How magazine - 2008 Y Conference Recap

Now that I’m back at home in Cincinnati (but still recovering from jetlag), here are my last highlights from this year’s Y Conference, which focused on how, as designers, we can be more aware with our work when it comes to the environment and world in general:

Brian Dougherty of Celery Design made the compelling point that our job as designers isn't to prevent costs—it's to provide value. That's what we're good at and often, to provide premium value, will often mean the exact opposite: spending more. We shouldn't be afraid of spending more, because the extra value is worth it—to the client, too.
Eric Karajaluto was a speaker, and he created the website Design Can Change, which is full of resources to help you think about and make your design do good.
Marc Alt from the AIGA Center for Sustainable Design brought up a good point: electrons aren't free—the answer to our wastefulness is not simply to take everything online. (That was in response to the fact that when we’re thinking about green design, we often pose paper as the villain when that isn’t the case; there are many elements to take into account and balance.)
Susan Szenasy said that the idea of sustainability shouldn't be something that's tacked on to design, but should be an inherent aspect—it should be integrated into our design process from the very beginning, not an afterthought.

All in all, it was a great trip and really gave teeth to the green design movement—from something that we often think about and want to do, to something that we actually can do.

See all my notes from the conference here.

Posted by Carmen

Events

Wednesday, April 02, 2008 6:45:36 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Tuesday, April 08, 2008 2:29:57 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

The 13th annual Y-Conference was the most engaging yet for me, having attended most all of them. Finding and triggering the creative, problem-solving energy within the subject of our own global environment was the big mental shift for me. The focus of our design energies and strategies have been largely client-focused. The power-thinking of the conference was coming not from client-based work or from for-pay thinking but rather from people who are leading by example, crafting ways to effect change by turbocharging ideas with their powerful skills as graphic communicators.

Ron Miriello

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