Pixel Naturalist, Jessica Jones

I recently received an email from Jessica Jones, who is the graphic designer for the Biomimicry Guild, and would like to share it with everyone. It's amazing how blogs can spread the word!:
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Hi, Allie,

I am the pixel naturalist (i.e. graphics designer, creative director, and image coordinator) for the Biomimicry Guild, and I stumbled across your blog today. It is very insightful and I hope your thesis is coming along nicely, if you are not already finished with it! I received your email address from Rose Tocke at the Biomimicry Guild because I saw that both of you had been in communication before. I am currently brainstorming how I can further apply biomimicry principles into our graphics design process here at the Guild. I am also in the process of writing an excerpt for a graphics design book about biomimicry and would like to share ideas (a mutualistic relationship!). As you might be aware, bringing biomimicry into graphics design is a bit different than using it in engineering, architecture, or product design. Therefore, I would enjoy hearing your thoughts about this unique and inspiring topic for graphic designers.

I look forward to hearing from you,
Jessica

To say the least, I definitely responded and explained how much I wanted to contribute my ideas to the topic. I'll keep everyone posted on what happens!

Thesis Complete (at least for now)

On the evening of November 25, 2008, I met up one final time with my editor to give my thanks and to receive her signature to seal the deal. I told her how grateful I was for her generosity and time, and would love to reciprocate with some kind of art piece. From there, I drove off to Kinkos/FedEx to overnighted a package to Savannah, Georgia directed to my thesis chair, Professor Scott Boylston. A few days later, I received the 'o.k.' from all the chairs and the SCAD library, which is where it will be bound to become part of their permanent thesis files.

You can't even imagine the relief and feeling of accomplishment that I've been feeling for the last few weeks! It's amazing!

Here are some stills I shot of the book. Again, this is an ongoing procecess of which I will be constantly refining and adding to. For example, the book: the book's physical construction is meant to mimic a butterfly. I feel it is successful, but can be pushed further. For instance, when you open it, it is meant to be read from the inside out, rather than left to right. When the reader opens the book, they don't really know where to start, so I will implement a visual cue for the starting point. I would also like the book to appear closed from the inside out, rather than what you see now (this will be explored and I will post new photos in the near future).

Last Chapter

Hi everyone,

This weekend I am working on the last chapter of my thesis! The last chapter will discuss around four areas of graphic design that can benefit from the biomimicry/graphic design process.

Speaking of this new process, I feel like I should come up with a name or an acronym for this. If Carl Hasterich calls his visual process the "design spiral" (http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/about-us/biomimicry-a-tool-for-innovation.html), maybe I can come up with a clever name, too!

Thesis Extension...

Just to let everyone know (especially my committee members) that I've put a request in for one more quarter to work on my thesis...time to put my nose to the grind!

...Thanks to all who have been so patient!

World Changing: Change Your Thinking

Biomimicry For Green Design (A How-To)

October 26, 2005 11:30 AM
Jeremy Faludi

It's easy to talk about how exciting biomimicry is, and how we'll see more of it in the future, but it's another thing to actually design and built things that are biomimetic. Most designers, engineers, architects, and other people who build things just don't know that much about biology and the natural world; and even when they do, there's often a gap of capability in available materials, manufacturing methods, and economic systems. Some of these obstacles are out of the designer's hands, and you just have to move on to things that are more feasible. (But don't forget your ideas; maybe ten years from now the technology will be there.) Even with existing technology, however, an enormous realm of possibilities is feasible, it just requires the right approach. Here is my attempt to describe the biomimetic approach, with a comprehensive list of principles. It combines lessons from Janine Benyus, Kevin Kelly, Steven Vogel, D'Arcy Thompson, Buckminster Fuller, Julian Vincent, and my own limited experience. I also mention at the end where biomimicry will not help you, a subject often glossed over, as well as further resources (books and schools).

The Direct Method: Find an Example

Define the problem and its context.

