Using https://git-lfs.github.com/ for images
trying to provide a working definition of sustainability -- well, several different working definitions and understandings of "sustainability"
This is a creative commons licensed project. You are free to share and adapt the materials within as long as you attribute where things came from -- including whatever you adapt/change -- and then agree to share your new works created with this in the same spirit. Source files for things like the Scribus slideshow are
By Kristian Bjornard; [Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
or is https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 better???
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There are some PDFs and INDD files in here. These might contain non-free visual works. I'm working on resolving that; but in the mean time anything new that is added will be only FLOSPD; and the 20190125-IntroToSGD.pdf and .indd files are there more for posterity.
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Sustinere: to maintain; to support; to endure (from sub: up from below; and tinere: to hold...)
Capable of being sustained (super broad dictionary defn.)
Sustainability on its own is meaningless: you have to define what it is you want to sustain. This is why the realm of "sustainability" is so confused and perhaps why so little improves. If you want to sustain the status quo; then just behavior as usual is sustainable... More and more people are moving to words like "restorative practice" or resilience or regenerative... or they are much clearer about what they are sustaining: the welfare of all life; the flourishing of humans and nature; etc.
So, sustainability needs a thing to sustain.
Here are some basic definitions that try to use the basic, sustain things over time metric applied to various human situations...
Any action that does not degrade the systems supporting it (General generic Definition of Sust.) [what is your system's boundary??? is it the whole universe? otherwise you won't really be sustainable]
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (Brundtland Commission, 1987 -- by far the most reference "definition")
Leave the world better than you found it, take no more than you need, try not to harm life or the environment, make amends if you do (Paul Hawken)
Do unto others as you would have them do to you (the ethic of reciprocity; originally attributed to confuscious; aka the golden rule)
Equity over time. Think of it as extending the golden rule through time... Do unto future generations as you would have them do unto you. (Robert Gilman, context institute)
Living and working together for a common good. (Japanese principle of "Kyosei").
Don't eat your seed corn (farmer colloquialism).
Waste = Food (Cradle to Cradle/McDonough & Braungart).
Improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of life's supporting systems (? attribute missing in my notes ?)\
Living within limits.
Art/Design that leaves the world better than we found it.
Affluence without guilt; not sacrifice and restriction. (Alex Steffen, founder of WorldChanging).
Spaceship Earth (Fullerism) -- remember, we live on a spaceship with finite resources -- pretty much the only inputs to our planetary system from outside are our sun's energy (and the occasionally meteorite). And we lose heat and helium out to space. Everything else is limited in supply; and is stuck here with us ...
What to understand: Vast 3D webs of energy flows and living beings (living systems?) -- Everything is connected!
Understanding the interconnections among economy, society, and environment (Everything is connected).
It's all the Blanket (I Heart Huckabees).
the Welfare of All Life (Massive Change/Bruce Mau).
All life should have the opportunity to Flourish (John Ehrenfeld).
These definitions deal with ethics and foresight... and understanding that everything is connected.
Sustainable design is design that factors in these ideas. Good Morality; Good Foresight; Good Accounting for Interconnected systems... Design that accounts for people in the present AND in the future.
Restorative; Preventative; Adaptive; Resilience.
This is the key aphorism to walk away with. Each choice; each action is tied to so many others... And a "human" choice cannot be separated from societal or environmental ones. Every choice/action has impact everywhere.
[Nested diagrams?]
Green Graphic Design is about using the power of design to shift the status quo toward sustainable solutions (wait, but what does sustainable mean here???) (Brian Dougherty, Green Graphic Design).
Most designers are in the representation business, so their first response has been to design a poster about sustainability. But the transition to sustainability is not about messages, it is about activity (action?) (John Thackara) [well, aren't messages/communication necessary for action/activity???].
No one wakes up with the goal of destroying the planet each morning. Yet, each day our collective choices do just that.
What does sustainable graphic design look like?
What signs on substrates are "sustainable" and which aren't? Does it matter about the signs the substrates themselves? is it design that supports/communicates "sustainability" regardless?
Something like a first things first manifesto; but for climate change related ethics...
John Ehrenfeld states in the book Flourishing that "the key to do something about sustainability is that you first have to say what it is you want to sustain." To define sustainable graphic design we must first define what it is we are sustaining. Ehrenfeld wants to sustain that "all humans and other life should flourish." (Pg 23 in flourishing). Using Ehrenfeld's thinking, Sustainable graphic design is then design made for clients that believe all life should flourish; design made to promote messages about sustainability-as-flourishing; and design made with materials and processes that promote and sustain the state of all life flourishing too.
Bruce Mau phrases this similarly in his writings around the Massive Change project: Our project is the welfare of all life as a practical objective.
SGD is graphic design in support of all life flourishing... Sustainable design is then not just one fixed thing; all things flourishing might need to take a lot of forms; adapt to a lot of different kinds of situations...
The welfare of all life is not a traditional goal of business, culture, and design in our current milieu.
[Slides from my various design essay days???]
Sustainable design's form must declare that "humans and all life should flourish." How might an aesthetic or form convey this message? What aesthetic or form conveys this message? Are there visual choices that are more sustainable?
To call a work of design beautiful is to recognize it as a rendition of values critical to our flourishing. A transubstantiation of our individual ideals in material medium.
-- Alain de Botton, Architecture of Happiness
AdB provides some insights for how we might integrate sustainability & design: if beauty in design embodies one's values then non-sustainable design would be non-beautiful design -- any design not looking out for the welfare of all life is bad, ugly design. Only design that inspires sustainable ideals counts as beautiful.
Sustainable design: Beautiful things; Sentimental things; Utilitarian things... (there are those categories of things; and then there is everything else. Everything else need not exist). Sustainable design needs to be the "prettiest" stuff; the most meaningful stuff; and the most functional stuff -- preferably all of the above. BUT! beauty; meaning; these are subject to context (beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all?) -- does the context of "the welfare of all life" help people see things the same way? -- does this mean that there is no singular "sustainable" design solution?
Nature does not typically solve design problems with singular solutions. There are usually many overlapping and resilient ways things work out in or world's ecosystems. So: sustainability may then have many definitions; sustainable design might provide many styles, aesthetics, processes, and methods...
Design has helped to change and shape the world (for better or for worse) in gigantic, important ways. Whatever happens next, the world will not be like it is today -- either because we do something to make it better for the welfare of all life; or because we just keep on keeping on as is and destroy all life.
- Cradle to Cradle
- The hanover principles
- Bruce Mau essay
- Flourishing
- Total Beauty of Sustainable Products
- Green Graphic Design
- [fill this in later... whew!]