Sustainability

As a Graphic Designer Sustainability is a very important factor in everything we do.

Sustainability in Graphic Communication is the application to sustainability principles in the area. Considering the environmental impact of products used in graphic design such as packaging, printing material, publications, type of ink etc. This has process involves the raw materials, transformation, manufacturing, transportation, use and disposal.

Sustainability has become a massive issue in recent years not just in Graphic design but in society as a whole. With the issues such as global warming etc the whole world seems to have gone a bit mad on forcing us to turn standby lights off and changing to energy saving bulbs. But this is a small step to reducing the emissions used and so is a good step towards a less wet world.
This has meant that companies have had the chance to capitalize from this, by making everything we see or buy into a the green solution. This has changed design in the later years because know it seems that everything is aimed at saving the environment such examples are to split our rubbish into green and black bags, everything from pencils to tyres are advertised as recycled, low emissions cars and renewable energy resources.

In Graphic design this has had an interesting effect because sustainability plays a part in every process in design. The designer not only has to think of producing something that works but the amount of materials required for production; whether recycled paper could be used in print production; what production methods require the least amount of transport; if the product can fulfill more than one purpose; or even if the end product can be replaced by a digital, rather than a printed format etc. 

So far as a graphic designer I personally contribute to the sustainability issues by recycling every ink cartridge from my printer. When I am in the design process, using the computer for long periods of the day, I make sure the monitor brightness is turned low in order to reduce electricity usage. I also only use recycled paper for printouts, moc-ups and any other trivial piece I have to print out.

Here is an example of a green idea produce called the Green Box an innovative: