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The Client:

J.U.i.C.E.  is a non-profit organization who works with at risk youth in Los Angeles. The program works with underprivileged youth allowing them to express themselves through creative endeavors such as art, music, dance and hip hop.

The Problem:

As part of Scion’s “Freshly Squeezed” design competition, Neon Sumo elected to submit an design concept for a new J.U.i.C.E website. The design needed to be HTML based, and allow for easy to update content areas. The creative brief specified bright, cheerful colors, and recommended that submissions utilized J.U.i.C.E.’s hip-hop roots for inspiration. 

The Solution:

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Neon Sumo designed a vivid, bright website that incorporated a modern sense of style and shape. The resulting design incorporated a vibrant color scheme and utilized abstract lettering as design elements. The lettering was meant to draw upon the distorted typographic traditions of graffiti art. However, we did not want the writing to be so abstract that it was illegible. Elements such as arrows, another common graffiti design element, were added in to provide subtle hints of hip-hop culture without being cliche.  The end result was a modern, fun, urban inspired design that could easily adapt to a variety of content. It’s bright colors, sharp contrast, and use of shape create a look that is unique and still honors the creative spirit of J.U.i.C.E. without being overwhelmingly complex.

The Product:

The content is still in process, we will update this posting when the judges have made their decisions.

How it Connects is a new series looking at the interconnectedness of our planet. In the book Cradle to Cradle, a simple question is posed, “how do we love all children, of all species, for all time?” From this central theme rises the idea that everything is inexorably related and events do not occur in a bubble. Rather, the actions of one will ripple across our planet and effect many things across a long period of time. Therefore, it is important to examine the intertwined relationships between all things on our planet. How it Connects seeks to examine these connections.

1. Shells and SUVs

If you imagine the Earth like a human body the oceans would be the blood. The oceans distribute nutrients to breed a diverse range of life, and channel warmth around the globe to make the temperate zones more hospitable. They transport water and serve as the engine to turn the water cycle. The oceans provide valuable sources of food and have done so since the earliest days of humankind. However, a lesser known benefit of our oceans is their capacity to serve as a “sink” of carbon dioxide.

Millions of tiny creatures called Foraminifera live near the surface of the world’s oceans. These platonic creatures create shells from calcium carbonate which sink down in to the deep ocean sequestering the carbon within for many years. Unfortunately, as levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide increase, the acidity of our oceans is increasing too. More acidic oceans means it is harder for sea life to create calcium carbonate shells. Consequently, Foraminifera are slower to make shells and sequester less carbon dioxide.  Additionally, coral reefs, which rely upon the same sort of reaction, are slower to regenerate and grow. This reduces the amount of supporting ecosystems for our oceans and ultimately means less fish to eat. 

Perhaps more alarming, is that warmer oceans hold less carbon dioxide. For years our oceans have been sequestering carbon dioxide. With less carbon dioxide being absorbed, the green house effect will raise the temperature of our planet, resulting in warmer ocean temperatures. As the oceans warm more carbon dioxide will be released further compounding the problem.

So how do shells relate to SUVs? Simple, carbon emissions from SUVs (or any source for that matter) increase the acidity of our oceans. The higher the acidity the less shells are going to be made, which means more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In an article published by Reuters today, William Howard of the University of Tasmania in Australia states that “We’ve already changed the pH of the ocean by about 0.1. At these levels this represents about a 30 percent increase in the acidity of the oceans.” 

The rise in ocean acidity is just one small example of how we need to rethink the way we live, do business, and design. Taking the small steps to ensure that your actions are carbon neutral is one easy way to making sure that the world of the future has shells to admire.

Photo Credit: markus941 and Raul A. from Flickr under Creative Commons

These days it sure feels like the sky is falling, or at the very least the area over Wall Street is. Business is down all over the place, and customers are reigning in their spending. Instinct would want you to believe that price is the most important feature in today’s marketplace, but you might be surprised.

