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Tuesday, December 1st at 6:30 pm
Pangea Organics is a multimillion-dollar company and a paragon in sustainability, organic skincare and package design. Joshua Onysko is the founder and owner of Pangea Organics, whose skin care products can be found in top major retailers like Whole Foods and Macy's. Today the company remains committed to creating all natural skincare products that are organic, handcrafted, and cruelty-free. Making soap with your mom can be simple family fun -- or the seed of one of the fastest-growing organic skin care businesses in the country.
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The Portland AIGA Green Team kicks off its new series, SHIFT: A Green Salon, on Thursday, November 5th. The event will showcase 10 five-minute presentations from designers, creatives, and innovators that are making communications better and more sustainable. Ideas range from rethinking design to creative print solutions and efficient typography screen techniques. A short Q&A session and mingling will follow the presentations.
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Last August, Rachel Martin, Membership Director of AIGA Charlotte and Chapter Outreach committee co-chair for the Center for Sustainable Design, had the honor of presenting at the Designers Accord Charlotte Town Hall. The event, hosted by BOLTgroup, was the first Designers Accord Town Hall in the southeast and a great success.

The Living Principles for Design will be unveiled at the Make/Think: AIGA Design Conference in Memphis on Friday, October 9th at 11am local time. This integrated framework for design distills the collective wisdom found in decades of sustainability theories and makes it accessible to a broad audience of design practitioners and their clients.

For a preview of what to expect from this framework, the Center for Sustainable Design invites you to examine the Genealogy of the Living Systems. This research document describes the landscape of the major sustainability visions, manifestos, principles, frameworks and tools that have been developed over the past 50 years and are relevant to design. It is also a chronology and a primer of sorts - an invitation for further discovery. Upon review, it will become apparent that a lot of good and useful information already exists, but that it is fragmented. It is also missing a compelling case for design's impact on trends and habits. We believe that for sustainable design to be attainable, designers need to acquire a common understanding.

The Living Principles for Design stand on the shoulders of giants. The DNA of their work will become evident as you peruse this genealogy. Comments (3) (Oct 08)

AIGA Seattle, the professional association for design, is holding a Green Salon Roundtable on Saturday, October 17, 10:15-11:45 a.m. at the Phinney Ridge Community Center, Room 6, 6532 Phinney Ave N., Seattle. This is the first in a series: an open forum for AIGA members and other designers to bring ideas to the floor for discussion and learn about sustainable design methods from each other.
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Learn new ways to approach branding and design in the Sustainability Age.

This day-long event will explore how brands can move beyond green by widening the way we think about design.

Three keynote speakers will talk about the latest ideas in sustainable design and moving beyond deliverables to green design as a brand strategy. Featuring: Kevin O'Donnell, Al Gore's prolific Climate Project speaker and director of WD Ecologic; Duke Stump, Principal & Chief Architect of The Northstar Manifesto; and Aaris Sherin, author of SustainAble: A handbook of materials and applications for graphic designers and their clients. Select segments of CompostModern will be recast as part of the program.
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In today's challenging economy, companies that can align environmental innovation with affordability to bring green products to the mainstream have a clear competitive advantage. How are successful companies designing greener products with little or no price premium? Join us at Greener By Design 2009 to see who's innovating, who's succeeding, how they're producing products that aren't just greener, but better -- and how you can put these strategies to work in your company.
Click here for full-length story Comments (1) (Apr 23)

The Charlotte chapter will host "BuzZ April: Design for a Greener Future," on April 1, 2009 at Estelle's Cafe & Coffeehouse. The event is part of the chapter's BuzZ series, billed as "conversations over coffee."
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"Get Inside Sustainability," AIGA Cincinnati's first Green Salon, is planned for March 24. Moderated by Marc Alt of the Center for Sustainable Design, the event will feature a panel of speakers from a variety of business and design perspectives, who will field questions and discuss trends, influences and ideas in leading the way to greener packaging solutions. Through sharing these ideas, all attendees can learn how sustainable design practices lead to innovation in business, and why using and wasting less makes good business sense.

MARCH 24, 2009 | ART ACADEMY OF CINCINNATI
Resource fair 5-7 pm, Event begins at 7 pm
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AIGA New Orleans and Loyola University New Orleans will hold its second annual Green Salon on March 14th at Loyola. The all-day event will feature presentations and panel discussions about the nature of sustainability and what the New Orleans community can do to survive. Local bands will play throughout the day.
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The Seattle Chapter is holding its second Green Salon on Thursday, February at CCS Printing in Bellevue, WA. The chapter's first Salon was held last September.

