I really can’t say enough about Emily Pilloton. We watched a 30-minute speech given by the 27-year-old last week at AIGA’s Compostmodern gathering. I was blown away. She is clear, driven and above all else, carries a humble disposition about her position in the world. She believes the more the merrier when it comes to finding solutions to make the world a better place. In just one short year she has started Project H, created learning landscapes (shown above–scalable learning system with endless opportunities) and found a solution to redesign the Hippo Roller (plastic canister used in rural settings like African villages for transporting water) allowing 250% more to be shipped in the same container, saving on energy costs, company expenses and distributing to more people at a faster rate. I encourage you to check out her site (nice logo by the way) www.projecthdesign.com. Look out for a book this fall that she is currently working on with Metropolis Books.

ande
www.orange-element.com

A few weeks ago, my husband Dan and I were driving down Harford Road discussing buying our food through local channels. It led to the idea of challenging ourselves for one full month to buy nothing but locally (or regionally) produced food. We would set a budget and see how well we could stick to it.

I’ve always felt it was important to “support the little guy”, but this is more than that. It is about eating healthy, reducing our carbon footprint and most importantly doing our small part to help boost the local economy.

I mentioned it to Aaron one day and he too wanted to join in the cause. And thanks to his twitter, now several other local designers are on board for the challenge. We have set our own rules. Feel free to follow our lead, or create your own parameters. If you are interested here is the deal:

1) BUY FOOD FROM LOCAL RESOURCES: We’ll source our food from the local farmer’s markets first and foremost, checkout http://www.slowfoodbaltimore.org/ for a list of resources and CSA programs. Example: This means I can’t run to Safeway at 9 p.m. if I realize I’m out of milk. I’ll have to wait until the next day and make it over to Belvedere Square instead because the sell regional produced dairy products. Good thing: I’m in luck in the coffee department–we already buy from Zeke’s or Bluebird. Not so local thing: And not to be wasteful–if it’s already in my cabinet–I’m going to eat it or use the ingredients needed like flour, sugar etc.

2) SUPPORT LOCAL RESTAURANTS: We’ll skip the chain restaurants, not that they can’t be owned by a local franchisee, but because they participate in high volume means of transportation to get the food from point A to our plates. We’ll be helping stimulate local restaurants and supporting those that highlight locally produced foods. Example: This means I can’t get lazy and do a drive-thru. Good thing: I’ll get to try new places. Not so local thing: Travel. I’m headed to a birthday celebration for my Dad and it’s his choice of restaurant. So I am out of luck in this department, but I can check out the menu and try to find the best alternative or ask the server if they know where the “beef came from”.

3) SUPPORT LOCAL RETAILERS: We’re not going to the extremes and sourcing everything from local producers–more power to you if you can. But in any instance that I “need” something or “run-out” of something else, I will source my local stores first. Example: Need light bulbs? I’m seeking out my local hardware store first over The Home Depot. Good thing: I’ll probably get lazy at thinking about where to go and do without–determining what I really need over what I think I need. Not so local thing: Gasoline purchases. But Carroll Fuel has several stations in town so if I’m near one, I’ll go there first.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and thinking about your own purchasing habits. We’ll be posting updates throughout the month of tips and any stories that come up along the way. Feel free to email us if you too will be participating. We’d love to hear the feedback and experiences.

ande
www.orange-element.com

Happy Earth Day.

I had the privilege of attending AIGA’S second of four sessions geared toward the 2009 Compostmodern Workshop in SanFran. If last week was about scale, this week was definately about statistics. We watched two videos, one from Michel Gelobeter and the other from Saul Griffith. You might know of Saul through wattzon.com.

Lots of facts: In 1901, 50% of a family’s income was spent on food; today only 9%, but that is because we are now spending 25-30% on daycare and 25% on transportation. The reason–higher use of fossil fuels–so in a way, we are driving to work to pay for daycare to drive to the grocery store–so we are now spending over half of our income on these three things. Speaking of driving, we can actually go from 25 miles per gallon to 85 mpg if we reduce our speed from 85 miles per hour to around 45.

What does all this mean? It means as a society we have to stop spending our money and resources on disposable items. We need to create solutions that last longer and are better suitable for the environment. Designers need to start thinking about the full life cycle of their projects and ask questions up front that target the end use—is it headed to the landfill or the earth or the recycling center? We all need to do our part now to conserve energy and lower CO2 emissions. In other words, SLOW DOWN.

