Intelligent Design

Eric Shelkie (left), Eric Karjaluoto, & Peter Pimentel

smashLAB / Design Can Change designcanchange.org

by Jennifer Croll

photo by Jaime Kowal

Last June, the designers at Vancouver company smashLAB were thinking a lot about climate change. And they were also considering how their industry affects the environment. “We felt really badly about waste,” says Eric Karjaluoto. “But we didn’t know where to start.”

What they did was research the impact of graphic design on the environment, as well as the potential for designers to change their ways. “Initially,” says Karjaluoto, “it was an effort to educate ourselves. But we’re a small firm, and we realized that on our own, we couldn’t create global change. So we decided to bring our idea to the rest of the industry.”

Thus was launched their grassroots campaign, Design Can Change. SmashLAB set up a slick and comprehensive website with sections devoted to climate change, design industry waste, and a rationale for why designers are uniquely positioned to reduce waste on a large scale. The trio sent out thousands of emails to the design community about the issue. Soon, influential bloggers picked up the story, and enthusiastic comments poured in from graphic designers world-wide—from the Netherlands to Brazil.

One important feature of the website, the pledge, invites designers to make a commitment to sustainable practices. “It’s voluntary, not dogma. Designers police themselves.” Once the pledge is taken, designers are added to a directory. Soon, that list will go live, so clients can choose from a list of designers whose practices tread lightly on the environment.

Karjaluoto is enthusiastic but modest about how such a tiny company could start something so big. “It’s been really cool seeing how many people are getting involved,” he says. “Yeah, you can do something locally, and have a global impact.”