The Salon will address concerns about how to be greener on print jobs. Attendees will get chance to look at new printing technology and join the green conversation with printers and paper companies in order to get some great ideas on how they might change their processes with printing to be more sustainable.
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If green is the new black, it's no surprise that Aveda Corp have been ahead of the sustainable curve for years. Chuck Bennett, Vice President of Earth and Community Care for Aveda will talk about the company that has been deeply invested in minimizing its impact on the environment since its founding 30 years ago. While other companies are changing out light bulbs and providing recycling kiosks to employees, Aveda is purchasing wind power, raising awareness and funds for causes like Earth Month and Breast Cancer Awareness, and is helping sustain economies and cultures of indigenous communities around the world.
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Incite/Insight is an opportunity for Chicago designers to hear insights into a specific arena of design, inciting thought, discussion and new ideas. The focus changes from year to year, but the purpose remains the same: to educate and inspire our audience, thus providing the tools for better design.
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Since its launch in 2006, the AIGA Center for Sustainable Design has become the central place within AIGA to focus on sustainability issues related to the design community. The "Compostmodern 08" conference, co-produced with the AIGA San Francisco chapter, was a landmark event and the 2009 event is in the works. The Green Salon concept has been embraced by chapters and CFSD members have become familiar speakers at design conferences and commentators in design publications and blogs. Our resources continue to grow and the Center for Sustainable Design's website is increasingly cited as a vital resource for designers. But we haven't saved the planet just yet, so there is still much to do.
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SustainCommWorld The Green Media Show, a conference and expo dedicated to sustainable corporate media and communications, will be held in Boston October 1 and 2, 2008. Chaired by Don Carli of the Institute for Sustainable Communication (ISC), the event's goal is to provide a diverse, balanced forum for education and dialogue among brand owners and others engaged in the creation, production and distribution of communication media. The conference will cover greening all areas of corporate communications, including advertising and direct mail, collateral, books and magazines, emails and websites, and more.
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On June 5, 2008, the AIGA Detroit Chapter hosted a reception and silent auction in the lobby gallery of the School of Art and Architecture at the University of Michigan. This event was the culmination of The Urban Forest Project which the chapter initiated earlier in the year.
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In response to the growing desire of designers to take part in the sustainability conversation, AIGA DC is hosting a sustainability exposition on Earth Day, Tuesday April 22.
“Design Unbound: Renewing, Repurposing and Rethinking Green” will be held at the American Institute of Architects building, 1735 New York Ave, NW, from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. The event will provide designers from all backgrounds the tools and awareness to implement sustainability in their own work. A variety of exhibitors, including paper companies, print vendors, “green” office suppliers, and local green businesses, will be there to network and offer advice to the attendees. Raffles, giveaways, and fun activities will complete the evening. This is AIGA DC's first large–scale sustainability event.
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By Pam Williams
Photo credit: Alex Chrisman

AIGA Colorado is putting down roots to grow sustainability in its design community. Come on out for an inaugural green event on the eve of the “Next: AIGA Design Conference.” The salon will take place Wednesday, October 10, from 8:30–10:30 pm at the Denver Press Club.
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Denver: The Urban Forest Project is a unique design exhibition featuring the work of over 40 designers and students from all over Colorado. The Urban Forest Project was originally conceived by Worldstudio in conjunction with AIGA NY and Times Square Alliance. Planned to coincide with “Next: AIGA Design Conference 2007,” Denver: The Urban Forest Project will showcase the talent and enthusiasm Colorado has for design and put it on display for the conference attendees.
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Moderator: Anthony Russell, president, Russell Design

Panel: Lewis Fix, senior director, business development, Domtar EarthChoice; David Ford, president and chief executive officer, Metafore; and Tom Pollock, project manager, Metafore

Your paper’s footprint extends far beyond the forest. How it is made, what it is used for, and where it goes after it is used also determine the environmental impacts of paper. This session will explore what these impacts are, as well as key questions graphic designers are asking about the papers they choose. It will profile several labels and tools in the marketplace for evaluating your paper choices, including the Environmental Paper Assessment Tool®. The EPAT® was developed by 11 corporations and Metafore with a common interest in making environmentally preferable papers more widely available and affordable. Comments (0) (Sep 24)

Presentation title TBA
Moderators: Shoshana Berger, co-founder and editor-in-chief and Grace Hawthorne, co-founder and president, ReadyMade

ReadyMade is a magazine about making stuff. The do-it-yourself projects—of which most are contributed by readers—found on its pages, reinvent the cast-offs of consumer culture, turning them into bold new design. Join cofounders Shoshana Berger and Grace Hawthorne to discuss the origins of the readymade as art object and how they are evolving the idea into a broad manifesto for 21st century living. For a new generation of producers and consumers concerned with both the ethics and aesthetics of domesticity, ReadyMade is the field guide for sustainable design. Comments (0) (Sep 10)

How can you be sure that your paper choices are truly sustainable? Does the paper you use for your daily designs come from responsibly managed forests? This session will provide concrete answers to these questions. You will learn about the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), recognized as the benchmark in environmental and social responsibility for forest management practices, and its chain-of-custody which provides the assurance that you need to ensure the materials you use are socially and environmentally sustainable. Plus, you will learn about the path a printed piece travels from the mill to the printer to end user.

