Advocate/Mark Epton

I just found this website featuring the work of Mark Epton. His work has a commercial vibe and is quite varied. I think I will try to get in touch with Mark at some point soon to have a chat.

Ethical design
For 14 years I've worked with clients I'm passionate about – organisations and businesses doing good things. I use my expertise in brand articulation, visual communication and graphic design to help them make a social, environmental and ethical difference.

Walking the talk
Essentially, I sell ideas. So by default, Advocate has a light environmental footprint. What little electricity I use comes from renewable sources. I am part of the Carbon Watchers scheme to save energy, and this website is hosted on servers run by solar power. I use local, environmentally accredited (ISO 14001) printers and can advise on the best green printing practices. I’m based a short walk from Stonehouse train station with a direct service to London. And if I need to drive to a meeting I've got a fuel efficient car. Of course, I also recycle and I’m powered by Fairtrade organic tea!

Madomat

Madomat are a London based graphic design firm who put sustainability and their ethical stance first. They have designed some great design for a range of large clients.






This is an interesting bit of their site about their environmental policies...

Green Checklist

Especially in the world of graphic design, being kind to the environment should never be an afterthought. That’s why we make sure each project we take on has a positive effect from the beginning — both for our clients and the world we live in.

With this in mind we’ve developed this Green Checklist, which is meant to serve as the beginning of a dialogue so you can meet your communication needs while treading as lightly as possible on the planet.

- First of all, is paper necessary at all? Remember, printing is like any other industrial process and can use large amounts of hazardous chemicals and waste. Email shots, PDFs, web pages — these are all environmentally sound alternatives to firing up the printing press, and you will save on printing costs too!

- If print is essential, consider looking at ways to reduce the size of your product. Scaling down means cutting back on not just paper, but also on ink, carbon emissions and even postage costs.

- Recycled materials should be a given. Aside from the benefits to the environment, they can also help your project stand out — we’ve provided our clients with USB flash drives made from recycled CD cases and pencil cases recycled from car tyres.

- Go steady on the ink. The more you use, the more has to be disposed of, and your product becomes harder to recycle, even if you use friendlier soy and vegetable-based products.

- We can help you develop a communication piece — be it a brochure, press kit or look book — which can be updated rather than reprinted. Again, what helps the planet helps your budget too.

- Going super-size isn’t always the best option. Although it often doesn’t work out much more expensive to increase your print run, only order what you need — everything else is waste, no matter how you look at it.

- To find out more about environmentally friendly graphic design, paper and printing, take a look at the rather wonderful Lovely as a Tree website.

www.good.is

I just found www.good.is and it's got all sorts of interesting graphics on there. There's a lot of great sustainable and environmental information on there which I am sure will supply my blog with further posts.

I have collected a few examples of interesting info graphics showing funds raised for Haiti and other interesting data. I am going to be presenting some interesting facts as part of my design context book and would like to look at more simple vector infographics to work with the modern typographic style I aim on having.

Seed Pantry

A friend sent me a link to these after spotting them and thinking that they looked similar to what I have been working on. The website is really well put together and there are one or two better inmages on there of the products. Here's a bit about the company. I thought that the simple prints onto natural stock works really well with all of the natural materials (plant pots etc.) and the subject of gardening.

"What is Seed Pantry about?

Seed Pantry wants everyone to enjoy the rewards of nature, and if you are not already in the know, to learn about growing food to eat wherever you live.

Fresh seasonal herbs and vegetables grown with your own fair hands can provide a great sense of achievement. They are extremely friendly to the environment, great value and taste fantastic too.

CreateAthon

I have been looking through website after website on non profit design and all sorts of interesting things that designers do for clients that aren't able to afford high quality design. I found these guys and although the designs aren't great the idea behind the group is brilliant, here's a section from their website.

"CreateAthon® is a 24-hour blitz during which RIGGS provides marketing and creative services to nonprofit organizations on a pro-bono basis. Simply put, here is how it works: RIGGS dedicates a 24-hour billing/work period, the equivalent of three working days, to South Carolina nonprofits. We select a handful of organizations from a pool of applicants based on the type of project requested, the mission of the organization and the degree of need."

Austin Happel

Austin Happel appears to be the work on a single designer who I found in the Sustain Able book. He's not got a lot of information on his site but his book layouts are modern and work well with his simple use of imagery. I would like to work similarly to this for my design context layout, he's even got an ampersand in there too.

Design By Nature

Design by Nature is another Australian company, not completely unrelated to Viola, as Viola designed the website for DbN. Dbn is a resource for designers interested in working towards more environmentally sustainable practices. I plan on contacting them soon to get a bit of feedback about my work and get any suggestions about sustainable design that I might not have thought of already.

Viola - eco-graphic design

Viola is an Australian design group I found from the book 'Sustain Able'. This book gave me many ideas and quick looks at designers which tackle the same issues as the content my design context books.

Viola doesn't seem like the most interesting and modern design that I am usually interested in however there are a few bits and pieces and the Profile and Environment sections on their website are really helpful.

Flyers & Leaflets from the Centre of Alternative Technology

Centre For Alternative Technology