Never met an environmentalist

I had the good fortune to witness a presentation to graphic design students from illustrator and graphic artist Jody Barton this week. He showed some fabulous work and was amazingly honest about his beliefs, his experiences working for clients and the realities of freelancing. One aspect of his talk caught my interest above all else when he announced that he's never met an environmentalist. Jody had recently spoken at the 'Greening Illustration and Design' conference in which he said the level of debate was pitiful. Further to this he recounted his experiences of doing a job for Greenpeace and his contacts in Greenpeace would fly off on long weekend holidays after a week of saving the planet at their work desks! This really wasn't much of a surprise as I know only too well that most people don't give a shit if it means they have to actively change their habits - I once introduced a recycling scheme at a job and while people praised the initiative and talked the talk, they were generally unwilling to walk the walk to the plastic bins to separate out their waste and just chucked everything in together in the non-recyclables bin. However, it was refreshing to read the Johnson Banks blog today. Today's post is an honest appraisal of their own efforts to be green, an intelligent case study of green issues and how graphic designers can try and do their bit and includes an interesting look at how best to communicate the green message. It's well worth a read in a time of greenwashes, green capitalism and green bandwagons.