Find organisms with a similar problem & context, see what they do. Find many divergent organisms to see which has the best / most relevant strategy.

Translate the best strategy to a buildable thing; if necessary, find an expert to help.

The direct method is what you usually hear about--where the designer / engineer can point to an organism and say "it's like that". Janine Benyus and Dayna Baumeister have published a nice tutorial on it. The value of this method is that even the most creative people still get stuck thinking along certain lines. In fact, a method called TRIZ which has been developed to catalog and analyze problem-solving techniques, claims there are just 40 methods that people have ever used to think up new inventions. Since evolution works differently from our brains, nature has used many more. Julian Vincent at University of Bath has been working on extending TRIZ to biology, cataloging and analyzing the ways other organisms have "invented" new solutions to problems. But so far the best way to find ideas in nature is to go look for yourself; arguably it always will be.

Defining the problem well is always a challenge in design, but then finding organisms that have relevant strategies is a trick in and of itself. Some examples are easy to find just by going for a walk and paying attention; other examples are more obscure, and require research--online, in books & academic journals, or even by hiring a biologist to consult. It's especially useful to find many examples from wildly divergent sources (e.g. for structures don't just look at animal bones, but also insect exoskeletons, the branches of trees, the stems of grasses, etc.) so that you have design alternatives. Just because a certain strategy evolved in one place doesn't mean it's the best solution; the power of biomimicry is that you can find many different solutions that you've never thought of. The process of collecting several examples will also help you analyze the principles involved--if many different organisms use variations of a common strategy, you know that approach is promising.

Translating the best strategy to a buildable thing is often the hardest part. If you are doing long-term R&D it is feasible to try developing new technology that works like the strategy you found, but if you are a normal architect or engineer trying to kick out a product for a client, this luxury is usually unavailable. At this point you may need to settle for part of your idea, or better, abstract it a bit further until you reach something that is doable. Remember, good biomimicry is inspiration from nature, not slavish imitation of it.

The Indirect Method: Use General Principles

Many people have abstracted principles of how nature designs. The following list is what I consider the distilled combination of those enumerated by Janine Benyus, Michael Braungart and William McDonough, Kevin Kelly, Steven Vogel, D'Arcy Thompson, Buckminster Fuller, Julian Vincent, Dee Hock, and my own limited experience. Explanations and attributions follow the main list.

Waste = Food

Self-assemble, from the ground up

Evolve solutions, don't plan them

Relentlessly adjust to the here & now

Cooperate AND compete, not just one or the other

Diversify to fill every niche

Gather energy & materials efficiently

Optimize the system rather than maximizing components

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts--design for swarm

Use minimal energy & materials

"Don’t foul your nest"

Organize fractally

Chemical reactions should be in water at normal temperature & pressure

Vogel's mechanical-engineering-specific principles (summarized):

Nature's factories produce things much larger, not smaller, than themselves.

We use metals, nature never does

Nature makes gradual transitions in structures (curves, density gradients, etc.) rather than sharp corners.

We make things out of many components, each of which is homogeneous; nature makes things out of fewer components but they vary internally.

We design for stiffness, nature designs for strength and toughness.

Our mechanisms have rigid pieces moving on sliding contacts, nature bends/twists/stretches.

Nature often uses diffusion, surface tension, and laminar flow; we often use gravity, thermal conductivity, and turbulence.

Our engines are mostly rotary or expansive, nature's are mostly sliding or contracting.

Nature's engines are isothermal.

Nature mostly stores mechanical work as elastic energy, sometimes as gravitational potential energy.

Explanations of the above points:

Waste = Food: This is the biggest one. Use waste as a resource, "close the loops" as they say, build industrial ecologies instead of landfills and mines. Michael Braungart and William McDonough have the best developed model for this, with their concept of biological nutrients and technical nutrients. Strictly speaking, as Janine Benyus points out, modern industry does act like some ecosystems in nature--"type 1" systems, the weeds that colonize an area after a disturbance. However, type 1 ecosystems aren't sustainable, they eventually give way to type 2 and type 3 ecosystems, which have increasingly greater interdependencies, with increasingly closed-loop resource flows (such as rainforests). Creating type 3 industrial ecosystems has historically been tricky to implement because the pace at which products change, and markets change, are often rapid--industry has so far always been in a "disturbed" state as new technologies change the rules of the game; natural ecosystems, by contrast, transform from type 1 to type 3 over thousands of generations of the species involved. How can we help push industry forward? This has been covered in depth elsewhere (designing for long life, reuse, recycling, biodegradability, etc.), but there are a couple points I feel are under-recognized. The adoption of open standards can help here, so that components are more interchangeable between products and industries--this helps manufacturing systems develop the long-term stability needed for building webs of interdependencies. Likewise less dependency on new cutting-edge technologies makes it easier to fit into existing webs.
An important corollary of "waste = food" that Janine Benyus makes is "don’t draw down resources, live off the 'interest'." It is a financial analogy, describing how mature ('type 3') ecosystems don't need new income, they are living off of the interest from the great biological wealth they have. Mining or harvesting too much of the world's existing resources is like spending the capital that you're trying to live off the interest of, and it will eventually catch up to you.

Self-assemble, from the ground up: The most important stuff happens at the smallest scales. This can work on many levels: On the material level, instead of having a block of stuff that you cut away, have small parts that combine to form the whole. This reduces waste and increases design flexibility. On the system level, design networks, not pyramids. The nodes should create the overall structure by their interrelations, because this method is more robust, scaleable, and flexible than a system with an overarching plan that must have certain nodes in certain places.
The second part of this, "most important stuff happens at the smallest scales", refers to the fact that the most complex, detail-filled aspects of biological designs are at the smallest scales: at first, a bone looks like a stick; look closer, and you see its porous structure; look closer, and you see the material is a composite; look closer, and you find that composite has three or four deeper levels of substructure; look closely enough and you get to the DNA, which is complex enough to contain the blueprints for the whole bone and the rest of the animal besides. Sometimes designing for the most minute detail can cause the whole overarching design to be determined.

Evolve solutions, don't plan them: As Kevin Kelly put it, "letting go, with dignity". This means design without authorship--not the traditional process of artists and their works, but creating the right context for possibilities to emerge from. The most direct example is genetic algorithms, and their huge success has proven the usefulness of the technique. A more clumsy (but much easier and still useful) example is iterative design. Iterative design is making multiple prototypes, user-testing them to find the favorites, then mixing and matching elements to create another generation of prototypes which are in turn user-tested, ad infinitum. Incidentally, this is the method advocated by IDEO, the most successful design firm in the world.

Relentlessly adjust to the here & now: True evolution means never saying you're done, it is only one means of adaptation. As Janine Benyus says, effective adaptation requires organisms to be information-driven, with local expertise. It also requires timely expertise. Species that range across dramatically different habitats must adjust themselves to the new locales, and those that stay in the same place but whose habitat changes (say, from summer to winter) adjust as well. In the product world this means customizability for different users and different circumstances, to extend product lifecycle. In more advanced implementations, it means the products adjust themselves without need for user intervention.

Cooperate AND compete, not just one or the other: Biologists of the 19th century usually described Darwinism as a dog-eat-dog world; today's biologists highlight the cooperative interdependencies of different creatures in their ecosystems. Both are true, and both are useful in their own ways. Dee Hock, the creator of the VISA system, coined the word "chaord" to describe the partly-chaotic, partly-ordered system that he designed to mimic nature's ecosystems, where the interdependencies are sometimes both cooperative and competitive at the same time. This concept also appears in software and hardware with "open standards": cooperatively-chosen arenas (such as a file format or broadcast spectrum) that allow companies to compete on the same playing field.
Perhaps a useful note about this is that in nature, each species tends to have a certain niche and stick to it, therefore cementing who is a competitor and who is not. In industry, companies often shift niches or try to operate in several at once. Being clearer about your own niche can help you decide where to cooperate or compete, and seeing opportunities for cooperation can help you shift into more profitable or safer niches.

