Going Green - How Designers and Clients Can Help the Environment

Those of you who have been reading ArtLOOK know I've endeavored to practice, speak and write about Responsible Design and how it can effect our global community. It was with great pleasure that I received an email from Peter Pimentel at smashLAB announcing their newest initiative: Design Can Change.

Pimentel writes, "This initiative works on the premise that designers are a critical hub to business, industry and the public; therefore, we have the ability to lobby, inform, and subsequently enable positive change, by working together. Key to this effort is the pledge: a set of guidelines for becoming more sustainable. It gives designers an actionable framework for embracing sustainability and also helps quantify our collective strength as we lobby for change."

SmashLAB and Design Can Change invites you to visit the website. Read and learn about sustainability, and please take the pledge. After having made the commitment to embrace responsible design you are welcome to download the logos (see my sidebar) for use on your blog/website with a link to www.designcanchange.org.  Download this PDF and send it to the designers you know.  Recommend and include in your studio materials this PDF for the buyers of design.  You can also read more about Design Can Change at Eric Karjaluoto's blog ideasonideas.

I salute smashLAB for taking this initiative and I firmly believe that together we can change design and our business practices for the better and make a positive impact on our global community.  Please join us.

I also include here again the First Things First manifesto.