There is a French proverb which tells a simple story to help explain the phenomena of exponential growth.  The proverb asks us to “imagine that there is a lily pond in our back yard in which the lily’s in the pond double in size each day. If the lily were allowed to grow unchecked, it would completely cover the pond in 30 days, choking out all other forms of life in the water. For a long time, the plant seems small, so you decide not to worry about cutting it back until it covers half the pond. On the 29^th day we have only one day left to act”

This simple narrative clearly demonstrates the need to take action. Some people such as the Environmental scientist James Lovelock already think it’s too late – that Gaia will seek her revenge. But let it not be said that we live in the Age of Stupid. Let us take action, Lobby our politicians put pressure on local MP’s, join local community, social and environmental initiatives, form a coop but most importantly DO SOMETHING!

Packaging for food should have a message, not just a destination. Have you ever noticed the stories on the side of Chipotle cups or to go bags? These items advertise the freshness and the quality of the ingredients used, and I personally think that this is great. The educational aspect to the packaging gives the product more purpose, but other companies are doing even better. Take for instance Otarian, new chain set to open in London and New York. They set sustainability at the forefront, making sure that each consumer understands where the food they are eating has come from, and how the planet is effected in the process of shipping and making the products.

Of course educational packaging is great, but maybe even more important is the idea of less is more. As a student, I spend most of my time on the go, and a sit down restaurant just isn’t in my schedule or budget. However, I still enjoy quality food and care about the environment. When I am searching for a quick and easy meal, I look for something that is able to be carried and lightweight. Companies are able to cut costs and make meals more accessible by using less materials, and I think this trend is definitely on the rise. Eco-consciousness is not only a trend, but an essential, wise practice. With landfills overflowing and concern on the rise, it is only natural for companies to follow the demand for more sustainable practices and products.

Such products that are being more and more popular include packaging with alternative materials other than plastic and styrofoam. Bio degradable packaging, such as the more recent bag used for Sunchips, show the company has a concern that is common to the consumer. Many places old and new alike rising to the challenge and entering this idea of honest design into their company standards. The message is clear, sustainability is here to stand and make a good impression.

We don’t reflect back to the past nearly as much as we should. Now it is more about current events, technology and new ways of connecting like social media. Recently, I was asked to be on a panel for SHAG (Society of History and Graphics) which was essentially about the history of a designer from the beginning to now. While I didn’t have much to say in the early part of the evening, it was incredibly interesting for me to learn about the past and where my design ancestors came from. In this case they were past Barton Gillette Ad Execs, North Charles Street Design Organization, Brilliant authors on Graphic Design and Print, and some technical experts from the early years of the internet age at e.magination.com.

We are constantly reinventing our industry and our process based on what is in current events. We have a very important job as designers; an exhausting one at best; to be sure we are always up on the latest industry trends, retooling our expertise to compete with the younger, more inexpensive version of ourselves. In recent years we have gone from technical experts to customer service guru’s finding new ways to be ahead of the curve. With marketing within our industry, we have taken on the green movement with gusto and are now furthering the development of it through messaging, quality control and product design.

We are also finding more and more often that the world is faster than our With the web, design has become impermanent.

In the past there used to be a very strict heirarchy about how thigns were run. You have a creative director, art director, account manager, project manager, senior designer, writer, production design, etc. It would be a process for every project. Now the design process has become much more linear with a single designer handling everything from concept to production and all the correspondence along the way. There is just not enough time for all of it.

In recent years there  has been a greater relationship to words and images in the context of design.

In the end, design has truly just become about great customer service.

Grand Designs Live show is currently going on. We had a brilliant day on Saturday looking at all the design ideas out in the world. Andrew Sundling, our new Mr. Sustainability, led the way for creating sustainable ideas and directions during the day. It was a site to see! We are very keen on finding new ideas and spend a lot of time at shows and events to check out what is going on in the world. This show seemed to be a bit more residential than we had expected, but it was a useful opportunity to see what is going on in the UK market.

There was a chalk rammed block house in the process of being made, a lot of organic wool being promoted and a very clever series of products all made from recycled or recyclable materials. We happened to stumble across a TILT stool and a few other ideas that may actually get implemented. We found chairs (FLUX) for our TILT Food Truck this summer.

The food section was less than desirable with many products that were ‘made for TV.’ Not really useful for us, but we did find a commercial style flat top cooker that we are going to try out from one of the companies.

At lunch we were left stuck with the question of what to eat. Andrew ending up finding a veggie burger from the Fine Burger Co. and we pondered the sustainable non-brilliance of its packaging. He had asked for it without a bun (i.e. Naked) and they gave a very poor attempt to include a salad as a substitute. Shame since the 5 miles or so we walked built up a hearty appetite!

The Center for a Liveable Future (CLF) at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, along with a group of students from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)  created a video based on marketing the food consumption in Baltimore. One of the videos was created by Hugh Popcock’s Sustainability Squad at MICA and was based on a year long series of video and research. The journey to these two videos was profound and shows truly how little we know about our food and where it comes from. WATCH HERE

The Great Kids Farm, the Baltimore City Public School farm, was highlighted as a resource for food production and education for the young locals and Greg Strella offers his wisdom on the historical value of food to our culture vs where we are today. Both are worth a watch and capture important aspects to what is going on as we have a tremendous cultural shift back to buying local.

What’s missing?
While these films were absolutely great and very well done, especially since they were created by students, Many good questions are raised, but few are answered with specifics. Perhaps the director was hoping that we as consumers would be able to fill in the blanks with our ideas. There is a very strong gap in the marketplace in food film and action. We spend lots of energy and resources on telling the real story about food which works as a scare tactic, not as a change agent. So, how do we make a difference?

One way is to get people to understand actual food limits. As a human population we are constantly hitting our max capacity with a number of things – we are literally “stuffed” and the concept of emptiness doesn’t exist in our culture. If and when we have hit our max capacity is the only time that we actually stop. This is how it works with food too. We like to push our ability to try and stuff ourselves further than we did the last time, so what if we had a daily reminder of being at our max capacity? What would that be and what would it look like?

Perhaps we could also implement this as a challenge. So, let’s thing about this as a more positive view. What about suggesting something like a challenge? I feel as though tangible and positive actions help to inspire others to do the same. There are a series of items that have to happen in order to make someone feel positive about something else. Any thoughts email them here.

Design Convo #19
Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Tonight is the return of the Baltimore Design Conversation, held every month on the first Wednesday at the Wind Up Space. This go round is being curated by Fred Scharmen and the topic is Streets/Art. Fred has invited guests to look at aspects of public art that occur outside and between the institutions that have traditionally supported art in communities. On hand will be sculptor and performance artist Jonathan Taube; activist, artist, and facilitator Paulo Harris; and street artist, sculptor, and painter Andrew Pisacane.

This will be the first in a two-part look at how public art impacts cities. The second part of this conversation will take place at June’s Baltimore Design Convo to be curated by Ben Stone.

D:center Baltimore is a new organization composed of a broad cross-section of disciplines and individuals invested in improving and encouraging design—in all its iterations—in the Baltimore region.