Diversify to fill every niche: Traditional industry already does this on the market level; on the product level, mass-customization does a similar thing. However, the green-design lesson here ties in with Waste = Food: it is to find untapped niches where waste is being created, where it could instead be used as a resource. Smart manufacturers close their own resource loops; smart entrepreneurs close other peoples' loops.

Gather energy & materials efficiently: A point most often mentioned by Benyus. You don't need to study nature to get the importance of this, but it has a cornucopia of strategies you've never tried. Ants have been studied to improve shipping schedule algorithms, plant leaves have been studied for solar energy absorption, mollusks have been studied for building shells out of seawater without even moving. The list goes on.

Optimize the system rather than maximizing components: This is general systems-thinking advice, but Benyus points out its ubiquitousness in biology. Creatures always have to balance multiple cost/benefit dimensions, there are no single-minded goals (like being bigger, faster, etc.) A quick rule of thumb here is perform as many functions with as few components as possible. It is a good exercise to explicitly lay out all the factors you are trying to balance. For instance, Amory Lovins' method of "tunneling through the cost barrier" is a system-optimization technique where one variable can be made slightly worse--say, spend more money on insulation--to make the whole system better--a heater is no longer necessary, thus saving more money than the extra insulation cost. (Lovins got his method from general systems-thinking, not biomimicry explicitly, but it's all of a piece.)

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts--design for swarm: To keep things simple, people tend to design one function at a time, creating separate elements for each task and then creating the product by assembling all the pieces. There are many advantages to this, but in these products the whole will only be the sum of its parts. One of the hallmarks of complex systems (which include everything alive) is "emergent phenomena", the fact that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Kevin Kelly most memorably describes this with his example of how an individual bee has a small brain and simple behavior, but a swarm of bees is like an organism all its own. Emergent phenomena are hard, if not impossible to predict, and in the built world mostly happen by accident (a simple invention like the automobile end up causing traffic and sprawl). However, designing with emergent phenomena in mind can not only help avoid unintended consequences, but can open new opportunities--the democratizing force of the internet, for example. The key to this principle is designing lots of little, simple things that together can do sophisticated things; this can be a green design tool because it lets you build robust systems without infrastructure, build smaller stuff, and built smarter stuff without super-high technology. This can also be a great tool for leapfrog design, for the same reasons.

Use minimal energy & materials: Another principle where you don't need nature to tell you this, but it has great examples. Plants and animals always try to use material and energy efficiently, because for them energy & material costs are the only costs. Successfully minimizing mass and energy use requires thorough optimization to the problem at hand, so organism structures are highly information-driven. On the other hand, industry's costs are primarily financial, so it usually finds it easier to simply use more material or energy than spend the extra time researching how to use it well. But minimalist designs can be successful and cost-effective in industry. Buckminster Fuller was the rock star of this principle, constantly driving to "dematerialize" objects by using more brains and less mass. The main strategy he found used universally in nature was what he called "tensegrity"--the use of both tension and compression for structural integrity. (Supporting things with tension requires less mass, because buckling is not an issue.) His geodesic domes are the most famous implementation of this, but he also used it in many other inventions. It is a sorely underused strategy, particularly in architecture, where it usually only sees use in tents and bridges. One contemporary architect who has used tension to great effect--in particular, with inflated structures--is Axel Thallemer. There are many other methods of dematerializing--too many to list here, but much of it comes down to stripping away artifacts of form that are not related to the object's function.

"Don’t foul your nest": This is another Benyus principle, in the grand scheme meaning don't use or build with harmful materials or effluents. Do you really want to live in a home that offgases formaldehyde or dioxins? This sounds simple and obvious (again, not something you need biomimicry for to know its importance), but if engineers, architects, and other builders actually started following this principle alone, it would cause a revolution.

