Instead of working on visualization a different idea, I wanted to flush this one out more. I realized from some of the comments that I received that the graphic was probably too simplified for anyone who was not familiar with the subject to understand the scope of the issue. So with the idea of brushing up on my flash knowledge, I decided to turn this into an interactive graphic. I like this concept of an infographic that can be explored deeper. This is what I have come up with so far. I am working to add some pictures and other features to make the idea even clearer. Keep posted.

Click here to view fullsize.

Many times, I find myself thinking about what the numbers actually are when reading about environmental claims. I’ve decided to start making information graphics illustrating answers to these questions. Here is the first in, hopefully, a series of many. It follows the trail of industrially produced nitrogen and the inefficiencies in the process.

If you have anything questions you would like visualized, please let me know in the comments!

Some typography posters I made last year for the Ivy Film Festival.

Additionally, I’ve finally got around to updating and documenting my projects with sketches and final product pictures. I think I did a pretty good job with just my desk lamp and floor. I really need to take some professional photography classes…

Darren Firth. Modern swiss style design at its best.

]]> http://www.dualaesthetic.com/2009/11/17/darren-firth/feed/ 0 http://www.dualaesthetic.com/2009/11/06/a-step-into-sustainable-eating/ http://www.dualaesthetic.com/2009/11/06/a-step-into-sustainable-eating/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:38:24 +0000 norris http://www.dualaesthetic.com/?p=353 It was probably a bad idea, in retrospect, to start by telling everyone I would become a vegetarian.  I was half-way through an environmental science class my last year at Brown University and I had just discovered how environmentally unsound meat-consumption could really be. Recently, Michael Pollan asserted, “A vegan in a Hummer has a lighter carbon footprint than a meat eater in a Prius.” While this might not have been factually sound, it’s hard to deny that with the astronomical amounts of food that the human population consumes, what we choose to eat can have a large impact on the environment. I have always strived to be a pretty environmentally conscious human being (coming from Berkeley, its hard not to) so I decided that I needed to think more about my eating habits.

I didn’t know a lot of the details yet on why meat-consumption was bad but there were a couple of things I did learn. I knew that one of the major causes of deforestation of the Amazon was to clear land for soy crops – most of which was used as animal feed for the beef industry in China. I learned that it took roughly 1,500 gallons of water, indirectly, to produce one pound of beef – the numbers for other types of meat were much lower but still pretty shocking. I studied fertilizer usage for animal feed, how inefficient it was, and how much nitrogen pollution it caused in both our atmosphere and our water. Finally, I had also heard about the significant contributions of “cow farts and burps” to methane pollution. This one took a while for me to believe but I eventually heard about it from enough credible sources.

All of what I had discovered compelled me to learn more and research ways to alleviate these problems but an immediate solution I could act on was to eschew eating meat altogether. I thought would be a better idea to “do” now and “learn” later.

There were a couple reasons I gave to friends when they asked why I suddenly decided to stop eating meat. Mainly, meat was environmentally damaging. It also happened to be my first year cooking for myself and I had become very conscious about food in general. I explained that meat was messier to cook (premediated defrosting, concern about rawness, etc.), and more expensive to buy than vegetarian meals.

Through my experiences and readings, it took me less than a month to realize that many of my preconceptions were flawed or flat out wrong.

First off, being vegetarian was definitely not cheaper. After having learned about how much more energy and water it took to produce one calorie of meat compared to one calorie of plant-matter, I was astonished how much cheaper meat actually was. Secondly, while making vegetarian dishes was much more sanitary and less time-consuming (if you account for defrost time), it was definitely much harder to create flavorful and interesting dishes.

Thes problems, however, were minor. I didn’t mind spending a little more money to live a lifestyle that I believed was better for the world. Additionally, making interesting vegetarian dishes became a welcomed personal challenge to cook more creatively. The main problem was one I did not anticipate as much – food is as much social as it is nutritional or environmental and not being able to eat meat stunted that aspect.

I didn’t mind removing meat from my diet when I cooked for myself. For the most part, it was only part of my meal because I felt it should have be there. Growing up with a traditional chinese home-cooked diet, it would be absurd to see a a meal without any meat in it. However, when I started cooking for myself, I realized meat didn’t necessarily make the meal taste any better. It was when meat became something more than just nutritional input that it started to matter. Being a strict vegetarian meant that I could no longer share in on those conversations when my culinary friends tried a new delicious lamb chop recipe. It meant that I could no longer participate in the fun and humor that accompanied gorging down unhealthy amounts of foods at BBQ’s. It meant no more hot dogs at the ballpark. Worst of all, being someone who lives on trying new things, this severely limited my options to explore different types of food. These were all important components to who I was and I did know if I was willing to completely give up so many of my other values to accommodate this one value.

I admire those who can maintain a strict vegetarian diet for a cause but, in my search for answers, I was also beginning to realize that it was not necessary for my cause and perhaps even problematic. The more I learned about the environmental impact of meat industry, the more I realized it was from the “industry” part and not from the “meat” part.

