When a designer - graphic designer, product designer, industrial designer - sits down to begin the creative process, he or she needs to think through four key questions:
- What is it trying to accomplish?
- How is it brought to life?
- How is it used?
- Where does it end up?
In answering these questions, it is possible to ensure that the resulting product is as environmentally friendly as possible. The
Designer's Field Guide to Sustainability, from
Lunar, leads a designer through the process.
To facilitate a discussion between designers and their clients, Lunar offers these thoughts:
What is it trying to accomplish?
- Question the premise of the design: Consider other approaches to the problem at hand.
- Make it less complex: Simple, elegant designs are often the least impactful.
- Make it more useful: Multiuse products can reduce consumption and increase convenience.
How is it brought to life?
- Reduce material variety: This can increase recyclability and can decrease manufacturing energy.
- Avoid toxic or harmful materials and chemicals: PVC, polystyrene, lead, and BPA for example.
- Reduce size and weight: This reduces emissions during shipping.
- Optimize manufacturing processes: Talk to your manufacturers about low energy, low waste alternatives.
- Design packaging in parallel with products: A green product in a wasteful package should be avoided whenever possible.
Read all the details in the
Field Guide; it is an excellent resource! BTW, just in case you thought Lunar was some obscure little design firm, think again. They just won the
CES 2009 Best of Innovations Design and Engineering Award for their design of the
HP TouchSmart IQ506.