A new survey from GreenBiz.com found, “68 percent of consumers say that even in a recession they would remain faithful to a brand if it supports a good cause; nearly seven in 10 would be prepared to pay more for eco-friendly products.” This is good news for anyone looking to begin greening their business. However, the article goes on to say that simply being green isn’t all there is to connecting with consumers’ wallets. To be successful a green product must also convey a sense of value and be perceived as equally effective as the conventional alternative.

Key to accomplishing this task is communicating the benefits of your green product. Neil Stern, author of “Greentailing and Other Revolutions in Retailing,” expands upon the importance of communication by stating, “You have to communicate what you are doing and what the value is to the buyer. And you have to do it consistently across all channels of communication, from the website and advertising down to the store shelves.” Effective communication allows you to educate your customers about your green efforts and is a key component to effective green marketing.  

Perhaps the most powerful tool of communication is design. As explained in a previous post, 2 Seconds to Save Your Business, design has the power to quickly connect with our decision making processes. By relying on previous experiences, well designed products and services can quickly gain favor with potential customers by taking advantage of snap judgements. Conversely, a poorly designed image can be detrimental to the success of a product or service. Design is just one of the many business tools available to business owners. Design is not simply how something looks, it is a strategic asset and a key element of any communication effort. Design is the visual and written representation of your product or service. To put it simply, for new customers your design is your business.

Part 2:

The Mission:

Sauce Snowboards is an imaginary company hoping to break into the highly competitive snowboard market. It is Neon Sumo’s task to develop a business identity that will distinguish Sauce from the competition while maintaining a firm commitment to sustainable environmental practices. 

Step Two: Promotional Design

In our first post we presented the logo for Sauce Snowboards and discussed possible marketing campaigns that would utilize the “color-free” aspects of the logo.  In this section we are going to further explore possible marketing campaigns to promote Sauce Snowboards. 

Some of the most common promotional materials within the snowboarding industry are stickers. Stickers are easy to produce relatively cheap and are ingrained into snowboarding culture. People have been customizing the appearance of their boards with stickers since the earliest days of snowboarding. This makes stickers a good option from a marketing stand point as free sticker give-a-ways at snowboarding competitions or on mountain events could really help boost mindshare. Unfortunately the majority of stickers produced are made using vinyl. In a previous post, I discussed the downfalls of vinyl as they relate to health and the environment. Ultimately, vinyl is an undesirable design material and ought to be avoided if possible. 

So we needed to find some alternatives to vinyl for sticker production. Fiberstone is a paper alternative that is water proof, and biodegradable. It is produced using zero tree fiber, less energy than paper, and very little water making it an appealing option to vinyl. Unfortunately, Fiberstone will photo-degrade in a little over a year. Most stickers that are placed onto snowboards will spend most of their time locked in a closet, or covered in snow, but it is important to design with a material that won’t fade over time. 

A second option to vinyl is would be synthetic labels from another plastic resin. These labels are made using Polypropylene (#5) plastic and would be recyclable in some municipalities. Additionally, should the stickers be incinerated anytime in the future, the material doesn’t release any detectable amounts of dioxin, chlorine, or sulfur. Furthermore the plastic properties of the material would better withstand the elements a snowboard sticker might face. 

With either material there are potential drawbacks, however both are significantly better than vinyl in terms of environmental impact. But rather than just push free junk onto the masses, we wanted to create a more engaging and hopefully more effective marketing tool. First, we did a couple of quick mock-ups for potential print advertising campaigns. 

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The first follows a more traditional “snowboarding magazine” ad depicting an action shot of a sponsored rider. This ad really fits into the conventional mold of snowboarding ads, but has it’s own unique flavor and would stand out from the traditional daytime “backcountry” or nighttime “urban” shots. This ad is a conservative example for a possible  “green” Sauce snowboard promotion.

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The second is a totally different direction that would be targeted at the attention of young men. It is a significant departure from traditional snowboarding ads and would surely draw the attention of readers. Unfortunately we don’t think that this type of advertising really fits with the brand image of a triple bottom line company. The ad could be construed as overly sexual and demeaning to women. Plus, in the book “Buyology,” author Martin Lindstrom makes a compelling argument as to why sex doesn’t sell.

