Ctrl+Alt+Del
Volume One of the Field Guide focused on the truth that no one is too small or unimportant to be a climate activist and that furthermore, we can be activists in our current role as designers without having to go and look for that perfect “green” design role. So, if the first Volume was about establishing our credibility as activists, the second Volume will—primarily—be about how we can practice that activism; it’s about the strategies and paradigm shifts that designers can adopt to be more climate- and justice-minded as we go about our everyday jobs.
Art by @mattmcgillvray
Effective activism is rarely unfocused or unconsidered; even when action is spontaneous, it is usually built on or from preexisting plans and ideas. For designers looking to be effective climate activists, one of the first things we will have to do is take the time to assess our current roles and routines in order to determine what we should continue doing and what practices we need to stop; in short, we will need to be realistic. Let’s do that assessment by using what I am calling the Ctrl+Alt+Delete method.
Windows users will recognize that particular key combination as the one that allows a person to stop and restart a frozen program. Those three buttons will let you reboot the system and start over and that’s what we can think of when adopting this framework. To start, we’re going to take inventory of all of the aspects of our design roles and sort them into three categories: those things that we have command or control over, the things that we can find substitutes or find alternates for, and those things that we should seek to eliminate or delete from our job responsibilities. Let’s get started.
Control / Command
Finding out which aspects of our jobs we have control over—and which ones we don’t—is the first step to focused and direct action. Not only does a clear view of those details help us target and prioritize our goals, but it also helps us to lessen or alleviate misplaced climate guilt and feelings of anxiety or ineffectiveness. Sarah Jacquette Ray, author of A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety—a major inspiration for the FGCD—says, “A perception of ourselves as powerless emerges not from our actual inefficacy, but from our ideas of what it means to have the capacity to shape cultural change. This view is caused by the instrumentalist conceit that the only actions that matter are the ones that make impressive, immediate, large-scale change. The problem is not that we have no power. Rather, the problem is that we don’t use the power we do have.”¹ Taking stock of what we control offers us an immediate sense of direction, and allows us to tailor our expectations to be realistic. The goal of this exercise is to develop an accurate view of your scope of influence so that we can avoid burnout.
To begin, let’s list the details about our jobs that we have direct command over; all of the levers that we push and pull, the decisions that we approve or veto, the ways that we can use our voices. And as I said above, this category is also where we will list those things about our jobs where we have little or no agency. These may be details like which clients our employers work for, the financial goals of our employers or clientele, or the stance that your employer or company has taken on the issue of climate change. For an additional bit of fun, make these lists a design project: maybe your “list” is a Venn diagram, maybe you produce some social media posts with accompanying illustrations—make it enjoyable and you’ll find you are more motivated to finish the task. Everybody’s list will look different, but at the end of this exercise, you’ll have a better idea of where you can most realistically make an impact (as a designer) and where you might not. Personally, I find that I feel more disciplined when I have a clear picture of what I can control and what I know that I can’t.
Alternate / Option
This is where the exercise becomes a little more focused. We’ve assessed our roles as designers and the things that we can make decisions about, so, let’s make some decisions. Look at what you can control: are there any ways that you can make those things more climate-forward by finding an alternate way to do them, or a way to substitute one option for another? Perhaps if you are a web designer you can educate clients on how to make their site less energy intensive; Website Carbon is a great resource you can use to explain to clients how their digital assets have real-world impacts. Maybe your company uses a lot of packaging for its products (electronics, retail, food service) and you are in charge of sourcing that packaging; Waste Not is a free database that lists packaging alternatives that are more sustainable and reduce waste long-term. More resources exist that can help you sub out subpar practices for substantial results.
Change doesn’t have to look like a simple substitution though—and I certainly don’t know all the answers or possibilities. Don’t rule out social media as an arena in which you can inspire change. In what ways can designers with a large following influence standard practices across the industry? Can fashion designers help stop fast fashion by exposing how bad that business model is for the planet and for the people making those items of clothing? To that end, what might you suggest as an alternative? (Thrifting? Hardier clothing? Recruiting the Menswear Guy on Twitter? ) You have some social pull with those people who follow you; the only way that the potential change you could make in your network could be called “insignificant” is if you label it that way. Outside of social media, changes in design education can prevent harm to us all before those harms even happen; don’t forget Ray’s point in the quote earlier: “The problem is not that we have no power” but “that we don’t use the power we do have.”
