This is not a book about environmentalism. It will not tell you to use soy ink and CFLs to make your studio green. This is a book about sustainability, a distinction of utmost importance.

This distinction takes us down the road of environmentalism but also brings along it’s siblings social and financial change. These tag-alongs are necessary because if real solutions are to take hold it’s not good enough to find the “most green” alternative. The questions of product life cycle, usability/adaptability and marketability have to be asked. Is an alternative really better if it contributes to another problem by virtue of its source materials, or no one can use it, or if no one will buy it? These questions are addressed in this book, alongside how to sell them to the people writing the checks. This gives this book the distinction of advocating practicality and sustainability (even if they are one and the same).

Nathan Shedroff, is chair of the MBA in Design Strategy program at California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco. So it is no surprise that this is one of the most practical books on implementing sustainability into business practices out there. It focuses on making your existing processes, products and services more sustainable, certainly there is a encyclopedic gathering of environmental frameworks, but the real genius of this book is the focus on integrating these with what already exists.

If I have any complaints it’s one of the complaints I have about a many of the books from Rosenfeld Media. The pasion that marks the introduction and conclusion of the book seems to be missing from much of what is in-between. I’m not sure why, but this seems to be a characteristic from this publisher. The exhaustive amount information may have something to do with it as well as the separation of real-world examples from the main text through the use of side bars. But this does leave you with a feeling of wanting more, and not in a good way.

It’s hard to accept any thing other than the ideal solution, but experience tells us the opportunities to completely throw something out and start from scratch are rare. One of the real takeaways from this book is not only that design has helped to create the problem, but by actively railing against producers design has not helped the problem. William McDonough and Michael Braungart say we shouldn’t settle for the least harmful alternative, and they are right. But we still need to work with producers to make change, Design is the Problem gets this.

Design Is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable
by Nathan Shedroff
Publisher: Rosenfeld Media; 1ST edition (2009)
ISBN-10: 1933820004
ISBN-13: 978-1933820002
Pages: 352

It’s Wednesday, still have half the week to go, yup we need some inspiration. Assuming we’re not the only ones, we’re proposing a Twitter contest. Lets put together a huge list of inspirational videos, ones that make you think, wonder, act, get off the couch, whatever. You know how this works, you need to be following our twitter feed @ProjectKNOW. Send a public message to @ProjectKNOW including the hashtag #PKinspiration.

So you mentioned this is a contest … what do we get for our trouble? Whomever post the video we like best gets a shiny new three-pack of the limited edition FIELD NOTES “COLORS” Grass Stain Green memo pads. If you haven’t heard about FIELD NOTES yet they are awesome 3″ x 5″ sketchpads, perfect for being handy when inspiration hits. The rest of us get a nice list of inspirational videos to get us through the week. The winner will be announced Friday 07/31 at noon CST, So we need all videos by Friday Morning lets say 8:00 am CST. Winners will be contacted via direct message on Twitter, so you must be following @ProjectKNOW.

ProjectKNOW started three years ago, originally it was conceived as a development blog for a few ideas I had for my fledgling freelance design company. Quickly it became clear that the true focus of this site was more theoretical than developmental. This created a tension between the stated purpose and where the blog was going.

The small studio I run with my wife PROJECT is undergoing a similar change. We are finding that  graphic design no longer accurately defines what we do. The more general term design is closer, design thinking is even closer. We increasingly have taken on (and started) projects that are resulting in software, new delivery methods for information and publishing opportunities. In many cases the results will be entirely new products and business models for our clients. We have wholeheartedly advocated design thinking to all of our clients, and our partnerships are better off for it.

We have been able to do this because the world is changing.

The democratization and communication spread around the globe in part by the internet, is changing the world faster than ever before. This is proving the power of design, and more so design thinking, to make change. That’s where this will come in. We will not only point out where design can be used, but evaluate where it has been used and forecast where it will go. We are also going to focus on the fundamentals: interface elements, nicely designed items, the intersection of print and interactive, and any other issues where design takes center stage. After all people not only have to be able to use what we create but it should be enjoyable as well.

This brings us to the business of the week to week posts, the blog. In line with our refreshed focus we are rethinking our poorly met posting schedule and thinking how content will better suite our goals. The blog will now consist of 2 types of posts; weekly (or even more often) quick bite-size posts on things that are happening, inspiring videos, or anything else relevant and interesting. The second post type will either be once a month or bi-weekly, feature articles ranging from idea proposals or outline to analysis of a design feature or element to designs place in world issues (most will probably cross a few of these). Finally we will be micro-blogging daily through Twitter. This schedule may of course change again, we will settle on what feels natural over the next few months.

One major move we have already made making is to put some adds on the site. This is not merely a concession to the current economic times, but an opportunity. Ad revenue will allow us to publish more frequently and spend the time to create the longer in-depth articles we want to. Additionally the revenue will allow us to stay true to the roots of this site and develop some of the ideas that come up on this site. We are currently using Google ads so we have no influence from advertisers on the content of the articles. So that’s the big news. These changes start today you should see a feature post in the next few days, a review of Design is the Problem. There will also be a Twitter contest coinciding with the post of the review.

So stay tuned, there is lot of design geekiness to come, and hopefully plenty of inspired debate and ideas.

U of M ICON House

The annual U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is a “competition to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house”. Twenty universities from around the world are competing to help determine the future of sustainable housing.

Most of the houses meet the second requirement, they run on solar power during the day and either store the power or put it back in the grid. All are energy efficient. It’s the first requirement that is the real obstacle for adoption. For solar houses to be widely adopted people have to like living in them. Aesthetics in this type of competition usually take back seat to engineering.

The University of Minnesota renowned for it’s solar car program is tackling not only the engineering problems but the aesthetic ones as well. They are designing a gable roofed house that is “influenced by traditions that surround us daily. Our love for using what already exists has lead us to take the concept of a gable roof and ‘solarize’ it!” More on their sites here, and here. This integration of design at the beginning of an engineering project is a step in the right direction for adoption of alternative energies.

You might have noticed we moved the furniture around a little yesterday. We’ve replaced the outdated and rarely updated categories with a tagging system that should serve as a more efficient navigation. We’ve also added some book in the left hand nav (review to come soon!). The RSS feeds have also been updated to be more reliable, and there’s finally a new ProjectKNOW Twitter feed. THere will be more coming soon including a new post schedule and a stated focus for this site. We’ve got a lot more coming around the corner, that we’re really excited about.