Moderator: Valerie Casey, executive creative director, Frog Design

Why has traditional product design failed to substantively advance the green movement? While green products have influenced market and consumer behavior, the impact has been less than we might have hoped. Methods of green adaptation have some benefits, but designers must move beyond object-based solutions to affect real change.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be featuring descriptions of some upcoming sessions at “Next: AIGA Design Conference” that we think will be of interest to you. Some of these sessions we curated and the others we just can’t wait to check out ourselves! Check back frequently for updates.

To learn more about the conference and to register click here.

Mohawk Fine Papers has published two sustainability-related pieces: a reissue of its print buyer’s guide, Sense and Sustainability, and a new Eco*Guide.

By Bonnie Powers
Photo credit: Wireimage/Michael Bezjian

The August 9^th screening, the day following the Hollywood premier, was organized on behalf of ForestEthics and 11thhouraction.com with an after party at Cisco Home, one of AIGA|LA’s Fellow Partners.

Monadnock Paper Mills has just released the second edition of its acclaimed instructional how-to guide for creating more sustainable print materials. The publication, A Field Guide: Eco-Friendly, Efficient and Effective Print is a single resource that presents objective information and points out alternatives for design decisions that support sustainability without sacrificing style and impact.

It’s easier than ever for businesses to make environmentally responsible office supply choices. Domtar EarthChoice Office Paper is now widely available to consumers in the United States through Office Depot, as well as through Office Depot’s North America Business Solutions Division and will be available in Office Depot retail stores in late July.

Edited by Dan Kohan
Photo credit: Lollie-pop, Flickr

Mohawk Fine Papers has purchased one hundred million kWh of renewable energy certificates (RECs), offsetting one hundred percent of the annual electric power consumption across all its operations in New York and Ohio. A member of the EPA Green Power Partnership, Mohawk now manufactures its entire range of premium printing, writing and imaging papers, including Strathmore, Beckett, Mohawk Superfine, Mohawk Options and Navajo, Via, BriteHue and Mohawk Color Copy with wind energy.

By Ann Willoughby, originally published in the March/April 2007 issue of Communication Arts
Image: Communication Arts

One of the inspirations for this article came from the lively 2006 AIGA Grow conference, chaired by Marc Alt. This is the first time I’d heard a Wal-Mart executive, live and in person, announce the retail giant’s groundbreaking environmental initiatives. The Grow conference was a transformative experience for Willoughby Design and led to our commitment to sustainable design.

AIGA has just installed a green roof, a vegetated roof cover, at the AIGA National Design Center in New York City. Weston Solutions, Inc. was contracted to create a 1,156 square foot GreenGrid roof system to top the four-story historic building. Eight varieties of sedum are planted in four-inch deep containers, lined by a walkway of recycled rubber pavers.

New Leaf Paper has recently launched New Leaf Sakura 100, the first coated paper manufactured from 100 percent post-consumer waste (PCW). New Leaf Sakura 100 is commended for exceptional printability and detailed imagery reproduction.

By Natasha Wang and Bonnie Powers
Photo Credit: Kathlin Carmean

On April 19, AIGA Los Angeles presented COL[LA]BORATE: SEEing Green, a sold-out evening to address design and our environmental future. Held at Cisco Home’s La Brea showroom, the event was free and open to the general public, and offered an opportunity for designers and other creatives to learn about new products, tools and services that are sustainable, environmental and ecological (SEE). Taking into account the potential carbon footprint required to host and execute such an event, the organization purchased offsets from Carbonfund to make the day carbon-free.

On April 21, I attended the Green Festival in Chicago to see first-hand how design is stimulating the sustainable revolution. Initially, the 130-mile drive from my home in Champaign seemed like a counterproductive way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions on Earth Day 2007. However, what was billed as “the world’s largest eco-mall” tempted me too much. When I discovered that the festival’s carbon footprint was completely offset and the convention would also feature speakers such as Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, I knew that the ends would justify the means of getting there. Finally, the lecture entitled “Drink Beer and Save the World” was the clincher. Saving the world through drinking beer sounded like a wonderful idea.

“ Perhaps no industry has forced more species into extinction, destroyed more habitats, and polluted as many streams, rivers, and lakes. It is a tragic irony of commerce that paper, perhaps the most ubiquitous and ephemeral of all consumer products, is manufactured by destroying timber forests, one of nature’s most durable and biologically essential organisms. ”
–Allen Hershowitz, NRDC

Graphic designers have made some fairly amazing and powerful work. They have changed public opinion on wars and politics (through posters/digital media) as well as influenced new consumer behaviors that dramatically increased the world’s economic output (advertising/packaging). They’ve made life simpler (at times), faster and easier to navigate. However, as much progress as the design profession has made for society, they’ve also been responsible for helping to create an over-consumptive population and an ecosystem teetering on disaster. With every new print piece they produce or every brand they promote, they also affect the general health of our planet through the method and materials they choose to use.

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."