The old Saturday Night Live skit  where patrons of a restaurant were repeatedly asked if they “lika the juice?” provided the inspiration for the second ad. The implementation of the concept while eye catching and effective doesn’t fit well with the brand image. However, the concept gave rise to a more interesting campaign that could help build a community around Sauce Snowboards. This new concept will be further explored in part three of our series. Stay tuned!

In my last post I spoke about how design can save your business in tough financial times. However, there is a saying that I often repeat to remind myself that there is more than one way to solve a problem.

“When all you have is a hammer, you will see a world of nails.”

One of the tools I often call upon is the advice of Young Entrepreneur. Whether, you are a seasoned serial entrepreneur or starting your very first small business Young Entrepreneur has something to help you grow. They are an online community of sorts that provides advice and a space for people to exchange business ideas. Young Entrepreneur has an active forum community with a wide variety of topics and active discussions. Perhaps, one of the most helpful parts about Young Entrepreneur is the blog they maintain. The blog has many interviews and advice columns, as well as, a series of profile pieces on successful business figures. They often run various surveys and posts about trends in the business world. The staff also provides helpful tips and analysis for search engine optimization and internet marketing. So if you find yourself ever in need of a little inspiration, some helpful advice or just looking for a new blog to follow check out the blog at YoungEntrepeneur.com.

The importance of good design in uncertain financial times.

When we are little, and even when we are bigger, we are often told not to judge a book by its cover. As a designer, I think that is a bunch of baloney. While we would like to appease our ego with the thought of being above our subconscious prejudices, we are all wired to make snap judgements.  In the book “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” by Malcolm Gladwell, the author introduces the concept of the “adaptive unconscious.”  The adaptive unconscious is a sort of supercomputer that “quickly and quietly processes a lot of the data we need in order to keep functioning as human beings.”  It is the mechanism behind the snap judgements we continuously make while going about our daily business.  Without such a mechanism, we as conscious thinkers would be so tied down in pondering the effects of every little decision that we would be unable to accomplish the tasks necessary to our survival.

Even as you began reading this article, you made a snap decision. You either saw the eye-catching picture of a woman screaming atop a teetering Jenga tower, surrounded by images of financial turmoil or you glanced the title “2 Seconds to Save Your Business” and something within you said pay attention. Something clicked.  How long did it take to make that decision? How long did you decide that you were going to devote the next few minutes of your very busy life to reading this particular blog article?

If you guessed about 2 seconds you obviously have been paying attention. In “Blink,” Gladwell explains a study conducted by psychologist Nalini Ambady, wherein students were shown 3 different 10 second video clips of university professors lecturing. The sound of each tape was removed, and students were asked to rate the teaching abilities of each professor.  Ambady found that students had no troubles with rating the professors’ teaching skills. So they continued the study with shorter and shorter clips. Eventually, the study reached the point where students were able to make snap judgements to the professor’s teaching ability in only two seconds.  When compared to the ratings by students who had spent an entire semester in the professor’s class the ratings were incredibly close.

Herein, lies the power of snap judgments and the adaptive unconscious. We are capable of making important decisions rapidly and without our conscious being aware of such efforts.  We make these decisions every time we are introduced to a new person, product, service or concept. Additionally, the opinion formed by these snap decisions is usually the same decision we reach after careful examination. 

So if we are constantly forming opinions on every new item we come in contact with, what are the influencing factors? The answer, our previous experiences and what we already know. This is the connection to design. I’m going to repeat that, because its important, our snap judgements are based off of previous experiences and knowledge. So we quickly and silently compare new products, people and ideas to products, people and ideas we have known before.  

Our opinions of value and quality in new products, services, and ideas are based upon what we have seen and heard in the past.  So, it is no wonder that we judge books by their covers.  Our adaptive unconscious is quietly deciding that the particular item we are looking at seems to be like other items we have enjoyed before. This is why when times get tough and pennies need pinching it is often small businesses who are first to feel the squeeze.  With the family budget on the line, thrifty spenders will grow weary of any brand that is unknown or unfamiliar to them. Furthermore, the very same spenders will do all they can to maximize the value of every purchase they make.  Regardless of a product or service’s actual quality, judgements about perceived quality and value are made in the blink of an eye.

