“Cradle to Cradle” and Graphic Designers

Discouraged by my own efforts to make design “green” I have come to a point of near cynicism about the whole thing. And my friend Susi Schropp of Diva Design gave me a very interesting present that I am reading called “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things” by William McDonough (of “Hannover Principles” fame) and Michael Braungart, a chemist. I think (maybe I hope) everyone is reading this book these days. If you’re any kind of a designer, it’s pretty sobering, but anyone who uses ANYTHING will really get an education here.

The way I see it, graphic designers are the bottom feeders in the ocean of commerce. Let’s be honest about this. We work on projects that promote what the world of corporate blindness and greed create; we rarely create the corporation (or the standards of that corporation) that feeds us. We decorate the war casualties in a way, make them look less gruesome; we don’t negotiate the battle.

Now obviously, not all corporate entities EVERYWHERE are corrupt, socially irresponsible and ecologically careless, but once you read “Cradle to Cradle” you get a clear picture of just how absolutely complicated all this is and how difficult it seems to be for even the most socially conscious businesses to do this “right”. It makes me even feel a little sorry for them; looks like it will take more change than we ever thought to make this better.

The real problem is that EVERYTHING AFFECTS EVERYTHING ELSE (see, this is why quantum mechanics matters) and no matter how hard we insist that our naked eye tells the whole truth, it does not. We won’t solve the problem by using recycled paper and soy inks. If you are using even one toxic chemical to process a natural substance (and to mass market anything requires some chemical processing) these toxic substances are emitted through the air onto surrounding environments, like perpetually. They let out their poison not only in the factory where they are made (rules of course, are created to try and offset this in factories) but they continue to emit and produce effects that never die. See David Ewing Duncan’s article, “Chemicals Within Us” National Geographic Magazine Oct 2006. What you don’t know won’t hurt you, right? Totally wrong.

The unfortunate answer to the problem as it is described in great detail in “Cradle to Cradle” is to create the thing from the beginning in a totally new way; to look at the whole thing differently. Every facet would have to fit into a greater scheme, a whole picture taken into account that creates resource to resource so we don’t have to get poisoned by our sneakers. (The book talks about a sneaker issue here that is both funny and tragic.)

So why should graphic designers care? For one, because we actually help create a fair amount of intentional corporate waste, no matter how much recycled paper we use. Also because we’re in the business of playing down their sins publicly; and most all of them can’t help but sin. If they have great deal of money to pay you, it’s even more likely that they’ve played a big role in messing things up.

I know, it’s one step at a time for these cumbersome, complicated gigantic corporations to “make” things differently. But boy it seems like forever since the alarm went off. I’ve been trying to “educate” clients for almost 20 years about a variety of these issues, and short of the few, brave entrepreneurs that I have had the good fortune to work with, everyone continues to create problems all over the place. And frankly, who really pays attention to the graphic designer anyway?

Let’s just say if graphic designers are helping, we’re helping minimally and maybe it’s too painful to realize the role we play in helping to make this mess. In this profession, fame is made by creating work for the big, well-known, “well respected” corporation. The bigger the corporation, the more the prestige to design for them, the bigger the paycheck, and the less likely any designer would be anyway to comment on a corporation’s ecological and social footprint. You can’t blame the shrimp for eating whatever comes down from the top, right?

For me, there’s lots of stuff here to think about but I’ll stop now. I hope I didn’t depress anyone. But if you’re any kind of designer and you haven’t read “Cradle to Cradle” yet, please do. The book is not even made from paper so you can see this new idea up real close and decide for yourself.