Product designers face a whopping problem when trying to develop sustainable ideas. Their very industry hinges on making more stuff. And making more stuff is often unsustainable, because doing so typically consumes finite natural resources while producing environmentally-damaging waste. One way around this conundrum is to design stuff that allows us to extend the useful life of other stuff, thereby reducing such waste.
Designed to screw onto standard glass containers (mayo and mustard jars, salsa jars, jam and jelly jars, and almost any other kind of jar you buy in a supermarket), these plastic lids convert what would otherwise become waste into a variety of useful kitchen containers.
There are a lot of advantages to this product solution: the uniformity of appearance keeps the repurposed containers looking like an attractive matched set, even if different jar shapes are used. Different tops accommodate different sized jars and the variety of uses (which includes two varieties of pour spout, an oil and vinegar cap, a powder shaker lid, and a sugar pourer) pretty much guarantees anyone with a kitchen can use the full set.
I can see only a couple of minor issues that might be considered:
The tops are made from polypropylene, which isn't the most recyclable material (commonly known as #5 plastic, the most accessible way to recycle it for most is through Preserve's Gimme 5 program). Luckily, the useful life of this product is extremely long, so that isn't too significant of an issue.
I'd also like to see the pour spouts come with a closed lid. As they are, they can be used only to serve food products, not to store them.
North Americans can purchase a set of jar tops through Generate Design, and Europeans can get them through Royal VKB.
Okay, I was thinking the first post of 2009 would be some profound preface to the new year but then I saw this and figured what the hell. These graph paper napkins are the perfect doodling surface.
With America's first black president-elect comes a wave of optimism, it seems: things will be okay. But even as the public breathes this collective sigh of relief, it turns a wary eye to Barack Obama and wonders, if quietly, will things really be okay? Because the Bush administration has done real damage to America's democratic structure by limiting civil liberties, creating undemocratic "justice" systems, and otherwise desecrating our constitution. This damage is frightenly cataloged by Naomi Wolf in her 2007 book The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot.
Wolf's basic premise is simple and hard to dispute: when studying dictators throughout the world's history, there are ten patterns of behavior that emerge that contribute to their rise to power, and George W. Bush and his administration has pursued each of these steps. While never outright calling Bush and his posse a fascist dictatorship, Wolf certainly connects many dots and sounds a clear warning. Paper coups are still coups.
The Ten Steps Towards Fascist Dictatorship
Invoke an external and internal threat. Example: Terrorism
Establish secret prisons. Example: Guantánamo
Develop a paramilitary force. Example: Blackwater
Surveil ordinary citizens. Example: USA Patriot Act and TIPS
Infiltrate citizen's groups. Example: Talon and multiple state-level incidents
Arbitrarily detain and release citizens. Example: The TSA no-fly list, specific individual arrests
Target key individuals. Example: Direct Congressional pressure on academia, attorney firings
Restrict the press. Example: The outing of Valerie Plame, detainment of reporters, deliberate withholding of information
Cast criticism as "espionage" and dissent as "treason." Example: Revived use of the Espionage Act
Subvert the rule of law. Example: Military Commissions Act of 2006 (the suspension of habeous corpus), Fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill (the gutting of posse comitatus law)
Wolf's arguments and examples in most cases are incredibly strong and well documented (including 14 pages of reference notes and a full bibliography). Unfortunately, there are stretches that undermine her message. She too often conflates the media (particularly the right-leaning outlets and blogosphere) with the administration itself, as when she hammers Ann Coulter for her book Treason. But these leaps become a little easier to swallow when we remember that much of Hitler's power lay in his use of ordinary citizens, as well as organized media, to further his message. Just because one's finger is not on the trigger doesn't mean they aren't responsible for the death.
That said, the book is by no means a simple comparison of Bush and Hitler. That would be too simplistic, and could be easily brushed off as left-wing rhetoric. Wolf's arguments transcend this, referencing more than just the obvious Nazi regime (who, after all, were simply better at such tactics than anyone else). Mussolini, Pinochet, Stalin and others all appear frequently to bolster her points. In fact, there are suprisingly few histrionics; Wolf spends much of her writing merely cataloging events and listing actions from different regimes side by side for the reader to compare.
While the book's premise is strongly supported by facts, it's the epistolary format and sheer number of wrongdoings that makes the book a little heavy-handed. Of course, this is the author's intention, but it would have been nice to see a few practical suggestions other than be aware, be vigilant offered to the reader. I suspect this omission is deliberate, though. Wolf's aim is to awaken, not necessarily to direct. She is asking her reader to consider the true meaning of patriot, someone who actively participates in and engages with one's civic society. And to do so, one must first pay attention.