Thrifty spenders will avoid products that are perceived to be of lower value and quality, and that is why design is so important in tough financial times.  People rely on the subconscious clues of good design to help guide their decisions.  Ugly design is often unnoticed because it is so prevalent. If someone were to put up a sign in a window that looks like this, what would you think?

Probably, that this message is supposedly important. Also that this sign was most likely made by one of the store’s employees and perhaps doesn’t mean much. So in all likelihood we would ignore a sign like this.  Why do we think this? Well, its because we have seen it many times before. It could be the greatest sale that store has ever had, but what makes it any different than the store across the street with the same shaped sign?  In the consumer’s mind, nothing.

Bad design won’t kill your business, odds are you will continue existing in a state of financial purgatory not really gaining any new business. But great design, great design builds companies. Great design and even just good design, does something to us as consumers. We can’t describe what good or even great design is, but we know it when we see it. Our adaptive unconscious has told us that for whatever reason, this is valuable to us, this is important and we should devote some time to it.  The power of great design is this ability to break through all the other clutter in our lives. To make it through the adaptive unconscious filter and stand out as something unique and special.

So what happens in the 2 seconds it takes to save your business? Good or even great design needs to tell customer’s that you are worth their time.  In tough financial times when people are weary of spending and taking risks, it is paramount that you take the time to invest in good design.  Whether you are very small or very big, invest in your image, because you image will rapidly communicate your value to everyone who sees it, whether they know it or not.

“Only we humans make waste that nature can’t digest” - Capt. Charles Moore, Algalita Marine Research Foundation 

For those of you following this blog, you will know that I have spent the last few posts talking about plastics and the consequences of using them. In our modern lives, we use and discard an extraordinary amount of plastics. For example, in the United States we use and discard over 4 Million plastic cups everyday. Doesn’t seem like much, until you find out that the 4 Million cups were used and discarded on airplanes. Think about that, 4 Million plastic cups per day so we can have a little drink on the airplane.

Most of the plastic produced today is used for a short period of time then thrown away. In reality, there is no “away” traditional plastics don’t biodegrade within any useful time scale. They are poisoning wildlife and consequently poisoning the food chain. The 4 Million cups used everyday on airplanes are used only for a few minutes before they are collected by the flight attendants and discarded. From there, they spend the next 1000 years or so in a landfill or possibly as litter in the oceans. 

The following video is from the TED Conference and does a wonderful job outlining the challenges plastics pose. 

From presentations like this it is clear that mass plastic production is a problem. As designers, we have the unique opportunity to stop plastic consumption at its source and help save the oceans from a slow plastic suffocation. As business owners and employees it is our duty to look for alternatives when possible and to challenge designers to come up with solutions to our plastic addiction. As consumers we have the power to act responsibly and  help minimize the harm of plastics that are being used. We have the power to purchase alternatives, to recycle the plastic we do use.

Photo Credit: therapycatguardian from Flickr under Creative Commons

When you are first considering going green, there is a lot to start thinking about, but its important to not get overwhelmed.  Just remember the end goal is to make your company green, so start small, and work your way up from there.  I remember a few lessons i learned back in grade school about how to change our impact on the environment, and you will find that even these childhood lessons are helpful when trying to make a change.  I will list off my childhood lessons, and how they can be changed and modified for todays business world!

1: When you leave a room, turn off the light bulb.
This may seem easy, but even this simple task can help your company to start down the green pathway.  Turning off the light in a room when it is not being used can save your company in the long run.  In addition you can replace all light bulbs in your office with new Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs.  An average CFL will consume 75% less energy and last up to 10 times longer!

2: When using a faucet, make sure to turn it off in between uses.
At the office we often dont use water faucets for extended periods of time, but this is another huge area we can imporove on.  Make sure that when a faucet is turned off, it is completely off and not leaking.  Make sure to fix any leaking faucets as well as a leaking faucet can account for a ton of water loss.

3: When using heating and air conditioning make sure to keep doors and windows closed.
In the classroom this is often an easier task than at the office, but in both places the lesson is equaly as valuable.  In the office you have many people walking around and making their own decisions.  If someone changes the thermostat, everyone else may or may not know about it.  This may be a difficult problem to tackle, but if everyone in the office pitches in, each person can help everyone else stay on task.