Organize fractally: self-similarity is a way of planning for several different scales at once. Fibonacci spirals don't occur all over the place in nature because they're pretty, they occur all over because they're an algorithm that allows perpetual growth to any size without having to readjust or plan ahead. Fractal structures do not have to be as "smart" as other structures which require different planning for different scales. Fractal forms are also pretty. Other biomorphic shapes ("blobjects") are also popular these days for their prettiness; this doesn't count for anything in terms of green design, unless it provides some psychological affinity like "biophilia" does, but it can help product adoption.

Chemical reactions should be in water at normal temperature & pressure: This principle (from both Benyus and Vogel) is fairly self-explanatory. Most industrial chemistry is petroleum-based, uses many toxics, and happens at high temperatures and pressures; this makes chemistry highly energy-intensive, hazardous to health & safety, and dependent on non-renewable resources. Biological chemistry has so far been much harder for researchers to understand and use, but the biotech industry is making great strides, and in the long run it should allow chemistry to become cheaper as well as greener, because of the reduced energy-intensity, reduced safety hazards, and plentiful (renewable) raw materials.

Finally, the following is an engineering-specific list from Steven Vogel's book Cats' Paws and Catapults. It is slightly paraphrased and edited to avoid overlapping with points mentioned elsewhere here, but his is the best single list for a mechanical engineer or architect to reference. (For the full list & details, read the book.)

Nature's factories produce things much larger, not smaller, than themselves.

We use metals, nature never does--we use the ductility of metals to avoid crack propagation, nature uses foams & composites to do so.

Nature makes gradual transitions in structures (curves, density gradients, etc.) rather than sharp corners, to avoid stress concentrations.

We make things out of many components, each of which is homogeneous; nature makes things out of fewer components but they vary internally.

We design for stiffness, nature designs for strength and toughness.

Our mechanisms have rigid pieces moving on sliding contacts, nature bends/twists/stretches.

Nature often uses diffusion, surface tension, and laminar flow; we often use gravity, thermal conductivity, and turbulence.

Our engines are mostly rotary or expansive, nature's are mostly sliding or contracting.

Nature's engines are isothermal.

Nature mostly stores mechanical work as elastic energy, sometimes as gravitational potential energy; we also store work electrically or kinetically.

We make dry things, nature makes wet things.

Where Biomimicry Will Not Help

As much as a proponent of biomimicry as I am, I think it's important to be realistic about where nature's strategies will and won't help you, rather than glossing anything over. There are definitely some drawbacks to the way life designs, which you probably don't want to imitate (unless you can somehow turn them to your advantage). Mostly pointed out in Kelly and Vogel's works, there are three main stumbling blocks.

First, evolution can only find local optima, not global optima. Put another way, evolution requires every generation to have an immediate advantage--when transitioning from one strategy to another, you cannot get worse for a few generations, knowing that in the end you'll get better than you could have with the original strategy. Thus nature shuts out many design possibilities that we humans can find.

Second, natural products need continual maintenance and/or rebuilding. This can easily be turned into an advantage for products meant to biodegrade or planned to obsolesce. But most often it is simply a reminder to not imitate too slavishly.

Finally, organisms can't borrow designs from others, they have to evolve from what they have now. Human designers, however, can mix and match freely from different products in whole other genres. There's nothing wrong with making a building whose walls insulate like penguin feathers but are structured like crab shell. Some companies are doing things like this in biology with genetic engineering (gene-splicing crops, etc.), but the law of unintended consequences has frequently shown it to be a bad idea.