And with chilling examples, Wolf demands our attention. In the end, it's extremely difficult to write off such examples as merely rhetoric, or such warnings as unlikely to occur. Small events become significant when placed against the backdrop of government, as when she describes a TSA agent forcing a mother to prove the substance in her baby's bottle is really breastmilk by drinking it herself: "In Benito Mussolini's era, one intimidation tactic was to force citizens to drink emetics and other liquids...Of course, baby formula is not an emetic. But a state agent—some agents are armed—forcing a citizen to ingest a liquid is a new scene in America."
When the scenes play out, and the layers are peeled back, and the dots begin to connect, what remains are nagging questions: how far does the administration have to go it before its citizens refuse to cooperate? How many democratic protections must be suspended before the public demands its rights back? How many secret armies, Blackwaters, must be formed? How many innocent citizens must be harrassed, jailed, persecuted before their peers step up in their defense? On Tuesday, we heard one answer to these questions.
So, perhaps the recent election signalled The End of America over before it began. What sense is there in rehashing the last eight years, after all, when we all want to move forward? The truth is, it would be dangerous to sit back and rest easy. The Bush administration did a lot of damage; it took an extended series of measured, deliberate steps to maintain and grow its power at the expense of the U.S. Constitution. Those changes will still be operable under the new presidency—we need to know them, to study them, to be able to roll them back.
Wolf's book is, if no longer a warning of imminent danger, at the very least a guide to serious legal issues that need to be addressed by the still-forming Obama administration. So much of the Bush administration's activities were carried out in the shadows of a disinterested, and therefore uninformed, electorate, that one can only hope that Tuesday's engagement was the mark of an extended era, and not merely an emotional hiccup. The end of America may have been delayed, but this book remains a damning documentation of how close we were, and are.
---
Whether you read the book or not, I highly recommend watching the following presentation, in which Wolf outlines her premise and presents incredible evidence to support it. A more polished version (with commercials) is also available from SnagFilms.
File this under the "I can't believe this never occurred to anyone before now" category. HP's new Pavilion dv6929wm Entertainment Notebook PC will forgo the traditional box-lined-with-foam-inserts-and-plastic-bag-sleeves so common to this now ubiquitous product, and instead package the laptop inside a messenger bag.
The change can actually be traced to Walmart (yes, evil Walmart), who decreed last year that their suppliers would have to address sustainability in their packaging if they were to continue doing business with the retail giant. When they first announced the supply chain requirements, I wrote about how it would force designers to get familiar with more sustainable alternatives to the old label-on-box paradigm. HP has totally surprised me with what is really a perfect solution.
According to Sustainable is Good, the notebooks ship to retail outlets in the messenger bags, which are then simply transferred to store shelves. Consumers are essentially buying a laptop+carrying case combo, rather than a laptop+empty box you'll have to throw out combo. The result? A 97% reduction in packaging waste (65% when you count the box in which the computers are shipped to the store).
That's huge. That's smart. If HP and other giant corporations keep this up, it's going to become very difficult to bad-mouth Big Business when it comes to the environment. Here's to hoping this kind of thinking spreads across packaging, purchasing, manufacturing, distribution, etc. The supply chain is changing.
"Nearly a third (30%) of adults say they have talked to their doctor about a drug they saw advertised, and 44% of those who talked to their doctor received a prescription for the medication they asked about. This means that 13% of Americans have received a specific prescription in response to seeing a drug ad."
Marketers would have you believe that 13% of Americans - that's 39,472,404 people - really, truly needed the drug they requested. If this were true, then 13% of our population are capable of accurately self-diagnosing. If you believe that, then I've got a pill to sell you.
In all seriousness, though, whose responsibility is it? That is, who do we hold accountable for this massive addiction? Most folks would assign blame to one or more of the following:
Big Pharma: The suppliers earn $4.20 (ironic, no?) for every $1.00 invested in advertising their drugs directly to consumers.
Marketing and Advertising: The pusherman who facilities the deal (pssst, the first one's free).
Consumers: Too dumb to know any better?
But whoever you blame, chances are you don't fall into that particular category. It's time to stop asking everyone else to change, and time to start taking responsibility. For consumers, that means doing our due diligence before we start popping happy pills. For marketers, it means taking a stand on what we will and won't help sell. And for business, it means looking beyond financial numbers as the sole measure of success.