As for the things we can’t control: We have a few options for what to do with those elements of our jobs that are out of our hands. First, we can recognize that some decisions are made without or despite our input and that we shouldn’t have to feel like the results are our fault or something we could have stopped. Second, we have a list of things that we can now go to our superiors or clients with to lobby for; we can point to resources and alternatives all day but at the end of that day, we cannot make that choice for them. If you can’t substitute some of your practices or materials at the moment, you can spend time thinking about how you might plan to in the future or even just take the time to learn more about those alternatives. More simply, if you can’t make changes to the stuff you use or the actions you perform, you can still change the way you think about those things and your relationship to them. I could go on, but my point is this: we can (and should) only control and be responsible for our own actions, not those of others, and recognizing that is essential to avoiding burnout or despair.
Delete / Escape
Now we come to the last section in our effort to reboot/re-imagine our design roles to be more climate-friendly. In the previous section, we looked at those items on our list that we could find alternatives for and now we’ll examine those lists to see what things we can eliminate or remove entirely from our routines. Sometimes, the most effective thing that we can do to help the environment is not doing some of the things we did before; so, what on your list can you eliminate? The creation of waste is a too common byproduct of the design process and eliminating waste—and wasteful mindsets—is going to be among the most important things that we can do when assessing our Delete section.
We will all have some simple and easy things that we can stop doing—no more printing emails anyone?—but there are other printed materials that we can begin to eliminate. So-called “junk mail” is probably one of the highest items on the list. For many print mailing campaigns, single-digit response rates are seen as successes; most of those pieces of mail go directly in the garbage can. Of course, the solution isn’t just to switch to junk emails, it is to learn how to design something that will resonate with your target audiences. I live in the US (in Maine, specifically) and one particularly useful mailer I get each year is a big postcard that looks like the inspection sticker for my car with a big reminder that it needs to be inspected soon. The design gets right to the point—it communicates efficiently—and tells me only what I need to know and not much else. It gets hung on the fridge and the car gets inspected. The lesson: eliminate noise, avoid using resources that don’t need to be wasted, and care about the people who receive what you make. Add something to their day and they are less likely to throw your work away.
What other physical waste can you eliminate from your practices? “Going digital” may be a realistic goal for you to work toward with marketing and advertising,* but what can you do to avoid e-waste? If you invest in electronics are you committed to using them for as long as you can? And can you commit to proper recycling or “upcycling” of those devices? Depending on who you are, where you live, and what your role is, ecologically-responsible physical waste decisions may be one of the harder tasks in this section.
There will also be some simple and not-so-easy things that we may find difficult to stop doing as well, like working as greenwashers and propagandists for gas and oil companies. Avoiding those roles or jobs though, may be more difficult and you might find that they have to be accomplished as a long-term goal. Other difficult deletion choices might include getting rid of inefficient and unsustainable electronic or physical infrastructures, office appliances, and digital storage platforms. These types of choices could be on your Alternate list, but you may find that eliminating practices—or even locations like traditional offices or agency buildings—may be your best route to a more realistic and effective course of action as a climate designer.
Reboot
The process of becoming a “climate designer” isn’t necessarily one of gathering more influence and social capital than you already have in service to the goal of finally doing something that “really matters.” It’s a process of understanding the tools and skills that you already have and using them more effectively. Good design is about more than aesthetics, it is about effective and efficient communication, and aesthetic is just an ever-changing and fickle tool that we have at our disposal. Give this framework a try. Let’s see if we can use it to reboot our design roles—especially if you’re feeling stuck or frozen—and see if you can’t get a better understanding of the powers you do (and don’t) have, and your potential to realistically change your world.
So, call-to-action time
Give the Ctrl+Alt+Delete method a try and let us know if you found it helpful to create more realistic goals for yourself. If you feel especially inspired, post your lists on social media!
*Full disclosure: when this entry was being written, I was working for a digital services company that uses screens and interactive UI to eliminate paper waste, but I have no illusions about whether or not what that company does is better for the planet. At the end of the day, what you sell and how you sell it can have more of an ecological impact than what you advertise on, and visual and auditory pollution is still pollution—it is an externality of our current economic and social paradigms that separates our attention from our relationship to the planet and instead centers it on perpetuating that paradigm and all of the exploitative practices that come with it. I no longer work with the company, but that wasn’t a choice I made, but rather was made for me.
¹A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, pg. 64
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This entry was written by
Matt McGillvray
Matt is a designer and illustrator living near Portland, Maine, and has been working for more than a decade doing branding, illustration, web design, print design, social media posts, and even a little SEO. He’s the creator of the Field Guide to Climate Design (and author of the companion ebook) and is trying to establish an International Panel on Climate and Design.
When not designing he’s usually reading, writing, or running. His current big writing project is a book on design’s intersectionality with climate change via its relationship to waste. It will be called, What we design to throw away. He loves puns, his cats, Star Wars, and typography—possibly even in that order.