These three lessons may seem simple and easy, but they are a great start for any business who wants to make the switch to green.  There is no reason to buy fancy solor power, or any other renuable power, if you cant use it efficiently.  businesslink.gov.uk posted an article recently with the top ten ways to save money by using resources efficiently.  If you can handle these three i would recomend checking out the complete list here.

(Photo Credit: ian.schofield from Flickr under Creative Commons)

There is a funny quirk of the English language that has an odd way of influencing the way we think. Words have a very powerful affect, they more or less determine our ability to think. Let’s just pretend that we only know a total of 10 words, in this case all nouns and totally unrelated. Our brains only have the ability to understand and communicate 10 different concepts. Replace one of those nouns with an adjective, and we suddenly have almost doubled our vocabulary as we can now communicate at least 19 different concepts. This simplistic example showcases just how dependent upon words we actually are. The more words we know the more thoughts we are capable of having, and the more complex our thoughts can be.

As much as words have the ability to expand our thought capabilities, they can also be a hinderance. For example, think about what you had to eat the last time you went out to a restaurant. For me it was a Chicken Burrito from Chipotle Mexican Grill. For those of you who have never been, Chipotle is a fast casual mexican food restaurant. If you order a burrito from Chipotle it is wrapped in aluminum foil placed in a red sandwich basket over a sheet of thoughtfully designed, brown, sandwich paper. When you are finished with you meal (assuming you ate all of the generous portion) you make your way to the exit.  Before you leave, you can throw away the packaging of your meal into stylish oil drum containers, taking care not to discard the plastic basket. 

Sounds pretty normal right? It is, but notice the one word I happened to use indicating the action I took with my “trash.” When I was finished with my meal I threw “away” my meal’s packaging. “Away” can be a deceiving word. It indicates that something is leaving, that it is traveling to a particular place or across a distance. Away indicates that something is being put into its proper place, never to concern us again. Away makes us think that we need not concern ourselves with our former food, it’s packaging, or the  excrement it becomes. Away indicates that it is no longer our concern because it is away from us. Out of sight, out of mind. Sadly, away is deceiving, there is no away on Earth. Our trash doesn’t go away, it is merely buried somewhere. In some cases it is burnt, but it has not gone away it has been converted into energy, particulate matter and ash.

Understanding that our waste does not go away but merely moves to a different location is a key tenant to green design. Designers today should seek to minimize waste whenever possible, as it saves cost and reduces the amount of excess materials and energy used. Designers of the future should seek to eliminate the idea of waste altogether.  A properly designed world of tomorrow would have less barriers to growth. For many environmentalists limitless growth is a scary proposition. But in a properly designed world with zero waste, source materials could be continuously reused. Humans could further growth and renewal without draining our resource pool. New resources could be harvested only when needed and allowed to replenish as nature intended.

Developments in the world of nanotechnology or biology could allow the citizens of the future to disassemble all of their used or unwanted “waste” down to the most basic elements. Waste could be broken down to individual atoms if necessary.  The resulting source materials could be reassembled into any product necessary. 

But this is the world of science fiction. In the world of today, the world of Chipotle Burritos wrapped in aluminum foil, we need solutions to reduce or possibly eliminate waste. Burritos are a good place to start. Every Chipotle burrito is wrapped in aluminum foil and all of this foil goes to waste. Aluminum is one of the rare elements that does not break down or degrade when recycled. If Chipotle could develop a collection and recycling system for their foil they would dramatically reduce the need to buy new foil. The result is that less aluminum would have to be mined and produced into foil. The barrier to this is probably cost but I would think that as Chipotle continues to grow it could potentially enact a program like this. 

After all, Cannon just announced that they have begun turning old copiers into the source materials for new calculators. The LS-120TSG and the F-502G are made from 100% recycled plastic from the copiers, and the LS-120TSG is solar powered. Granted the system isn’t 100% reused materials but it is a start.

Photo Credit: tiswango on Flickr under Creative Commons