Resources (books, courses, networks)

Here's a short list of what I consider the handiest books for designers and engineers (probably also architects) interested in doing biomimicry. Some of them are good to read through for theory/philosophy, others are useful as reference books (catalogs of ideas). They are listed roughly in order of their usefulness for design ideas--the top one is just a picture-book of neat examples, which is all some people will need. If this beginner / intermediate list doesn't satisfy you, you'll find there are dozens of books on the subject, many specializing in particular fields (like medical technology, fluid dynamics, and many others.)
- The Way Nature Works, edited by Robin Rees
- Cats' Paws and Catapults, by Steven Vogel
- On Growth and Form, by D'arcy Thompson
- Out of Control, by Kevin Kelly
- Biomimicry, by Janine Benyus
- Cradle to Cradle, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
- Structural Biomaterials, by Julian Vincent

If you want interactive instruction, you may be surprised how many places can help you. Janine Benyus and Dayna Baumeister teach two different kinds of green-design oriented short courses for professionals. There are scores of universities worldwide that have relevant engineering courses, but most (such as Berkeley and Stanford) aren't particularly green-oriented in their biomimicry, instead focusing on robotics, medical devices, and such. ...But you never know when normal engineering research will come up with a technology having amazing green potential, like gecko tape. To find schools that specifically teach biomimicry for green design or architecture, I recommend the BIONIS and Biomimicry Guild resource lists. BIONIS's list also has links to other networks, though it may be the most extensive biomimicry network.

Topo maps are awesome.

Compostmodern '08

I was recently sent an email from Anita Yu of Zoom-in.com, which was very informative on today's issue of mixing business with sustainability/renewable design.

Here are three videos:

Green Design vs. Sustainable Design

Posted by Peter Nicholson

When people use the term "sustainable design" with me, as a magazine editor did recently, my first question has become, what do you mean exactly? Their answer is, invariably, what I would consider "eco" or "green" design (be it in architecture or product design). Equating sustainability with eco or green is inaccurate.

Eco/green design is not the same as sustainable design, although it can be a subset of it. Reducing environmental impact is a worthy goal and an important discipline, but it's often far from striving for sustainability. Sustainable design involves an emerging design methodology, one that strives to understand the system in which a particular issue exists before attempting to solve it. Unlike just about every other design discipline, with sustainable design, the end product is not determined beforehand. Rather, it could be a product, a communication piece or campaign, a policy initiative, a building, a product service system, etc. Sustainable design is also a discipline which, in addition to the environmental, strives to at least acknowledge the social and economic ramifications (for starters) of a project as well.

As you might be thinking, this emerging discipline is difficult and requires greater and broader training than many designers ever attain. It demands that one be multilingual in the sense of being able to speak the language of design, business, marketing, environment, and public policy, for starters. The methodology is a fairly simple, something that I aspire to write more about in the coming months. I'll be the first to admit that we here at o2-Chicago/Foresight Design Initiative have yet to figure it all out; we're only beginning. But we aspire to refine and practice (and eventually teach) sustainable design, recovering (or creating as the case may be), a more values-based discipline.

A closing anecdote: I was walking down the street the other day with one of Chicago's leading "green" architects, a person whose firm designed one of only a handful of LEED "platinum" (the highest rating possible) certified buildings (LEED, for those who might no know, is a green building rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council). During a lull in our conversation he turned to me and said "You know, Peter, I'm really over green buildings." My mouth fell open in amazement. This person's firm *only* does green architecture and urban planning! "Uh, doesn't your livelihood sort of depend on them?" I replied. "Peter, I've come to realize that it's about *so* much else. We have to think bigger, think in terms of sustainable communities." Green buildings, he implied, are relatively simple in comparison.

As aspiring sustainable designers, we must continue to push the envelope well past the "green" threshold, and think and practice with greater holistic awareness. We should use terms carefully and, I hope, via mediums like this list, continue to delve deeper into the discussion and, more importantly, the practice.

Greening Graphic Design: A Step-By-Step Guide.

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/02/22/greening-graphic-design-a-step-by-step-guide/

This is going to be very helpful for my supportive print piece. I will discuss how to integrate green/sustainable graphic design with biomimicry and graphic design in order to promote the best possible solutions for our present and future needs as both designer and target audience.

How to Decipher Labels and Choose Green.