It's not an easy pill to swallow, I know, but 9 out of 10 social entrepreneurs recommend it.
I think it looks gorgeous! And of course, the green ink is the perfect touch. If you'd like to have your own rubber stamp like the one above made, you can download the artwork for free and follow the instructions.
Thanks to everyone who's left comments, and don't forget to spread the word!
Think Apple controls the world? You might have reason to believe so, given the ubiquity of the iPod and those little white earbuds. But you'd be wrong.
A little girl who recently received an iPod purchased at a local Wal*Mart got a ransom note, instead:
"Reclaim your mind from the media's shackles. Read a book and resurrect yourself. To claim your capitalistic garbage, go to your nearest Apple store."
This little act of rebellion seems to be taking shopdropping (a.k.a. droplifting) to a new level. Whereas shopdropping involves sneaking customized "merchandise" (usually, some form of art) onto store shelves to make a statement about consumerism and value, this incident actually replaces an item outright (otherwise known as theft).
So, just what is the value of awakening one's loving-kindness (along with the ransom note was Pema Chodron's Awakening Loving-Kindness, a Buddhist self-help book)? Is it worth exchanging for an iPod? Is there a lesson to be learned here other than "it's bad to make someone buy a philosophical text when they thought they were buying electronics"?
Of course there is: the supply chain cannot be trusted. Someone, somewhere, switched out the iPod with a diatribe against capitalism; so what did they do with the iPod?
[Frequencies is a semi-regular post series focusing on the random design/pop/pointless/happening trends I pick up on from time to time.]
Graffiti has crossed over to the gallery scene some time ago, but art galleries were just the beginning...
The spray can is now a high-end accessory:
Advertisers have long caused a blight on our public landscapes for years using government-sanctioned billboards, environmental advertising and signage. But they're now embracing the practice of illegal public defacement, too, using graffadi to sell more Stuff™:
"...those of us that actually are dedicated to ethical, sustainable, and autonomous cultural production—is really tiny, and kinda lonely, and we’re rapidly running out of beer. And all we can do when we run into each other is sigh deeply."
Read the whole interview with her on Murketing; it's worth it.
Whatever you personal feelings about Al Gore, he must be doing something right (you don’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, after all, for failing miserably). Thanks in no small part to Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, the American public’s awareness of environmental concerns has grown considerably in recent years. This increased awareness brings with it a fascinating process of learning, questioning, justifying, arguing and, sometimes, changing. Since our industrial revolution, America has been a society of consumers, embracing values of luxury and carefree (careless?) spending. With the advent of the climate crisis, this consumerism is being challenged. But is luxury truly anathema to sustainability? Must we really choose between consumption and abstinence?
Ask the average citizen what it takes to be sustainable, or green, and you’ll likely hear something along the lines of, “Give up the fun stuff.” This model is perpetuated by the environmental movement itself, whose primary motto is “reduce, reuse, recycle,” implying we must reduce our indulgences before anything can be done to save us. Charlotte McGuinn Freeman, of the Living Small blog recently summed up this pervasive attitude rather bluntly in a recent entry for The Ethicurian: “I hate to be the one to point it out, but luxury and sustainability are contradictory values.” Clearly, this belief runs deep, regardless of which side of the fence you shop on.
Is it true, though?
Is it possible to live in extravagance without damaging the environment? Is it possible to thoughtlessly consume without essentially shitting your waste all over the place? Right now, the answer is no. Thanks to an unchecked economic system that has never once factored environmental resources into the cost of doing business, we now have a world of goods made from toxins, that produce toxins, and end up as toxins in landfill.
Just imagine if companies— the building blocks of our current economy—assigned a real dollar value to the cost of natural resources. I’m not even talking about the expense of strip mining, for example, with all its OSHA regulations and heavy machinery. I’m talking about costs like the lost productivity of worker-drones who don’t have access to sunlight and fresh air, or the long-term cost of depleting oil reserves without a sufficient energy source to replace them. These are real costs to businesses of all sizes, but when was the last time you took a hard look at the “waste disposal” line item on your P&L?
The truth is that the products we make and sell and buy are damaging us even as they make our lives easier in the short term. Pesticides that help us produce more food faster actually leach into water sources, for example, then leach into the fish swimming in those water sources, then leach into those of us who eat that fish. Or, on a simpler level, take your latest purchase at OfficeMax: how much of what you just paid for is actually for plastic packaging that you sent to a landfill as soon as it passed through your business’ doors?
It’s not doomsday yet, though.