For example, harmful aspect to meat production I mentioned was nitrogen pollution and deforestation associated with feeding animals. Again, sustainable farms that raise animals off the land and not from an artificial and industrialized food source don’t have this problem. If animal grazing is properly controlled, the food source naturally available from the land beneath the cows can be self-regenerating. I also speculate that the 1500 gallons of water required to make one pound of beef is less from what the cow drinks and more from watering the animal feed.

There are a lot of other reasons why meat consumption itself is not necessarily bad but there are people with more authority than myself to talk about it. The Carnivore’s Dilemma is a great article in the New York Times that just came out and sums up a lot about the overgeneralizations of meat production. Michael Pollan‘s writings are also a great resource.

I don’t restrict myself from meat exclusively anymore. I have no problem with it if the meat is sustainably produced. I allow myself to try the dishes I want to try at new restaurants and not restrict myself to “the” vegetarian dish – but I do try to eat more at restaurants with a more sustainable outlook. I won’t make my friends cook something special for me at dinner parties – or make them constantly uncomfortable that I don’t have enough to eat. I will enjoy BBQ’s the way they should be enjoyed. But ninety percent of the time, I still restrict myself to a vegetarian diet.

One might think, “Well, what about all you just said about how it’s the industry part and not the meat part? How will eating less meat affect how sustainably we produce meat in the world?” The solution surely seems to be more go local and sustainable than go vegetarian (or flexitarian). It’s true that it may make more sense if I concentrate my efforts on policy or activism to encourage more naturally grown meats such as cage-free poultry or free-range grass fed cows. However, there has been one argument against the sustainable movement that I could not ignore: the current human population and diet have been so dependent on industrialized farms that it would be impossible for us to live off of a more natural system.

Even if everyone wanted to eat more sustainable meat and we could convert all industrial farmland into sustainable farmland, there simply would not be enough supply for the demand. Sustainable farms will likely never be as efficient as monoculture farms or feedlots at producing food in terms of food per unit of land. Industrial farms may have sacrificed environmental friendliness but they do so to achieve a more streamlined and efficient production process.  Regardless of the fact that many of the cited environmental impacts are based on the industrialized meat market, meat is still a inherently inefficient source of calories due to how high up it sits on the food chain. Vegetables and grains will always be a more efficient source and, in order to make sustainable eating habits a reality for everyone and not just a luxury good, the world as a whole must learn to consume less meat.

After preemptively proclaiming that I would be a vegetarian, many  thought that the “regression” from vegetarianism to flexitarianism was a sign of weakness – and, in part, it was – but after understanding more about where our food comes from and what choices we have, I don’t see the decision as a compromise to my principles.

My personal diet was a first step, but there is still have a lot I want to learn and do. In January 2010, I will be traveling to Argentina to work on some sustainable farm initiatives in Patagonia and learn more about sustainable agriculture. I am also designing a series of infographics to qualify many of statements we might have heard about food and the environment. After all, as I have learned from this journey, knowledge is power.

I am starting this, one, because I feel that I have accumulated a large enough amount of knowledge and work worth sharing. My hope is that what I write, do, or observe can help to inspire you or make you think critically about something you have not thought about before.

Secondly, a fellow designer once told me that he would much rather do work for organizations that he believed would make this world a better place. This doesn’t mean that the organization had to save lives or have noble causes – of course, that helps a lot – but this also meant organizations that make the world a more interesting place. I started this blog because I wanted a place to collect and display all the things I find interesting. From this website, I hope you can learn what I think a better world might consist of. If you agree, or disagree, please leave your comments and perhaps we can have some interesting discussions. And if you like what I do and are interested in working with me, I would be more than happy to talk to you about it.

That’s it for now. Oh, and although this is official the first post, I thought I would start this site off with a little bit more to look at.

The Ivy Film Festival is the largest student-run film festival in the world. Every year, they receive hundreds of film and screenplay submissions from undergraduate and graduate students from around the world. The Festival has also featured prominent and acclaimed speakers such as Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, Adrian Brody, and Oliver Stone.

In 2009 and my senior year of college, I was contacted by the festival and asked if I would do them the honor of imagining a visual theme that year’s festival.  Given the popularity of festival as well as my own interest in cinema, I graciously accepted.

After learning that the keynote event to be about the difference between current Hollywood and Hollywood during the golden years, I wanted to pick a theme that could represent both eras. Keeping in mind that the marketing should also be hip, trendy, and attract a college-aged crowd, I decided on a visual campaign inspired by Saul Bass.

Saul Bass is a graphic designer stemming from the fifties who made an influential mark on the visual identity of Hollywood – particularly film title sequences. His style was very minimal yet raw and humorous. Some of his major works include title sequences for Vertigo(1958) and Man with the Golden Arm(1955), yet his work continues into the present day for films like Goodfellas(1991) and Casino(1995). Undoubtedly, his long and consistence presence in Hollywood has inspired many other film visuals such as those for Catch Me If You Can(2002) and Burn After Reading(2008).