10.30.2007 12:00 AM

Why Plastics Labeled 1, 2 and 5 May be Safer, and Other Tips
(This is great to know for product design)

On household and personal care products, "non-toxic" and "environmentally friendly" are virtually meaningless labels. Learning to decipher the meaning of the ingredients on those labels -- and some that aren't even listed -- is the key for consumers trying to avoid certain chemicals, especially those now under scientific scrutiny, but not regulated by the government, according to USA Today.

Here are some tips from the article:

• Avoid products that list "parabens" as an ingredient on shampoos, conditioners and other personal care products. Some studies suggest these chemicals affect the reproductive and hormonal systems in animal tests.
• Avoid products that list "sodium laurel/laureth sulfate" as an ingredient, because it contains a carcinogenic compound.
• Avoid anything with a "danger" or "warning" label, since it has stronger chemicals.
• Be wary of the term "fragrance," which is used to denote a combination of compounds, possibly including phthatates, which are a subject of recent concern because of studies showing they can mimic certain hormones.
• Choose sunscreens made with zinc or titanium.
• Choose plastics with the recycling code 1, 2 or 5. Recycling codes 3 and 7 are more likely to contain bisphenol A or phthalates, both suspected of disrupting the hormonal system.

Get Certified.

http://www.c2ccertified.com/

Cradle to Cradle Certification provides a company with a means to tangibly, credibly measure achievement in environmentally-intelligent design and helps customers purchase and specify products that are pursuing a broader definition of quality.

This means using environmentally safe and healthy materials; design for material reutilization, such as recycling or composting; the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency; efficient use of water, and maximum water quality associated with production; and instituting strategies for social responsibility...

Check this out!

Bio-Inspired Messenger...

I was overlooking one of my coworker's shoulders to see what he was working on, and felt another great idea come to me for my supportive visual when I saw this image:















I mean, how awesome would it be to create a messenger with an interface like this?

Inspiration/Reason 1:
I'm currently working on the new Interface for the RTI website, and we will eventually have our own messenger system instead of iChat. So I was thinking that this building is very inspirational in the fact that each person who works here (at RTI) is on a different level with color-coded available/away as you can see above.

This is also a great interface for us, since we are in three locations...We can be all connected in one building as an integrated whole.

Reason 2:
I need good examples of bio-inspired design projects to use in my reference guide for designers, and think that this would be very relevant.

Don't Be Designer B.

Key Words:
+ Seductive


Key quotes/sayings:
+ Waste is lost profit
+ Look at the world as an engineer. How can you improve it?
+ Grow an industry through design
+ "The world we have is the product of our thinking." - Albert Einstein
+ There is hidden ugliness beneath the surface of almost all products.
+ Only 1 in 10,000 products is designed with the environment in mind.
+ Sustainability definitely impacts your design; you have to look at the materials that are available to you first, and then design with those in mind.
+ FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative)
+ The majority of consumers seek to satisfy their personal needs before considering those of the planet;
therefore, companies fear in alienating their base consumers

This Weekend...

This weekend will be spent on my Working Outline and my first chapter!

YaY MLA.

Epiphany Rising...

I believe that I've finally decided on my supportive thesis visuals!

I just had an epiphany tonight about what I want to do for my supportive thesis visual: Since my topic argues how important and necessary it is to incorporate the use of Biomimicry into the graphic design process, I would love to create a kind of resource guide that designers can use. I know that not every designer's process is the same, so it is just to serve as a reference guide. I'd like to have example categories, like: environmental design, informational wayfinding, emotional branding and ID, creating a productive and effective workflow, and a few more. This guide will also cover things like certified materials, what it means to be "certified", printers, inks and so on.

Recommended Readings...

