Open Space Technology (OST) is a method of facilitation originated by Harrison Owen in the 1980s and it builds upon the idea that some of the best discussions at conferences, occur on the coffee breaks and some of the most creative solutions at work, happen around the water cooler. OST is simple in its set-up [...]
I received an email from a student of mine today, asking if I had any advice on trying to find work during the summer, between second and third year design school? I’ve removed any personal information particular to his situation, but here’s the jist of what I said in response:
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With regards to finding [...]
Thanks to the folks over at The Living Principles for re-posting my article on defining sustainability for designers!
http://www.livingprinciples.org/defining-sustainability-for-designers/
Over the course of December, Lynne Elvins from A420 in Bristol, UK, published an advent calendar of sustainable/ethical design books. You can follow Lynne on twitter @lynneelvins. Here are her recommendations.
Happy New Year from design-sustainability.com!
Good: An Introduction to Ethics in Graphic Design / Lucienne Roberts (2006) [...]
Paula Scher is a senior designer at Pentagram’s New York office and her portfolio of work is recognized around the world. In a famous quote, when talking about her design of the Citibank logo—an iconic identity where she combined the wordmark from Citicorp with the umbrella icon of the acquired Travelers Group—Scher describes how the [...]
Joseph Cornell is a nature-based educator and author who developed a structure for guiding students through their own direct experiences with nature and called it Flow Learning. Cornell’s research is primarily focused on the education of young children, but many of our young design students lack basic understandings of their relationship to nature. It would [...]
continued from previous post: The fourth, fifth, and sixth of David Orr’s six foundations or perspectives that will enable educators to see education from sustainable perspectives:
The way education occurs is as important as its content. Students, at every level, should be given the opportunity to have more say in the way their education happens. Introductory plenary [...]
In Ecological Literacy, David Orr outlines six foundations or perspectives that will enable educators to see education from sustainable perspectives.
All education is environmental education. Environmental issues are complex and cannot be understood through a single discipline or department. For inhabitants, education occurs in part as a dialogue with a place and has the characteristics [...]
The approach to educating a young designer is somewhat distinct at the post-secondary level in that students are rarely asked to write tests or exams. On the studies side, and certainly in their electives outside of the design curriculum, students will have to write tests and exams, but within their studio-based practicum courses, design student’s [...]
Design as we know it today, has a history as old as time. As far back as humans have documented our existence on this planet, there is evidence of creativity and problem solving. There is a tendency to think of design as being focused primarily on esthetics, but this has never actually been the case. [...]
In the fall term of 2010, a couple of former students of mine in the design program where I teach asked me if I would be interested in being interviewed for a documentary they were doing, about the program. Before the interview started, we were getting caught up since it had been a few years [...]
Got this from my mom today:
The Green Thing
In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.
The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”
The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation [...]
Sometimes you come across a new design, a re-interpretation of an old standard, or even a re-thinking of an entire system, and you wonder out loud to yourself why you hadn’t thought of something so obvious yourself? There are a few things that have come to my attention recently that I thought I would share.
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The days of the celebrity solo designer are over. Complex systems are shaped by all the people who use them, and in this new era of collaborative innovation, designers are having to evolve from being the individual authors of objects, or buildings, to being the facilitators of changeamong large groups of people. (Thackara, 2005)
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In the summer of 2007, I designed an identity for the Canadian branch of an internationally recognized not-for-profit known as Make Poverty History. I was referred to the project by a colleague of mine, someone that I had worked with years prior and I was brought on to the team as a designer [...]
A quick note today about a pretty successful bit of sustainable design.
My views on sustainability in design revolve mainly around the process of design and the people that are involved, but from time to time, I come across some things that are just smartly designed, and I’ll use this forum for sharing them with [...]
As a design educator that now teaches at a college where I myself attended design school, I often find myself biting my tongue and trying not to use the phrase: “when I was in school…”. I graduated from the graphic design program at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario in 1996. While it astounds me that [...]
In an increasingly connected and diversified world, the problems we face as a civilization are more complex and widespread than ever before. Ecologically, our natural systems are being depleted faster than they can renew themselves. Nations around the world are struggling with an economic downturn not seen since the great depression. Political leaders around the [...]
