Birchfield Process Book

Process Book Cassidy Birchfield

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Terra is a reusable product company that educates the masses and creates products for the waste-conscious individual that focuses on products used in daily every day life to cut down on plastic use as much as possible. The target audience is millennial females who desire to start living a more sustainable life style with artistic and cute reusable products. The brand will start with three designed lines; earth, sea, and sky. Whichever design line the consumer buys from, a proceed of the money will go towards cleaning pollution in that are. The brand has room to expand with many more additional design lines and products.

7YVQLJ[ ;VWPJ 7YVISLTZ Today more than ever, there is a rising issue of pollution and global warming. People need to come together to problem solve on how to solve this issue. An easy introduction into sustainable living is with reusable products. As a graphic designer we have the ability to use our art and skills to promote things that need to be talked about and solved in our own generation. The nature of the topic I chose to solve is the problem of one use plastics and littering in our society that is slowly ruining our ecosystems. The subject matter is appropriate for this project because it will be used to educate consumers using graphic design and products from my brand that will bring light [V [OL PZZ\L VM ZPUNSL \ZL WSHZ[PJZ HUK WVSS\[PVU ;OL ZWLJPÄJ HYLH VM KLZPNU [OH[ 0 ^PSS IL MVJ\ZPUN on in my investigation of this project will be brand creation through collateral and consumer WYVK\J[Z ;OL PTWHJ[ [OH[ [OPZ PU]LZ[PNH[PVU ^PSS OH]L VU [OL KLZPNU ÄLSK PZ [V HZR KLZPNULYZ how can we as creators bring light to issues that trouble our society daily. This investigation contributes to my own growth as an artist because this is something that I personally care about, and I will be able to create products that support that. My methodology that I expect to pursue in this investigation on the topic of reusable products is to focus on product research from other reusable companies so that my products may be better, and also utilize sustainability research so that I may educate others on how to live more environmentally friendly. This methodology represents a new level of investigation on my part because I will be actively going out to physically conduct research on reusable products that are already available to the public. This is a very hands on approach that I have not yet participated in my college career. I investigated this issue of single use plastics before presenting my idea to the class and believe it is a good idea to pursue and investigate the issue further. The only issue I can foresee is product creation, which could be a little tricky. However I believe that with the right research and testing the products will be successful.

4L[OVKVSVN` Methods for gathering and analyzing information will include on hand research with reusable products that are already being created by companies, and looking into educational journals online about the subject of sustainable living. Generating solutions for my products will be based on trial and error, as well as research into what has already been done. Methods for evaluation will be based upon the craft I reproduce my products with. The study will take the form of researching online commerce of environmentally friendly reusable products to sell to the public.

Cassidy Birchfield Terra & Sustainable Design Capstone Research Paper

When thinking of a problem to solve in senior capstone, one of the biggest issues that

own designed reusable products. But, is there a market for people looking to buy reusable

came up in the beginning research stages was pollution and waste. Pollution of the earth in its

products? A study done in 2018 posted on the website nielson.com showed that almost half of

many ways is a big issue that faces our planet and people today, and it is something that can be

American consumers say they would change their consumption habits to benefit the

addressed through design. I did not just want to use design to bring light to this issue, I also

environment, and that the sustainability market should reach 150 billion dollars by 2021. On the

wanted to use green design that incorporated sustainable products, and a sustainable production

website it also stated that,

processes. I did not want to just preach it, I wanted to live it. Like most issues we face today as a

When it comes to sustainable purchasing, there’s a generation gap. About 75

society, art and design plays a big part of bringing awareness and attention to any issues we face.

percent of Millennials are altering their buying habits with the environment in mind,

By creating a company that brings attention and awareness to this issue of pollution, we can be

compared to 34 percent of Baby Boomers, Nielsen notes. Additionally, Millennials report

one step closer to solving this issue. Thus, Terra was created. Terra is a reusable product

a greater willingness to pay more for products with ingredients that are sustainable,

company that educates the masses and creates products for the waste-conscious individual that

environmentally friendly, organic or natural, or socially responsible products, Nielsen

focuses on products used in daily every day life to cut down on plastic use as much as possible.

found.1

The target audience is millennial females who desire to start living a more sustainable life style

So research shows that there is a market for people wanting to live more eco friendly, and that

with artistic and cute pieces of reusable products. The brand will start with three designed lines;

millennials are most likely to spend more on these products. Now the target audience needed to

earth, water, and air. Whichever design line the consumer buys from, a proceed of the money will

be narrowed down further. Several other studies have also shown that there is a “green gender

go towards cleaning pollution in that area through foundations that have already been created.

gap”, with men less likely to live sustainably than women. Researchers have started to call this

The brand has room to grow with many more additional design lines, and many more products.

the “green-feminine stereotype”. So since women are also more likely to buy sustainable

The Research The first thing to do was research other online reusable product companies. While going

products, the target audience for the brand will be millennial women. Then there is still the products to think about. When looking at Onya’s website, it seemed that all of their products

through the different online shopping options, it seemed that many sustainable green suppliers of

focused on everyday use so that consumers could get the most bang for their buck. If they use

reusable products sell products from different companies, there is rarely a company that has all

these things everyday, that would provide them with more reason to buy our products. However,

of its own products designed in a unified way under one brand, if it has any design at all. When

since this company would just be starting out, there was a limit to what could be made for the

it comes to the products and not the design, a lot of stores focus on everyday use and practicality, like the online supplier site Onya. So, there seemed to be an opening for a brand that sold their

1

“Was 2018 the Year of the Influential Sustainable Consumer?” Nielsen, 17 Dec. 2018, www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2018/was-2018-the-year-of-the-influential- sustainable-consumer/.

project. So, to focus on what could be used everyday, a glass bottle, a glass food container, a

between front vowels and femininity and prettiness, one can expect that brand names

produce bag, and a canvas bag was eventually chosen as the four beginning products for this

with front vowels will help create a sophisticated brand personality. 2

brand. Millennial women would use their bottle and food container at work, and the bags for

Next was to pick the colors that would represent the brand in all of the designs and

shopping and holding their personal items. After choosing the products, the different foundations

products. There needed to be one color for the whole brand, and then one color for the other

that the money would go to needed to be researched as well. Since most big foundations already

three designed lines; earth, water, and air. This is what the main color palette would be

had a lot of money and donations, I wanted to pick lesser known foundations that helped a

compromised of, and then secondary colors from the main palette. The colors needed to be

variety of areas against pollution. The foundations chosen were The Nature Conservancy, Clean

natural and not too corporate, but also bright for energy and youthfulness. A natural green was

Air Force, and The Ocean Clean Up. These foundations also put 90% of their money towards

chosen to be used for the main branding, as green is usually the color that represents nature and

cleaning up those areas, so the customers can be sure that their money is going towards the good

earth. In the book The Designers Dictionary of Color, it talks about the history of green when it

of the Earth. Now that all of that had been chosen and researched, it was time to look at creating

states that,

the brand itself.

In Western culture, (green) was used as a color for clothing, appliances, and automobiles in the 1970’s to communicate nature. This was in response to the anti-consumerism ideas

The Brand

of the 1960’s counterculture movement. If the station wagon is avocado green, it must be

First order of business when creating a brand is to choose its values and a brand name.

good for the Earth. 3

The brand needed to represent and support sustainability in every way, while also educating the people on pollution and its negative affects on the Earth. The name for this company needed to

A dark reddish brown with high chroma was chosen to represent the earth line, as you can find a

feel organic and had to have something to do with nature. In the end the name “Terra” was

similar color in nature with red clay. Another high chroma blue green was chosen for the water

chosen. It is the word for Earth in many languages, and it also has a natural feel to it that does

line, since you can find a similar color in the ocean and great lakes. A calming blue was chosen

not sound like a large company name or too corporate for the target audience, since the name is

for the air line, very similar to the blue that is in the sky everyday. These chosen colors were fun

the first thing potential customers would hear or see. Also, in a journal article titled “Creating

and energetic, but still had that touch of nature to them. The secondary palette would just be

Brand Personality with Brand Names", it states that feminine and good looking brand names use

lighter versions of the main four colors.

front vowels in their names.

Concerning “femininity” and “good looking” the BPS relates these traits to a sophisticated brand personality. Therefore, given the sound symbolic relationship

2

Klink, Richard R., and Gerard A. Athaide. “Creating Brand Personality with Brand Names.”

Marketing Letters, vol. 23, no. 1, 2012, pp. 109–117. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/ 41488770. Accessed 26 Mar. 2020.

3 Adams,

Sean, and Jessica Helfand. The Designers Dictionary of Color. Abrams, 2017.

Since there would be products created for this capstone, the brand needed a style for the company’s collateral, logo, and products. It needed to still have that organic, almost hand made

be a bit more environmentally conscious, environmentally friendly green printing and dyeing inks have been created.

feel to it, so it was greatly inspired by linocut printmaking. It is a hand done, organic style that

After some researching, the best dyeing options for the produce bags that was found was

only needs one color for its design with a lot of texture from printing. This style was first applied

bengala mud dye. This method has been used since the stone age to dye fabric, and it is made out

to the main logo. It has a hand lettered logo type adorned with abstract organic shapes that

of natural minerals and iron oxide that come from the soil. It involves no toxic chemicals, and no

represent the three original lines on a textured organic circle that points back to the shape of the

heat. Once a person is done using the dye, the water can just be drained back into the soil since it

earth/circle of life. The secondary logo is just the hand lettered type with the company’s slogan,

has no chemicals and only natural ingredients. An added bonus is that the color does not fade

“live sustainably” right underneath it.

under the sun. When it came to the screen printed canvas bags, the ink that is mostly used for

The Products This would be a hypothetically new baby company just starting out, so the products that

mass produced screen printing is usually plastisol ink. Its chemical base is made up polyvinyl chloride which is made up of a plastic like liquid. The reason it is still used on such a wide scale

were chosen to be produced needed to be smart, products that people would use the most in their

today is its ease of use and versatility. Making the ink itself also causes the release of toxic

daily life to get the most bang for their buck. In the end the glass bottle, glass food container,

chemicals like polychlorinated biphenyl and dioxin. In an online article recently written in 2018,

canvas bag, and produce bag were chosen. They could also be sold in sets, with the bottle and

it states that,

container creating a meal set and the bags creating a bag set for shopping and such. Before the

Both of these chemicals are, at the very least, highly toxic, and, in some cases,

design could be chosen, how it would be produced would have to be chosen. Since the whole

carcinogenic according to the World Health Organization. In addition to the toxicity of its

brand is about sustainably and being good for the environment, it should be produced in such a

chemical base, the chemicals used in the manufacturing and maintenance of plastisol ink

way as well. So the glass bottles would have an etched design on them, one design for each line.

have potentially detrimental effects on both small-scale and wide scale environmental

The wood top of the food containers would also be etched, and since they would be etched there

health. 4

would be no waste, except maybe misprints that could be sold online for a cheaper price. For the

The damage that plastisol does continues further and further after its creation, from using it, to

bags the produce bag would be dip dyed in layers to create an ombre effect, and the canvas bags

throwing it away. The best alternative to using plastisol ink is instead using water based ink, but

would be screen printed. The biggest concern for the bags was the ink that would be used for dying and printing. Usually inks used in any printing are petroleum based, which usually includes toxic metals and a few other harmful substances as well. Since the world is starting to

4

DTLA Print. “How Green Is Your Ink? Environmental Impact of Water Based vs. Plastisol Inks – DTLA Print - Quality Custom Screen Printing Sublimation LA.” DTLA Print, 13 Nov. 2018, dtlaprint.com/how-green-is-your-ink-environmental-impact-of-water-based-vsplastisol-inks/.

if it is used it needs to be disposed of in the proper way or stored in the proper way, if not then it

The first thing to do when choosing the collateral to create was think about what the brand

is only doing half of the job. The steps to dispose the plastisol ink safely can also be used to

needed, and what it didn't. If it did not need something, then it would not be included so as to

safely dispose of any water based ink. So after the research, the more eco friendly water based

limit any waste and to save money. In his book Green Graphic Design, Brian Dougherty said

ink was chosen to print on the canvas bags.

that,

The designs for each product needed to match the brand that had already been started.

In order to design for change, we need to change the way we design. Green graphic

with the main logo. Again the style used in creating the designs were the same as the logo. It

design attempts to answer the call of our global environmental crisis with innovation and

needed to seem natural and organic, while also appealing to a womanly target audience. Since

creativity. We search for ways to use far less stuff and to use stuff with a much smaller

the glass bottle and container would also be sold as a set, it made sense for them to have the

ecological footprint. We also search for ways to use graphic design as a medium for

same design since they were a matching set. This would also encourage potential buyers to not

generation a new benefit in society. This leads to rethinking the role graphic designers

just buy one, but both so that they may have a set instead of just one. The pattern I created for

play in the communications landscape and refining the traditional range of activities

each line was simple, and included objects that were easily recognizable from each environment

dealing with paper, print, type, image, and story. 5

so that it would be clear which line it was designed for. To make it a little more fun, I split the

So, the way a designer designs needs to change to successfully create green design. The first

objects in the middle and alternatively colored in the sides. The objects were repeated to create a

piece that was needed was an online website to sell the products. Next was how these items

pattern that would go around the glass bottles and sit on top of the container lid. Since the

would be shipped to a person once they had bought an item. The last piece was social media

produce bags were going to be dip dyed, they did not really have a specific design. However,

advertising so that a potential consumer could see our products and want to buy them without

since the bags were going to be hand dyed and it is not a very controlled process, each and every

having to use any paper or ink. In Brian’s book Green Graphic Design, he talks about to create

bag would look different. This gives the bags a natural hand made feel that other pre-made bags

real sustainable design, the designer needs to design backwards so as to inform the choices we

would not have. The last to design was the canvas bags. I wanted them to have the same natural

make and is what helped me in choosing my design choices. He says,

circle as the logo, and use one color while the design itself looked like it was cut out of the circle,

Start at the end, by imagining the best possible destiny for a design. Next, imagine the

to point back to the circle from the logo. Inside of the circle was a drawn out setting from each of

user’s experience with the design and envision scenarios that would make the experience

the different lines, and included the same style as the rest of the brand.

The Collateral 5

Dougherty, Brian. Green Graphic Design. Allworth Press, 2009.

particularly memorable or valuable. Visualize the process for distribution and delivery to

from the brand; earth, water, and air. It also has the logo on it. The postcard itself would be

the user. Finally, deďŹ ne a greenest-case scenario for how the design could be printed.6

screen printed on recycled paper, with water based ink. Also the post card has a reminder at the

Using this method I was able to plan what the brand needed, and simplify the design. Since the

bottom of it to recycle the paper if it is no longer wanted. On the outside of the box branded

website was online, there was not a lot to worry about when it came to sustainably designing it.

paper tape will be used to show where the box came from so that others could see and be

There were only three main pages to the site as well, so it did not cost a lost of energy to run

interested in the brand. It includes the icons from the glass bottle and food container and also has

either. One of the pages was only about education consumers about plastic pollution, how the

the logo on it so they can know exactly where it came from. Paper tape is much more sustainable

brand fought against pollution, and how the consumer could help.

than regular plastic, is recycled, and can also be recycled. For the shipments that do not require a

There was more to worry about when it came to how it would be shipped. First, the box it would

big strong box to protect breakable items, a 100% compostable mailer was designed in one color

be shipped in to the customer. The box itself would be corrugated cardboard instead of regular,

so as to make it cheaper as well.

which is a more sustainable choice as it is easier to recycle, and offers more protection than

Next was the advertisements. Since Facebook is the number one social media used by

regular cardboard. The corrugated cardboard is also cheaper and 100% recycled. Since

millennials, that is where the ads would go. Since the ads were to be online, there wasn't

packaging can be more expensive when ordering from a separate company, only the inside of the

anything to worry about with paper or printing. The concept for these ads on facebook was to

box had a design in it so as to make it less expensive. The inside of the box on the opening ap

take photos of the products themselves within the element of their speciďŹ c line. For example, the

has the logo, and also gives the new owner of the box ways to reuse the box so as to give it a new

earth line would be pictured within nature, and the water line pictured with water, and the air line

life, or it reminds them to please recycle the box if they do not plan to reuse it. Instead of regular

pictured with the sky. These pictures would be posted with a few sentences introducing the brand

bubble wrap since the box could possibly hold breakable items, corrugated bubble wrap would

to everyone.

be used, which is 100% recycled, biodegradable, and up-cycled. The items that would be shipped

Today more than ever, there is a rising issue of plastic pollution and global warming. An

to them would not have a separated branded wrapping or tag, since they already know what it is

easy and beginner solution to this issue is trying to start living sustainably with reusable

that they ordered it would just be a waste of paper and ink at that point. Inside the box there is

products. As people who live on this planet, and as graphic designers, we have the ability to use

also a branded post card that serves as a cute token for the customer to either keep themselves or

our art and skills to promote things that need to be talked about and solved with our work.

use it to send something to a friend, which could serve as further advertising for the brand as

Hopefully this reusable product company is a step in the right direction towards a greener future.

well. On the back of the postcard is a scene in nature that includes all three of the designed lines 6

Dougherty, Brian. Green Graphic Design. Allworth Press, 2009.

Bibliography Adams, Sean, and Jessica Helfand. The Designers Dictionary of Color. Abrams, 2017.

Arnheim, Rudolf. Art and Visual Perception: a Psychology of the Creative Eye. University of California Press, 2011.

Dougherty, Brian. Green Graphic Design. Allworth Press, 2009.

DTLA Print. “How Green Is Your Ink? Environmental Impact of Water Based vs. Plastisol Inks – DTLA Print - Quality Custom Screen Printing Sublimation LA.” DTLA Print, 13 Nov. 2018, dtlaprint.com/how-green-is-your-ink-environmental-impact-of-water-based-vsplastisol-inks/.

Klink, Richard R., and Gerard A. Athaide. “Creating Brand Personality with Brand Names.”

Marketing Letters, vol. 23, no. 1, 2012, pp. 109–117. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/ 41488770. Accessed 26 Mar. 2020.

Neumeier, Marty. The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance between Business Strategy and Design ; a Whiteboard Overview. New Riders, 2006.

“Was 2018 the Year of the Influential Sustainable Consumer?” Nielsen, 17 Dec. 2018, www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2018/was-2018-the-year-of-the-influentialsustainable-consumer/.

The Process

Inspiration

Logo Roughs

Final Logos/Colors

The Products

Finalized Product Design

Final Designs

Thank you.