Graphic Design

First of all, this book didn’t satisfy my needs. I was expecting visuals, something that shows examples.. instead of this I saw a lot of texts, it is generally about after graphic design process, not about designing process. I was expecting some environmental friendly packages, products, posters, papers, creative ideas and etc.. Secondly, t was totally black and white. It was like a photocopy book. The cover and last 3 or 4 pages are colored. It is so ridiculous for us, as graphic designers to look at such a black and white photocopy book.In general I can say that you can also find such an information on the internet, you don’t have to give that money for such black and white “green” “graphic design” book!
Rating: 1 / 5

My English is not so good I write in spanish.

Recibi el libro en Tiempo y forma. La compra fue muy segura y el libro esta muy bueno.

Muchas Gracias
Rating: 5 / 5

Brian Dougherty’s book “Green Design” looks at ways to combine the environmental ideals of the 60s, with the realities of contemporary science and business.

He argues that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies can be adopted by large businesses because design decisions aren’t made at a corporate level, individuals make them, and so the task is to find individuals within organizations that share a designers “green vision”.

Brian gives some practical advice for graphic designers, and how we can “go green”

Use post consumer recycled and tree-free papers

Look for printers who use non-toxic, vegetable or soy inks

Devise packaging structures that result in less waste

Strategize with clients about promoting causes

Help not-for-profit organizations communicate and lobby

Investigate cause-related marketing

Help shape the way brands communicate with their audience

As designers, he argues, we don’t need “permission” to “do good”, any more than we need permission to obsess about kerning. It should be a natural part of our role as designers. There are also two directions that designers need to push for change. One is “upstream” which involves changing management and client decisions, and the other is “downstream” and this involves suppliers, manufacturers and printers.

Brian makes a very shocking point, and illustrates it quite graphically, that most “graphic design” ends up as landfill. Those 50,000 flyers that you sent out to homes and businesses last week just got thrown away, even if they communicated the intended message first. And “thrown away” actually means, moved somewhere else. Out of site, out of mind. There is no “away”. It was a well-made point and certainly caused me to sit up and think.

Leading on from this, he argues that increasing our response rates is one of the “greenest” things we can do as designers and that paradigm shifts are much better than incremental improvements. I love his quote, “use more creativity and less stuff”. That will certainly be my mantra for the New Year.

In terms of paradigm shifts, Brian encourages us to think about ways of reinventing what was once standard design, such as removing the need for envelopes and making letterheads into self-mailers, or printing postcards that point readers to an online brochure, instead of printing the whole brochure and sending it. As annoying as email newsletters are, deleting them into cyberspace is a whole lot better for the planet than throwing a printed newsletter into landfill.

He discusses the printing process itself and how environmentally unfriendly it is, with all the waste paper and ink involved with starting a print run, the energy consumed by the printer itself and the toxic cleanup of the machines after the run is finished.

His advice for short run printing is to go digital. For medium print runs, use sheet-fed offset and waterless printing or UV printing and for larger runs, again look for UV printing. I also think that any printer who is using renewable energy to run their machines is also a plus.

The book also examines plastics, and I was interested to see PVC or vinyl called “the Poison Plastic” as I have worked in the signage industry, and I know that the majority of printing is done with very toxic inks on to vinyl substrates. He suggests using other signage alternatives, such as 3D laser cutting, cotton canvas for banners, recycled PET plastic fabric or UV print onto reclaimed surfaces or veneered solids.

This review might make the book sound all doom and gloom because I’ve extracted the main points, but as he says, he’s “more interested in innovation than guilt” and I was certainly inspired to innovate more with my design as a result of reading the book. It’s actually quite light and easy-to-read, surprisingly, considering the topic and I certainly think every graphic designer should start investigating ways to green their professional practice, one way or another. I look forward to the day when “green design” is synonymous with “good design” and no body thinks about doing the “right thing” anymore, because everyone just does it naturally.

I’ll end with another quote from the book that also deserves to be printed on a T-shirt (using soy based inks of course): “In order to design for change, we must change the way we design”. Inspiring stuff indeed.
Rating: 5 / 5