cradle.... amazon it soon x

I've just read the first chapter in the Library (TCDC) and here's the last extract from it

'Consider this: all the ants on the planet, taken together have a biomass greater that of humans. Ants have been incredibly undustrious for millions of years. Yet their productiveness nourishes plants,animals and soil. Human industry has been in full swing for little over a century, yet it has brought about a decline in almost every ecosystem on the planet. Nature doesn't have a design problem. People do."

Its not just about taking the 'brand' away

MUJI didn't become so successful just by merely removing the label of its products.

'Underlying the essence of 'no brand' is actually an elaborating brand planning. Ikko Tanaka, who coined the term 'Mujirushi Ryohin', was insightful in the 1980's when the Japanese market was full of foreign brands. ' Mujirushi' represents the simplicity of ts packaging and manufacturing process, as well as its brand-free characteristic. 'Ryohin' is derived from Seiyu's commitment to provide quality for the products it developed. Classic writing such as

'Salmon-all part edible'

'Undecorated Love'

and

'Nature, Natural, MUJI'

created by Ikko Tanaka and Kazuko Koike, had accurately conveyed the spirit of MUJI

From Muji-book

'' MUJI became a first class brand by being a 'no brand'. It is common in Japan that if one sees a good design with no brand name, one would first guess whether that product is from MUJI. According to Kotler's classic marketing theory, when a certain product reminds the consumer of its features at first sight, the product has fundamentally succeeded, and its customer loyalty will remain strong for a long period of time."

May be this is why I love MUJI pens so much and refuse to believe that any other pens are better than ones of MUJI while I could easily be wrong.

A good pen to one person isn't necessarily good to another, its all personal and sometimes subjective ( I love MUJI aka I love MUJI pens )

Negative Space in Logo Designs

Logos with hidden meanings

Toblerone is a chocolate-company from Bern, Switzerland. Bern is sometimes called ‘The City Of Bears’. They have incorporated this idea in the Toblerone logo, because if you look closely, you’ll see the silhouette of a bear.

Roxy is a company that specializes in clothing and accessories for girls who love snowboarding, surfing… The company is actually a part of Quiksilver. The Roxy logo is made of two Quiksilver logos that form a heart.

This logo also uses a negative space to create the letter H. You can see three different parts: the letter H and W and a whale’s tail in blue.

This is probably one of the best known logos with a hidden meaning. If you look closely, you’ll see an arrow that’s formed by the letters E and x. This arrow symbolizes speed and precision, two major selling points of this company.

Eighty-20 is a small consulting firm. Most people think that the logo has nothing to do with the brand name. But the trick is to view the dark squares as 1’s and the light squares as 0’s. Then the top line reads 1010000 and the bottom line reads 0010100, which represent 80 and 20 in binary.
Continental is a manufacturer of tyres. You could actually see this in their logo, because the first two letters create a 3-dimensional tyre.

Carrefour is one of the biggest European retailers, and it’s also French for “crossroads”. The logo symbolizes this word via two opposite arrows. They also added the first letter of the name, because if you look closely you’ll see the letter C in the negative space between the two arrows.

Big Ten is an academic union which was founded in the year 1896. Until 1990, this union consisted of 10 universities, but in June 1990 Pennsylvania State University was added. They didn’t want to change their name, so they added the number 11 to the logo.

This logo doesn’t seem to hide much at first sight, but it gives you a little insight in the philosophy behind the brand. First of all, the yellow swoosh looks like a smile: Amazon.com want to have the best customer satisfaction. The swoosh also connects the letters a and z, meaning that this store has everything from a to z.

Yea....I can make something like this...easy!