The Beijing Olympics are in full swing, and as the fever of national pride and the glory of breaking records sweeps through the world, Jonathan Barnbrook is asking designers to raise awareness about Tibet. Barnbrook, a well-known British graphic designer and typographer, has created a site called Remember Tibet with designer Pedro Inoue. The site encourages people to remember Tibet’s struggle for independence while the entire world has their eyes on the undemocratic government of China. The Olympics have brought to light many of China’s pollution problems as well as their not-so-stellar human rights record. But, instead of improving their human rights conditions as a result of being awarded the Olympics, China has actually made basic freedoms less available in its goal to create ‘stability’ and ‘harmony’ before the games.

The site was created in an effort to support the independence of Tibet through peaceful, non-violent resistance. Artists and designers are asked to contribute visual projects that raise awareness, but the site isn’t simply for people who want to express their discontent with the issue. Barnbrook says, “I don’t really want people to get hung up on the idea that this can change anything in isolation, it can’t. These works are just one tool of many which people will use to keep Tibet as a central issue in mainstream politics, as that is the only way things will change.” The creative arts have always played a role in forcing issues into the mainstream political agenda, and designers play an especially important role because we know how to put the pieces together in an effective way. It’s our job to bring visuals into the world that catch people’s eye. Why not use our skills to turn the focus towards Tibet. Thanks to the Olympics, half our job is done- the whole world is already looking that way.

www.remembertibet.org
www.barnbrook.net

It’s all the rage in Europe.

All the coolest people are doing it.

Even Rupert Murdoch is giving it a try.

Carbon neutral — chosen as The New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2006 — is the new carbon indifferent, and we at egg are thrilled to witness this cultural shift. We’ve been taking measures to reduce our carbon footprint for a few years now, but last week we called in an expert to help us get to the next level. Our goals: full carbon neutrality for our agency, and carbon-neutral print advertisement and website development options for our clients. Kevin Wilhelm, of Innovative Strategies, a sustainability consulting firm, paid a visit to our offices and walked our entire staff through the basics of the carbon footprint calculation process. We discussed transportation, energy, materials, waste, and the crucial issue of reducing our footprint rather than just buying offsets. We talked about shady offset shops, the efficacy of planting trees, and the fact that you could negate the impact of an entire year of carbon-righteous living with a single long-haul airplane trip. We also got into the interesting (and loaded) issue of personal choice vs. the common good — we touched upon the idea of financial incentives for collectively reducing the agency’s carbon footprint. It’s a tricky balance, wanting to do good in the world, but knowing that our industry — any industry — has an environmental impact that may be less than beneficial. We can but do our best.

Our next step is to fill out comprehensive personal surveys and subject every part of egg’s operation to rigorous scrutiny. Innovative Strategies will crunch the numbers for us, and we’ll be able to stare down at our footprints and see exactly where we are.

Will our water cooler be revealed as an energy sink? Will our lunch habits be called into question?

Will the bicyclists at egg begin to taunt the bus-takers with looks of smug superiority?

Stay tuned for the next installment of “Running the Talk,” and all will be revealed.

A determined and diligent group in Vancouver has launched a new site that encourages and educates designers on the issues around sustainability and design. Often, designers feel powerless in having any meaningful effect on their business and the clients they work with, other than the usual “materials” issues–paper, inks, coatings, adhesives, etc.. This is a great start but a broader view on how designers should consider themselves in the bigger picture is necessary.

smashLAB has done some hard work in creating a vital site with some good slide shows that serve to educate on the issues and give real, meaningful solutions for designers. Check it out. For full-disclosure sake, we should add here that they approached us during development to feature our Seattle Monorail Project on this site as an example of design that can have meaningful effects and lead to large scale change. (That the silver bullet died later due to political missteps and management errors must be noted, but the campaign was a tremendous success.)