As I write this, R&D departments throughout the world are racing to find new, better alternatives. At one time, recycled paper was a crappy alternative to virgin pulp paper but thanks to technological development, we now have gorgeous, affordable recycled paper options at our disposal. The Prius is another, if imperfect, example. A process once hidden from the public’s gaze is now snowballing into the limelight. Companies are recognizing that the up-front R&D costs generally pale in comparison to the ROI to be seen down the road. And we small businesses get to piggyback on their innovation.
What they’re working on is really incredible, and incredibly sexy. Cars that run on air (they exist!); treatment plants that clean wastewater using the gas from their own processes (okay, that last one's not so sexy, but it's really cool). These advances have already been made, and now it’s a matter of applying our technological capabilities to their mass production so they become the norm and not the exception. Quickly. And that happens through publicity (cue Al Gore) and the build-up of demand.
It’s a beautiful cycle, isn’t it? And it’s why I believe that luxury and sustainability are not contradictory values in and of themselves. With our current production framework, no, of course they can’t coexist. But our current framework is changing. If regenerative products become the norm—products that add to the health of our environment rather than detract from it—it could conceivably mean that carefree consumption can actually be an environmentally friendly action.
One has to happen first for the other to be true, of course. But the change is happening. So as we continue to demand that the end-user change their habits, we need to also demand—even more strenuously—that the producers change theirs.
Like any good designer, Karl Zahn created the Wall Cleat to solve a specific problem; what the hell do you do with all the messy cording that piles up at the electrical outlet? His answer is no more and no less than it needs to be:
It's not in production yet, but check out his Boiler Design Office to get a hold of other products he's created. (I wonder how he'd deal with a multi-plug surge protector?)
Although these are sexy, I'm not one for overpackaging. And I can't help but feel this kind of stopper is overpackaging (what advantages does it really offer the consumer?).
But imagine if this was a wine bottle—a recorkable wine bottle. Now that would be something.
12/14/07 update: I received an email from Mike at Wild Bunch, who explains that this is not a retail package. It's used to stock their on-premise Organic Shot Bar, and both the bottle and stopper are reusable. Changes everything, don't it?! Turns out this is an ingenius little device, great branding and environmentally preferable to boot.
I still think it would be great on a wine bottle (with built-in vacuum pull?).
After discovering the latest evidence that anyone can and should do everything, I'm tempted to rail about the rise of the cultural creatives. For now, though, I'll hold my tongue and simply show you this:
It's the White Stripes' latest promotional item, and it's a doozy. Hot, ain't she? Meg has one, too, but it's the Diana model. These cameras are fun as hell, take phenomenally wicked shots, and are pretty much what's made toy cameras a cult phenomenon right now.
Funny how it took technology to convince the general public that artistic creation was an accessible, worthwhile pursuit and now everyone's creating with obsolete technology.
Yeah, I missed International Talk Like a Pirate Day; guess I better walk the plank. I remember the good old days, I do, when I could tell my joke about the latest pirate flick (it's rated arrrrr) without everyone acting like I was sooo last season (year?). But in posthumous (belated?) honor of the holiday, I give you:
That's a postcard from 826 Valencia, the San Francisco writing center that helps teach kids how to play with the written word. The center is fronted by a pirate supply shop that offers such fundamental pirate accoutrements as glass eyeballs. If you don't believe me that this is one of the coolest projects ever, maybe you'll listen to David Byrne, who says it's "one of the top five pirate stores I've been to recently."
I took high school Spanish, so forgive me. But these coasters that Stella Artois sent to me as part of a fancy promotional package (seriously, these things came through customs), are quite, well, magnifique.
I like that they aren't overdone; nothing fancy, just a little flare here and there. And you gotta love a client who appreciates white space.
Only one question remains: will Stella's elaborate marketing campaign (have you explored that site link yet?!) really elevate the beer's reputation from the Pabst of Belgium to high end import lager?
What's better than a gift wrapped up in a brown paper box? Try original art wrapped up in a brown paper box and delivered to your mailbox four times a year. The Thing Quarterly is an "object based quarterly publication," featuring an original work conceived by a different artist each issue.
At a time when many claim that print magazines are on the outs and digital ephemera seems to be the only thing anyone can relate to, it's exciting to see someone focus on the artifact—on physical art. And apparently others are excited by it, too; over 500 people have already subscribed at $120/year. Not bad for four works of original art if you ask me.