I intensely studied Saul Bass’ use of color, typography, and minimalism in order to recreate the feel of his title sequences while creating my designs from scratch. Another interesting concept I tried in some of the posters was to capture the motion of title-sequences in a single shot (see the posters for “Getting it Written” and “Student Film Screenings”).

I met regularly with the festival director and publicity team to make sure they were satisfied with my work. There were definitely times when my design sense would conflict with what they wanted, but we woud also discuss through our problems and pick the solution that would create the most effective advertisement campaign. After weeks of strenuous sketching, designing, and meetings (also in midst of writing my senior thesis), I created a set of 4 posters, a festival t-shirt, and other publicity items for the Ivy Film Festival. I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment when everyone in the festival told me how excited they were with my work and, especially, when I received a personal complement from the CEO of Paramount.

Back in the days when I was a student at Brown, I always used to look forward to reading the Brown Daily Herald. One reason was because my friend, Dustin Foley, had his own daily column called “Enigma Twist.” Enigma Twist was ambitious project to come up with a new type of puzzle every day but somehow he pulled it off for my entire senior year.

Recently, Dustin has decided to make Enigma Twist into its own website. He asked me to help him to make a logo and I was eager to help. When sketching out ideas, I wanted to make something that would embody the attitude of his puzzles. The puzzles were really more about being fun and clever than looking fancy or professional. His puzzles and his website seemed to fit right in with the comic culture that seems to be evolving with today’s youth. Think dinosaur comics or xkcd.  I decided, instead of trying “professionalize” enigma twist, I should embrace this new interesting style.

If Enigma Twist is all about new and clever games, why not turn the logo into a puzzle itself? Here was the result.

The main logo is a simple solvable maze. I wanted to keep the look as do-it-yourself and retro as possible.

In case legibility was a concern, here was an alternate logo that could be used that incorporates the same style.

Also, check out Enigma Twist on Twitter for daily word puzzles.

I spent my entire weekend this week volunteering and sitting in at events for the Brown/RISD joint conference, A Better World by Design and, I have to say, I enjoyed every moment of it. Not often enough have I felt this sense of community where everybody was on the exact same page and here to discuss the same issues.

I love design but I often think about to utility of its service. It is so easy to get lost in the mess of commercial product design and feel that design only perpetuates this colossal consumer culture. Perhaps because I have drowned in this sentiment so often, it was invigorating to hear what inspired people and organizations had to say about what they were doing to help the world – from Project H’s redesign of the Hippo Roller to Ken Banks’ open-source FrontlineSMS project. In addition to specific projects, it was also simple refreshing to see and meet so many professionals and students that felt the same way I did about design and were compelled to change the status quo. It gave me hope for the future of design in our world.

Considering this was only the second year for the conference and many of my classmates were involved in putting it together, I feel very proud of how well it turned out. Congratulations!

I have often recalled this one moment in class and I think I have finally distilled how intricate this one bit of advice is. Intrigued by this discussion, I went to try and fully understand what Aristotle’s philosophy of design was. Unfortunately, a initial google search brought nothing up on the matter – Aristotle never did have a stance on visual design. After a little bit of research, the closest literature I could find on the matter was an essay that Aristotle wrote on literary aesthetics.

His essay Poetics was the first essay written on literary theory. In it, he defines art – in all its modes, be it song, dance, or poetry – as imitations of nature. In terms of poetry, he distinguishes between Comedies, Tragedies, and Epics. In this essay, he focuses on the mechanics of a tragedy. One particular feature that struck me in the context of design was the idea of Catharsis. Catharsis is the idea of an intense release of emotion or an emotional purging that should result after an audience views a tragedy. Likely, this was what my professor had been referring to and it was certainly an interesting stretch to view this in the context of the visual design of information.

To Aristotle, a tragedy composed of six parts: plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song. Because tragedies are the imitations of the actions of men and not men themselves, the plot was considered “the soul of a tragedy.” Characters, therefore, came second to plot. This parallel can again be drawn to information design. A good design tells a story. The design of the data (or characters) is important but it is secondary to the design of the story the information tells. In this sense, information design at its best has a singular thesis or story; at its worst, it is a data dump with too many stories to comprehend or no story at all.

Here is another interesting quote from the essay:

Again, a beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any whole composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude and order. Hence a very small animal organism cannot be beautiful; for the view of it is confused, the object being seen in an almost imperceptible moment of time. Nor, again, can one of vast size be beautiful; for as the eye cannot take it all in at once, the unity and sense of the whole is lost for the spectator; as for instance if there were one a thousand miles long.

He uses this metaphor to understand the organization and magnitude of a plot but, again, there is a direct corollary to design. Design and detail of the information is important but it one has to be wary of that including unimportant details of the information can take away from the overall message of the picture. Removing too many details, however, can make the design boring and unconvincing.

How well all of this actually applies to all types of information design is hard to say but this was certainly an interesting and different perspective on design implying that designers should not only have a creative eye but a creative tongue as well. A good designer, then, can learn a lot from the art of good storytelling.