With all the recent talk (and action) in environmental policies and clean energy initiatives by the Obama administration, I thought it would be a good opportunity to briefly review the state of play of design and branding for the so-called ‘green sector’.
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Every day in the U.S. brands are telling us about how environmentally conscious (or ‘green’) they are. Oil companies (Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, BP), car companies (Chevrolet, Ford, GM). They’re all at it. Green this, green that. It’s hard to tell if it’s sincere and honest, or just plain greenwashing. We’ve being bombarded with the notion of brands ‘being green’ recently that it’s falling on deaf ears. On the one hand you’ve got the earnest heart-warming quasi-sincerity of messages from brands like Chevron, and on the other the cheery, quirky (somewhat self congratulatory) message that many, including Apple, are broadcasting. I have a slight problem with the idea that caring about the environment is seen as a naive and child-like trait (see the new MacBooks ads complete with wiggly crayon drawings). It’s great that brands are taking steps to reduce their impact on the environment, but do they need to spend millions of dollars bragging about it. Can’t they be a little more humble? Well I guess that’s the nature of advertising, so lets forget about product marketing for now, what about environmental agencies and organizations. Is there any real innovation in design and communication within this sector? Well, not a great deal.
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For me the problem starts with one thing: the word green. Ever since (political) green parties were established in the 1970s (now active in over 100 countries) the term ‘green’ has been used to generally represent anything related to the care and preservation of the environment. The problem with the idea of green is that, for many, it has associations with a certain ‘hippiness’ that is hard for many to relate to. Not everyone wants to tout themselves as a loose-knit wearing, bran-cereal eating tree-hugger, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about the environment and acknowledge serious concern regarding its sustainability.
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The fact is, the majority of environmental organisations and businesses are represented by a mass of visual clichés: A leaf, a water drop, a globe, a happy tree. Many can’t think beyond the obvious associations and it means they can’t stand out from the crowd. Their brand’s consistently use language and visuals that represent the ‘category’ of sustainability. By using common signifiers that belong to this ‘category’ they fail to differentiate their brand and/or engage a new, wider audience.
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So what about some examples of people doing it differently? In the U.K. there’s The Climate Group: a non-profit organisation with “…a goal to help government and business set the world on a path to a low-carbon, prosperous future’. It’s a bold statement, and it is backed up with a bold identity (by Browns) that employs simple, strong typography and a black/white/red color palette that suggests urgency. Its serious ‘no time for tree hugging’ message seems appropriate given that it is focussed on the business and economics side of sustainability. Not a green leaf in sight.
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In the U.S. the Alliance of Climate Protection (an organization that Al Gore leads as Chairman of the Board) has spawned both the ‘We Can Solve It’ and ‘This is Reality’ campaigns. The former uses the simplicity of the notion of a coalition to communicate its mission. Although the identity pretty much solely hangs off of the visual pun of ‘me’ and ‘we’, it’s certainly a bold, memorable brand that leverages a sense of belonging and being part of something bigger, not dissimilar to Obama’s presidential campaign.
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‘This is Reality’ or simply ‘The Reality Campaign’ is a complete departure and a great example of how steering clear of the obvious (visual) language can make for a memorable and engaging brand. Since their focus is solely on the questioning of ‘clean coal’ which some corporations are advertising here in the U.S., their solution (or rather the agencies solution) was to use the ‘canary in a coal mine’ as its central theme (complete with cartoon crossed eyes). It is beautifully executed on their website and really hits home its message whilst appealing to a younger audience.
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This younger audience is particularly targeted by the Global Cool charity (by SEA) and the Live Earth concert series (by The Groop). On their website The Groop describes the challenge of “…branding an environmental cause that would appeal to today’s audience while avoiding the cliche design approaches seen in the dated 60s movement”. Similar in approach to The Climate Group branding, the vernacular of immediacy and infographics is a far cry from the ‘earth-mother’ branding of many other organizations.
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Living in San Francisco my main encounters with environmentalism are with this ‘Earth-Mother’ brand, which is perhaps what urged my to identify this as a design issue. I want to stress I’m not suggesting that designers need to make environmentalism cool and trendy (I acknowledge that Global Cool could be accused of that) as this could be counter-productive. I simply feel that by broadening the vocabulary in which things are communicated, environmentalism will feel less like a ‘movement’ that one either subscribes to or not, and more like a part of everyday life and the choices we make.
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Designers have a key role to play in shaping this culture. As intermediaries between science, government policy, and the public, it’s partly our responsibility to help and educate businesses and organizations to adopt a new visual language. And brands need to think harder about ways to reach out to a new audience and avoid the obvious messages that can fall on cynical ears. Sustainability as a concept is complex, with many different aspects to consider: not just trees and rivers but manufacturing, economics, agriculture, food, urbanization, energy, transport, materials. By using a broader thinking to communicate the issues, they’ll reach a broader audience.
Oh, Global Cool! I may be oversaturated from a life of living in America, but it’s a little too close for comfort: http://www.nbc.com/
Daniel, yes that reference did cross my mind at the time… I love the NBC Peacock. Shame they’ve ruined the original by recently adding shading and the typical web ‘gel-like’ qualities to the peacock. Seems to have lost its purity and simplicity.
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Not convinced how 2 logos (Global Cool and NBC) working in different forms, for two completely different causes, with very different conceptual origins not to mention applications, can be ‘too close for comfort’.
‘I want to stress I’m not suggesting that designers need to make environmentalism cool and trendy (I acknowledge that Global Cool could be accused of that) as this could be counter-productive.’
— I think this point, particularly the last 5 words, needs justification. Sometimes, when treading the dangerously thin ice of preaching to an environmentally aware youth market (specifically the Global Cool demographic), the best approach isn’t neccessarily the well trodden ‘BIG BOLD FACTS’ solution. What’s wrong with sending a message out in a language such an audience understands nd can immediately identify with?
Agreed if done badly this treatment can have much less ‘impact’ but not convinced you can accuse Global Cool, a successful charity model, of that.
That’s a fair point Matt.
I suppose my reaction to its ‘let’s make being green cool’ message and celebrity endorsements was that by celebrating how cool it is to be green, it could be seen as a bit of a fashionable badge to wear. But I get your point - since The Global Cool is aimed particularly at a much younger audience, it’s perhaps not the best example to use. And if it gets kids recycling phones and clothes, then that’s certainly not a bad thing.
[...] that being anything to do with taking care of our planet. On Brand New, designer Tom Crabtree takes a look at the donkeys of ‘green’ design. Some really great examples in [...]
great post! I’d never seen The Climate Group stuff before. The execution is fantastic.
I like your web
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http://idolmonkey.carbonmade.com/projects/2308305
Posable good “Green” company identitycomplete list of HTML Tags.
Great post though, greatly enjoy browns work. There is however another company who have a very similar identity, but used in a different sector and application.
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