March 28, 2008, 8pm. Switch off your lights for an hour and help save the planet. Sign up to support this great incentive and be a part of a great community-based action.
After a decade of design-slaving, I took a sabbatical to complete a Master of Design, focusing on sustainable graphic design. Subsequently, I converted a small freelance operation to a thriving full-time sustainable design studio, and am trying to be more aware in my business and in my everyday life. Part of the fight is to bring sustainability into the university curriculum where I also teach part-time.
What worries me most is how influential advertising has become: We have no visual voice outside of advertising on our streets. I want our streets to reflect what the citizens think, not what large corporations think, and believe that designers have a major part to play in this issue.
For the next three years, I will be pursuing a PhD in design and sociology to find better ways of communicating the great advances we are making, rather than the doom that awaits us by doing nothing.