The Green Grocery Store Project

I recently read about the most amazing design project that challenged students to envision ways to raise consumer awareness concerning the actual recyclability (I don't think this is a word) of product packaging in the typical grocery store. The goal was to educate without condemnation, yet to influence consumer habits through clever and compelling design. KT Meaney at North Carolina State University did a fantastic job conceptualizing and implementing this project. For more images, check out the recycling awareness site that students created for the project.

MEGA Whole Foods in Pasadena—Sustainable?

For as long as I can remember, I have affectionately referred to Whole Foods as Whole Paycheck. There is something both extremely seductive, yet insidious about the Whole Foods experience. Look at us: we're beautiful, organic, polished to perfection, and totally dirt-free, cry the aesthetically arranged fruits and veggies. Come hither and partake in our naturally-derived botanical formulas, beckon the emollients and grooming products. We're bright-eyed, just plucked from the ocean and have never ever ever been frozen, coo the fish (even the fish in Chicago). Don't we have spiffy labels with lovely typography and a tasteful colour palette, whisper the 365 Organic® jars of marinara sauce. Buy us, buy us, buy us. Consume and feel good about it because you're shopping at Whole Foods. Well, heck, I just spent my Whole Paycheck.

Although, I rarely read the Sunday L.A. Times, I happened to pick up a copy today. In the Magazine, I came across an article on "The Green Giant," Pasadena's new flagship store. I must say, it sounds like even Whole Foods has outdone itself. According to Christopher Hawthorne:

The Whole Foods regional flagship in Pasadena, designed by the KTGY Group in Santa Monica, is an architectural monument to this idea. Along with the Ecolution hemp shopping bags for $7.49 and the "Certified Organic" cotton candy near the checkout aisle, the store has a salsa bar, a coffee bar, a nut bar, a noodle bar, a tapas bar with 20 wines by the glass, a soup bar, a pudding bar and a charcuterie. And a chocolate fountain. . . .

On the Sunday I visited, a group was settling down in the center of the second floor, just behind the pizza oven and not far from the roast-beef carving station, for a full-blown Champagne brunch. TVs hang everywhere so you can watch PGA golf (that's what was on when I was there) while you pick out fair-trade roses from Ecuador.

Evidently, this store is quite large (as it would have to be to house all of the above), yet somehow, with its sustainable building materials, it's supposed to be ecologically responsible. Hmm, I can envision this store's customer purchasing the brand new H-Green Hybrid Hummer. Thank you very much, but I'll continue to buy my just harvested, dirt-speckled Tuscan kale at the local farmer's market.

Designers Get Green in San Diego

Last weekend, we packed up the Prius and traveled down to San Diego for the 13th annual Y-Conference. This year's theme was Seeds of Change and tackled issues of sustainability in both design and life. I adore this conference, because the quality of speakers is consistently top notch (of course, there are always a few duds, but this is impossible to avoid), the San Diego chapter of the AIGA is eclectic (designers seem authentic and wear colors other than black) and totally non-snooty, the University of San Diego is a lovely location, the weather is glorious in late March, and the conference is very affordable by AIGA standards. I was so excited when I learned about the theme of Y-13 and couldn't wait to bask in the eco-love.

And I was not disappointed. Robert Noble, of Envision Solar is now my hero. For years I've been ranting about parking lots in SoCal and all that sun that could be generating energy. Well, Mr. Noble is covering those God-forsaken, hotter than hell, gigante mall parking lots with Solar Groves™. What a poetic name for and beautiful incarnation of green design at its best. This is just one of Mr. Noble's many innovative and progressive projects; the man is a true visionary and all around cool guy.

Another super duper inspiring speaker was Brian Dougherty of Celery Design Collective, based in Berkeley. Not only does Celery Design create beautiful work, but it is also eco-innovative, big time. They even created a free online ecological guide to paper to help designers make sense of PCW, ECF, PCF, TCF, FSC, etc. Holy cow, paper specing in more complicated than ever. Thank you Brian for proving that a fabulous printed piece doesn't have to include a matte varnish, a gloss varnish, a double hit of florescent ink, foil stamping, tip-ins, and full bleed images. In my view, any designer who does not at least consider issues of sustainability in their work is, well, a moron.

I have only one negative comment about the conference and that is: Organic ToGo sucks. And it sucks on a number of levels. First, the food lacks, well, flavour. Second, every single item is packaged in plastic. Third, and most horrific: BAGGED SLICED APPLES! Now, I am not a proponent of all caps or the exclamation point, for that matter, but the very core of my being is offended by bagged sliced apples. Apples: perfected packed by Mother Nature. Slicing apples drastically reduces their shelf life and necessitates the use of some form of preservative (usually asorbic acid). So instead of biting into a delicious, crisp organic apple, I had to suffer through soggy slices with a faint hint of what can only be described as chewable vitamin C taste: chalky and faux citrusy. The organizers of the conference actually apologized for the food and mentioned that they had hoped to avoid totally plastic-encased lunches. Oh well, these things happen.

All in all, Y-13 was educational, eye-opening, at times mind blowing, and very inspiring. Nice work AIGA San Diego: you guys and gals deserve a big meyer lemon martini for your efforts.

Your Toothbrush's Carbon Footprint

On Saturday, I attended AIGA's Compostmodern conference in San Francisco. The conference was organized by the S.F. chapter of the AIGA and AIGA's Center for Sustainable Design. It's exciting that designers are talking about sustainability even though the concept of sustainability seems at odds, or downright antithetical, to a lot of graphic design. Afterall, don't designer's love itty bitty type surrounded by white space, glorious white space? Certainly, the AIGA has sent out its fair share of multiple page publications with florescent inks and vellum overlays. But, change is good and change is progressive and I do think that AIGA and designers are trying to change.

One of the speakers at Compostmodern was Valerie Casey, the founder of The Designer's Accord: "a call to arms for the creative community to reduce the environmental impact caused by design, and to work collaboratively to inspire sustainable change." Her talk was impassioned and quite inspiring, although, there were multiple mentions of purchasing carbon offsets, which seem like a big sustainability boondoggle to me. Can matter, once created, be eliminated, oh, I mean, offset? Wouldn't it be better to reduce business travel, given that we are living in an age of easy and inexpensive global communication.

Another thing that came up in Ms. Casey's talk was the design of the toothbrush and how horrified one of her coworkers at IDEO was to see his design wash up on the beach five years later almost perfectly preserved in its original sparkly plastic glory. Which got me to thinking: why can't industrial designers come up with a reasonably designed toothbrush? Toothbrushes are now so bloated and over-designed that older toothbrush holders (the kind with little holes in a closed container) cannot accommodate them. The design of such toothbrushes has long annoyed me given the ephemerality of this product. Isn't it just the bristles that need replacing every there months, anyways? Imagine the carbon footprint of our country's collective toothbrushes. Here's my call to arms to all you product designers out there: for the love of God, please re-design the toothbrush!! I, for one, would pay big bucks for a sustainable alternative to this: