Earthly delights

Eco-friendly design at Clark

by Leon Nigrosh

THE GREENING OF DESIGN At the University Gallery, Clark University, through April 12.

The graphic design field has become an amalgam of commercial and fine art, often functioning as a collaboration between photographers, writers, illustrators, and designers. Since the late '50s, internationally known practitioners such as Saul Bass and Malcolm Greer have been developing and increasing the stature of the once crassly commercial "ad business,'' blurring the artificial boundaries between commerce and high art by introducing sound aesthetic principles.

In more recent times, graphic designers have attempted to introduce a more environmentally friendly approach to their products; for its first exhibition featuring graphic design, the University Gallery has more than 40 such design projects currently on display. Clark graphic design professor Joanna Bodenweber offers CD packaging as a classic example. When these discs first came on the market, manufacturers insisted that they be sold in containers the same size as their major competition, LP record albums. Consumers had to tear through and then discard great quantities of cardboard and non-recyclable plastic just to get at their music. Because of media and consumer pressure, the manufacturers urged designers to come up with something more compact yet still easily recognizable and readily saleable. The current CD package is a near-perfect solution to the needs of both the recording companies and the consumers.

It is problems such as this that graphic designers continually face. Most of their products have a short shelf life. Annual reports are meant to be read and tossed. Promotional brochures and booklets constantly need to be replaced and updated. With landfills nearing capacity and public concern about toxic waste on the increase, designers are seeking new methods to keep their clients' products viable while remaining earth friendly.

The items in this exhibition achieve these goals through several different methods. A number of annual reports are printed with non-toxic, soy-based inks on recycled paper. This Annual Report is Trash, produced for the Des Moines Metro Waste Authority, is printed on cut-up brown grocery bags. Inside, printed collage images proclaim "Trash Can Be Beautiful" while exhorting local business and community leaders to become more involved in developing and using recycling programs. To save paper, the 1991 New York Earth Day poster was printed on the back of leftover 1990 Earth Day posters which show the Statue of Liberty holding a broom and proclaiming the three R's: reduce, reuse, recycle.

Simply because projects employ recycled materials doesn't mean that they have to be bland and uninteresting. Five newspaper-size brochures, designed for the GVO industrial design firm, combine large-scale hand lettering with collaged photos and drawings to present a sequence of intriguing and eye-catching images intended to drum up business for the company. The freshness of the design and the striking interplay of words and pictures make these advertisements suitable for framing on their own.

Several of the projects on display, made with recycled materials, are designed with the intention to be reused themselves. The After Hours Creative Holiday Invitation contains small, recycled printer's plates with instructions on how to make them into Christmas ornaments. Included with the metal plates is a pair of garden gloves (of recycled cotton) and band-aids "for those who didn't wear the gloves." All came packaged in a recycled cardboard box with reclaimed wood chips for packing protection. The holiday candy is somehow missing.

Along the same lines, the Friends of the Washington Park Zoo annual report was produced with brightly colored vegetable-based inks on recycled paper. Peppered throughout the copy are cartoon-like pictures of endangered birds and animals, each telling a simple riddle. After the readers finish the report, they are invited to cut it up into masks, finger puppets, and dioramas.

Crane & Co., Dalton, Massachusetts' erstwhile fine-paper manufacturer, produced a booklet addressing their longtime commitment to the environment. The printed copy is enhanced by a series of bold linoleum-cut prints, depicting the life cycle of a cotton plant -- a renewable resource. To underscore their manufacture of 100 percent cotton paper, the booklet is bound with a touch of humor, in T-shirt fabric.

Many of the objects on display were originally produced to promote a particular product or service. But in a gallery setting, they take on added significance by virtually asking the visitors to think about how they are personally helping to preserve and protect the environment -- the only place we live.

The University Gallery is open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. A symposium on design and environmental issues will be held in the Goddard Library Rare Book Room from 2 to 5 p.m. on March 27. Call 793-7751.