Why on earth would Pepsi pull the plug on a wildly successful product that sold 4.8 million units in just two weeks? Simple, really: "The value of Ice Cucumber is that it's gone already," says a Pepsi spokesperson. According to a recent BusinessWeek article, the move is part of a larger trend to limit the availability of products in order to increase their value. Apparently, the Japanese have a thing for being told you only get access to this very briefly:
"The warm reception the Japanese gave Ice Cucumber is just one manifestation of a national obsession with the ephemeral. Millions turn out every spring to view delicate cherry blossoms that open and then fall to the ground in just a week. And a word that sends consumers flocking to stores is gentei, Japanese for 'limited edition.'"
But I wonder how much of this attraction is a Japanese thing and how much of it is in response to the ubiquity of Stuff these days. When every experience and information byte and thing that can be purchased is there for the taking, it's not surprising that some people might begin to remember the beauty of the ephemeral.
I was thinking about this very idea a couple of weeks ago while reading about how digital photography has vastly altered the nature of the human experience. The SF Chronicle quotes artist J.D. Beltran:
"It's really changed the way we think of photography to have this literally instantaneous image of something that just happened, and it dramatically changes the way we experience things."
That we no longer live in the moment but in the technology is significant. I continue to be stunned by friends and colleagues who feel it's entirely appropriate to answer their cell phone in the midst of a face to face conversation. The sense that human contact should supercede technological experience seems to have been almost entirely lost.
Or has it? Is Pepsi's limited edition schtick a sign of new times, of new appreciation for fleeting moments and unrepeatable experiences? After all, what cell phone feature or computer algorithm can really beat that impermanent burst of flavor from a ripe strawberry just picked? We love the idea of capturing our fading memories, memorializing them in bits and bytes, but what about the warmth that spreads through you when you simply close your eyes and remember your loved ones who've passed on? Is it really possible for the sense of not-there to be so powerful that it trumps the need for constant access? The Japanese seem to think so, and I think they're onto something.
Steve Jobs is killin' me. After a rather lengthy and well-publicized attempt at demonstrating Apple's environmental policies, the computer giant goes and releases the iPhone all bundled up in superfluous packaging. This is a perfect example of not walking the talk.
To wit:
An external box that measures approximately 2-3 times the size of the internal components;
A box inside a box (is that second box actually doing anything that the first box couldn't?);
An internal box made from two separate same-sized components (a bottom and a removable top);
A phone set inside a plastic tray resting on top of...
A set of manuals contained within a folded sleeve resting on top of a...
Plastic tray holding phone components.
I will certainly concede that the overall look is sleek and sexy, but it's screamingly obvious to me that Apple's graphic design team suffers from overdesigneritis. Designers should be asking themselves what we can do to reduce the amount of raw materials used, the energy required to produce and ship our packaging, and the amount of waste now headed to landfills across the country, not what can we do to increase those things?
I get that Apple is known for their sleek and sexy packaging. But this kind of look actually lends itself to the less is more aesthetic, so reducing the amount of packaging "stuff" would actually reinforce that look.
I also get that Apple is trying to create an experience out of the opening of the package, as if it were a Christmas gift. But this can be done without multiple layers of materials and unnecessary trays. Self-contained boxes with multiple folds (think a self-mailing envelope) produce this effect, for example.
Finally, I can't speak to whether or not Apple is using recyclable materials in its plastic and paper packaging, so if anyone who has purchased an iPhone would like to let me know, please do.
An interesting interview on Murketing, and the cheap art in limited editions it discusses, has me thinking (again) about the role of experts and commoditization of creativity. Our economy has embraced the "idea as artifact" so enthusiastically that we keep overlooking some really important things:
People who produce ideas (a.k.a. creatives) are being transformed into production lines. This results in commodity ideas that are less organic, less researched and more simplistic. The ideas are, in fact, often crappy or hogwash.
Access does not equal quality. Just because something is online, or available cheaply, doesn't mean it's worth owning or reading or believing.
Who owns all these ideas?
It's the last question that worries me. I'm no copyright expert but I am a writer. And as a writer, I consistently bump up against publications who want it all—all rights, that is—and don't want to pay for them.
As a designer, too, I see this. Clients don't know the difference between a useage license and copyright ownership. In other words, they don't differentiate between the finished product and the creative process used to produce it. Now that everyone can "create," there is no longer a distinction between the challenges of problem-solving/thinking/experimenting/innovating and a factory assembly line.
Of course, this argument begs the question: isn't a mass-produced artifact the fruit of someone's creative idea? Not really. It may have been when it was just a prototype, but once it becomes mass-produced, it becomes a commodity.
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