Here are 6 useful examples that inspire action:

Book: Green Graphic Design by Celery and Brian Dougherty
Article: Read this: World Without Oil, Amen
Movie: End of Suburbia–haven’t seen it personally, but it was recommended last week at the event.
URL: TED.com
Magazine: Good Magazine has reduced its print frequency to save material and transportation costs.
Building: The Vancouver Convention Centre: The largest green roof ever for a commercial building with a water-use reduction of 60% to 70%.

ande
www.orange-element.com

Last night I participated in the first of a 4 session meetup through AIGA to discuss the role of the designer in sustainability. The discussion was based around a serious of videos from the 2009 Compostmodern Workshop in San Francisco and the focus of last night’s discussion was scale.

To start off the evening we watched the famous Ray and Charles Eames film,The Powers of Ten (click to watch). If you haven’t seen the short film, it is “a film dealing with the relative size of things in the universe and the effect of adding another zero”. The film takes you from the comfortable spot on a picnic blanket in Chicago out in intervals of ten to 100 million light years into the darkness of space and back down to 0.000001 angstroms into the tiny nucleus of the atom. While the film may look like a science video at first, makes you very aware of the important issue of scale. When you look at just the one man and woman on the picnic blanket in the scale of the entire universe they are practically nonexistent in size but in the scale of the planet, the country, the city, and down to the park and blanket they occupy, they are increasingly more significant. The speaker referred the issue of global warming and how it stems around just one small molecule. The one small molecule is less of a concern on its own but when you add one to the masses, in a scale of a planet that is too small to hold them, then we face the problem of global warming.

With this consideration of scale, the speaker discussed the need to look beyond what we already know. He quoted Eames:

“In order to be truly secure, we need to be truly secure in change”

One example that was mentioned in the second video, by Allan Chochinov, was of Chris Jordan, who captures the reality and scale of American mass consumption in his photography. Jordan describes the scale of our consumption as invisible because it is divided out across tens of thousands of manufacturing processes and waste streams. To us, we only know the handful of phones that we go through individually , but beyond what we know are millions of other cell phone users who go through an equal or greater number of phones. I found the video above on youtube which talks about several of Jorden’s photographs. One photo in particular has been digitally stitched to show the number of phones that are “retired” in one day; all 426,000 of them!!!

“Designers think they are in the artifact business,
but they are in the consequence business” —Philip Johnson

Be sure to check back next friday with highlights from our next Compostmodern Convergence meet up. Until then, happy Friday and enjoy your holiday weekend!

—EJ
www.orange-element.com
@orange_element

The Maryland Film Festival has just been featured by Inspired Magazine as having one of the 33 most inspirational Twitter backgrounds (@MdFilmFestival). Thanks Inspired! Be sure to keep an eye out for all of the other materials we have designed for the Festival around town…building banners, posters, bus shelters, stickers, and yard signs have been spotted all around Baltimore while we are gearing up for the 2009 Film Festival, May 7-10, 2009. Be sure to check out the Maryland Film Festival website and blog for more details.

Andy
www.orange-element.com 

We’re live! That’s right, Orange Element has launched a redesign of www.orange-element.com. The new site offers a low-fi, visual snapshot of OE, partners and friends. The launch would not have been possible without the collaboration and partnership with the team over at Fastspot. Fastspot was able to take the idea and enhance it by building out functionality that captures the visual history (we’re calling it the OE wall) on the homepage and a CMS for Our Work. The new site will be growing and changing frequently so check out our new features and check back often.

WALL ART: The new site features the paring of quotes and images that are ever-changing and ever-archiving. Check back frequently for the newest OE wall thoughts from our team and anyone/thing that inspires us.

To celebrate, we are hosting a little friendly competition. Submit your favorite image and accompanying quote for a chance to be featured on the OE Wall. The winner(s) will be featured in rotation on the homepage wall, and will receive a limited-edition Fastspot Logotype Specimen poster designed by the OE team. We’ll also post many of our favorite runner-up’s as desktop pics here on our blog.

All submissions will be reviewed by the OE team and permission/approvals will be requested prior to homepage feature and/or submission as desktop pic. Poster giveaway is limited to 3 and the competition closes on May 1st, 2009.

Send your entries to ideas@orange-blog.com.

ande
www.orange-element.com