I do get a bit over the whole ‘climate change’ stuff sometimes. There are weeks where we thrash it to death through my design course. I do assignments on sustainable waste management and water and discuss how we as designers are both pretty much the problem and the solution. It’s a theme that rocks up in pretty much every class at some point during the semester. So I was a bit ‘mi lase’ (Which basically means ‘I don’t want to’ in Solomon Islands Pijin) with the Blog Action Day theme (Speaking of which, I’m kind of a day late). Then yesterday I spied a comment on someone’s facebook about having despite tried, their carbon footprint had increased in the past six months. From there ensued quite an interesting discussion between me and another who commented on the post.

“I can’t stand it when the hippies tell us it’s so easy to be green. The only way to be effective ecologically seems to be give up our entire way of life, completely… we can’t survive without the way we have life now. Even if only places like factories, hospitals, morgues and food storage places where allowed to continue as they are (which they need too) we are still screwed. I just wish someone could come up with a better efficient form of energy that can produce stuff to the levels we need.”

and then I entered the conversation with something like “Bollocks, yes we can”. Great starter, really about getting someone on my side.

So the conversation went on and honed in on ‘Do the little things make a difference’?  As much as we’d like to think the little things don’t always make a huge difference, but the idea of these things and goals like Target 155 (which surely could be lower)  is about attitude change which has bigger implications for overall behaviour. At the moment I feel is fair to call out the world around me as being too comfortable, too selfish, too lazy. Myself included. There are many things in regard to climate change that revolve around changing systems that sit at a higher level than many of us operate in but these systems also rely on an attitude change. So lets start with the little things within reach.

The conversation on facebook made me realise something, I do actually care very much about climate change. And fair bit more than I’ve realised. Just perhaps this will have implications for further altering my own behaviour?

Below is an average breakdown of how you use your domestic water… click to zoom.

I feel kind of nerdy. But I’m doing this assignment on water at the moment (for a class on Systems and Services Design). And I have realised that we as a lovely population of well endowed off Westerners are VERY VERY ignorant about the issues associated with water and the world and the ties to poverty etc. My assignment is more specifically about domestic water situations and urban metabolism but really it all applies. It should be of concern.

Please begin to educate yourself:

FAO Water

UN Water

beautiful rain painting by Leonid Afremov

While sitting in class I was imagining the possibilities of information design in regards to voicing stuff I care about when they suddenly sprung us with this link.

Information Visualization for Advocacy – John Emerson (Title will download the pdf approx 7mb)

I do value Swinburne for hammering on about stuff that matters, even if this particular example was more a general resource to kick us in to action with our assignments. I intend someday to have a crack at a piece, so if someone wants to throw some data or an idea at me, it would be welcome.

This was not just written for designers the lovely Ellen Lupton (I’m sure she’s lovely – not that I’ve met her, but she’s a twin like me so of course she’s lovely) goes on about making design accessible to all. You go right ahead.

Sometimes I wish I’d discovered information design sooner. On a side note, my assignment piece is on John Friedrich and I will potentially be mapping relationships between him and Iago from Othello (Shakespeare). Should be interesting.

Another bumper sticker day with a marvelous line up. So to decode some of my mangy scrawl (because it’s pretty dark in Hamer Hall when you’re up in the audience):

Highlights:

Marina Willer -graphic designer, shared some pretty interesting branding outcomes quite inspiring especially in regards to letting brands be more versatile, she also had some nice comments on work and play and doing jobs close to your heart

Paul Garbett (Naughty Fish) – graphic designer, really enjoyed where he was coming from in showing how collections and objects under-girds some of his work and also his comment on digging into your background and replenishing that lot of experience and not treating it as an everlasting source. I am jealous admiring too of their lovely work. If they weren’t Sydney based I would aspire to work there.

Scott Schuman/The Sartorialist – surprise guest and a blogger! Oh I was happy. Admittedly I’d never heard of the blog… must travel in the wrong circles (fashion not really being my primary interest) but I love his approach and he had some great take away stuff about blogs and point of view and finding the right audience not the biggest one and the potential in blogs for portraying a brand (ie. self) and also about the evolution of input through blogs. The only really sad thing is that he uses blogspot…

Stanley Wong – a very well known designer from Hong Kong some glorious philosophical stuff, comments on ‘staying local’ and designing for social impact and in an alternate field: justice.

Tobias Frere-Jones – a typographer (one of) who designed typefaces like Gotham which was used for the Obama ‘Yes We Can’ campaign, he shared the stories about the development and reasoning behind it, and the Martha Stewart font. Twas marvellous, got the biggest clap. And he totally looked like a Tobias. I like it when people fit their names.

the others also worth a brief mention:

Philip Millar – a puppeteer of dinosaurs (from walking with the Dinosaurs) and movies like Charlottes Webb (think Pig), it was good fun, quite left of field

James Hackett - the guy who worked on animations for title sequences like the Gruen Transfer and Enough Rope… again very enjoyable presentation

Milton Watkins – I was pleased to see that AGIdeas threw a bookbinder in our mix, he was somewhat hilarious and injected some kind of heightened admiration in me for the craft – and evern more so helped to probably lift the glug in my mind associated with trying to track down people who can turn computer work in to reality, a chore sadly made more difficult by living in the Eastern suburbs.

(and there were lots of other good ones besides those listed)

Something I was thinking about today in listening to those around me was (excuse the crappy drawing, the Wacom is new to me, it’s late and I drew it very quickly) is seed vs swing:

And seed vs swing… is knowledge vs. experience. As I listen to some of those around me (and I’m sure it’s a small percentage – but could very well be true of Gen Y) and their comments on which speakers they’ve enjoyed, I wonder if they’re (and myself at times) care more about the experience over the knowledge on offer and that knowledge itself actually plays far less of a role than it should. We kind of assume the knowledge is there (like the tree) and swing off the experience of the conference and the speakers, instead of grasping that start (the cliched seed… which is what that sprouty thing is meant to be) that small birth of inspiration or wisdom or insight. And that friends is as far as that thought has gone.

I am slightly in love with these boots, they will be for sale at Williams during April, in black or olive. I’m hoping they’ll be stocked in the store near me or I will have to somehow work out how to find them.

What I would like to know is: is there anywhere that sells sweatshop-free/fairtrade/ethical boots that are fun like this? Because I think I am finally at the point where I would spend a few extra dollars to go that way (Rather than just being at that point in my idealistic head). Currently I am clueless about where to get that kind of thing and I don’t really want to buy shoes over the internet – really do actually need to try them on. Oxfam shoes (like volleys are really uncomfortable… and erm, I’m after boots).