Power to the Poster

I came across this great site that uses designers' powers for good, not evil. Based in America, anyone can submit a poster design to the site, and anyone can download and print them. Some of them are compelling, beautiful, shocking. This is designers doing what designers should do, and has been done throughout the centuries, from the printing of Martin Luther's reformist ideas, to news of the Russian Revolution being projected through Constructivism and Agit Prop.

Which brings me back to the point that my home town has such draconian graffiti laws that it would be madness to print something like this out and paste it up. This means that in Brisbane, advertising wins. Advertising lies and consumerist propaganda are our only visual cues, and we see around 4000 of them per day.

We need to lobby council for a laneway street art area like Melbourne has, or imagine our own version, so we can stick these things up, and make our own. I want to read the people's words and visual creations, not corporations' manipulative slogans.

Grow your own solar cells?

photo: Vasant Dave (www.sxc.hu)
Amazingly clever researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a way to cajole tobacco plants into growing photovoltaic cells which can then be harvested and sprayed onto specially-receptive surfaces. Basically, grow-your-own solar cells!

The thrilling research uses a virus to reprogram the tobacco's cells into creating the tiny structures. Cheaper, biodegradable, and a much better use for the evil weed. Bravo!
read more here

The sustainable design widget's rise to fame

As of 31 December, 2009, four thousand, one hundred and thirty five sustainable graphic design widgets have been downloaded from the Apple website and various other portals' download sections. For example, Icograda provides a link to it to their resources page, AGDA (whose scholarship sponsored it) provide it on their site, and many other design blogs and Australian design universities (such as RMIT) list it in their curriculum as a valuable tool.

It has been exhibited in "Busan Brisbane Design Exchange 2008" in Australia and South Korea, featured in "Queensland Designer issue 5/2008" (pictured), and recently exhibited in "Sustain Me", a contemporary design exhibition at the Ivan Dougherty Gallery in Sydney.

It gives me such a thrill to think that the knowledge summarised within is accessible to that many designers and allied industries all over the world. Download it here if you want to see what all the fuss is about.

I still freakin' love bamboo

I've been a mac user since the 80s, and need to keep using one for work, but check out this sweet computer from Asus using good old hardy bamboo!
I'm not sure about the rest of the parts, but this bamboo shell is certainly a step in the right direction. Pointing the aesthetics of computer hardware in this direction is itself a great step. I think it's beautiful, although a little "Gilligan's Island"...

Download frenzy

As of 8 December, 2008, two thousand and six copies of the sustainable graphic design widget have been downloaded.
Amazingly, in a late 2008 frenzy, one thousand and thirty copies of my Masters research have been downloaded. This research, titled "Sustainable Graphic Design in Brisbane" is an abridged version of my masters thesis; it summarises the first half of the thesis in a short chapter, then gets down to the pointy end of the research. I am honoured that people have found it interesting, and only hope that either or both of these continue to contribute to the sustainable design community in a useful way.

Thanks, happy clickers!