RESEARCH | PEDAGOGYSustainable Design Thinking: Changing the Design Process
Today our world faces complex problems, just a few of which include climate change, overpopulation, deforestation, pollution, poverty, water quality, and issues of inequality and food scarcity. The data and the facts are irrefutable and cannot be ignored, but how can designers become an architect for change?
Graphic design education needs to include sustainable design thinking at the forefront of the process, enabling graphic designers to think about and solve for greater impact within their communities.
This presentation focuses on how sustainable thinking can become the foundation for framing and solving a design problem by going beyond development of a logo and identity system to thinking more broadly at the start. Sustainable thinking will be implemented at the beginning of the design process with a goal that it can become routine and foundational for all design process.
Developing a creative brief that includes factoring impact on people, planet, prosperity and culture will yield a more sustainable design solution—one that clarifies the project goal, fosters creative solutions with a plan for execution. This process will provide steps for identifying, researching and understanding complex problems within local communities, and framing solutions that are more sustainable from research, to the designs of visuals and artifacts.
Bringing sustainable design thinking to the forefront of the process will support the development of graphic designers that think more broadly and allow for potential of creating real impact within communities and the world at large.
A sustainably focused creative brief attempts to better understand the problem from a holistic and sustainable viewpoint. Not only is a solution proposed, but the proposed solution works towards systemically solving the problem—even if the goals are small. Commonly used prompts are listed in the creative brief, such as defining the problem, objective, and goals. To that, it adds the four pillars of sustainable design for deeper reflection on a project’s impact on people (does it serve the greater good? is the solution empathetic), the physical environment (life cycle assessment, material use, waste, and supply chain consideration), prosperity (the ability for current and future generations to thrive), and culture (implications to society, social groups, customs, and belief systems).