I was on the Biomimicry website today, and found a recommended reading list:



Biologic: Environmental Protection by Design. David Wann. 1990.
Guide to designing our way out of the environmental conundrum we are in by taking a system’s view of technology – asking, “how does it fit in?”
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Janine Benyus. 1997.
Demonstrates how nature's solutions to survival needs have been the creative jumping-off points for individuals seeking solutions to human challenges, developing, or simply revitalizing processes or products.
Cat’s Paws and Catapults: Mechanical World of Nature and People. Steven Vogel. 1998.
Investigates whether nature or human design is superior and why the two technologies have diverged so much.
Deep Design: Pathways to a livable Future. David Wann. 1996.
A new way of thinking about design by asking: “What is our ultimate goal?” The idea is to produce designs that are sensitive to living systems.
Design and Nature II. Ed M. W. Collins et. Al. 2004.
Contains proceedings of 2nd international conference on design and nature. Brings together researcher around the world on a variety of studies involving nature’s significance for modern scientific thought and design.
Design for the Real World, Human Ecology and Social Change. Victor Papanek. 1984.
One of the world’s most widely read books on design. Author provides a blueprint for sensible, responsible design.
Design in Nature: Learning from Trees. Claus Mattheck. 2004.
Describes and verifies external shape laws in nature. Also explores self healing. Many optimization examples.
Design Lessons from Nature. Benjamin De Brie Taylor. 1974.
Describes strategies in the plant kingdom with some suggestions on their relationship to human designs..
Design with Nature. Ian L. McHarg. 1969.
A blend of philosophy and science, author shows how humans can copy nature’s examples to design and build better structures.

new office stuffff

Degrees in Biomimicry.

Since 99% of my research is covering the marriage between graphic design and the graphic design process with biomimicry, then I really need to know:


Are there any degrees in biomimicry? Who's teaching it?

Aquinas College, Center for Sustainability
Biomimicry is utilized as a foundation text in the "Industrial Ecology" course taught by Matthew Tueth and a required course in Sustainable Business. Deborah M. Steketee has also utilized biomimicry in a management level Industrial Ecology course. Contact: Deborah M. Steketee, Executive Director, Center for Sustainability This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Auburn University, College of Architecture, Design and Construction
Auburn offers a third year interior architecture studio that is working with InterfaceFLOR and David Oakey on designing a new InterfaceFLOR Customer Service Center. Contact: Sheri SchumakerThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

The Biomimetics Network for Industrial Sustainability (BIONIS)
To promote the application of Biomimetics (Design Inspired by Nature) in products and services and its use in education and training.Contact: Jo Lakeland, BIONIS co-ordinator This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

California College of the Arts
The College offers a course entitled "Applied Biology for Designers and Artists". The goal of the course is to introduce students to the basic concepts of biology and relate these concepts directly to design and artistic work using the field of biomimicry. Contacts: Tom McKeag, David Hammond, Suzanne ReddingThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

California State University - Northridge , Biology
Janet Kubler teaches an on-line course called "Biology Taught Functionally". Contacts: Janet KublerThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Georgia Institute of Technology, Center for Biologically Inspired Design (CBID)
CBID staff drawn from two institutes (Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory), five colleges (College of Engineering, College of Science, College of Architecture, Ivan Allen College, and College of Computing) and 14 schools. CBID is developing undergraduate and graduate programs in biologically inspired design at Georgia Tech. Contacts: Jeannette Yen Professor, School of Biology, Marc Weissburg Associate Professor, School of Biology, Craig Tovey Professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Mohan Srinivasarao Associate Professor, School of Polymer, Textile and Fiber Engineering, Chemistry and Biochemistry This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Milwaukee Institute of Arts & Design
Contact: John Caruso

Minneapolis College of Arts and Design
Offers an on-line course called "Biomimicry for Designers" taught by Dayna Baumeister of The Biomimicry Guild. Contact: Curt McNamaraThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Onondaga Community College
Kevin Stack teaches an ecological building course based on biomimicry.Contact: Kevin Stack This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Southern California Institute of Architecture - Design Studio
Ilaria Mazzoleni (faculty) is teaching a course called Biomimicry: Innovation in Architecture Inspired by Nature (AS3304 [1]. Contact: Ilaria MazzoleniThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Stanford University, Bio-X
The Stanford University Bio-X program supports, organizes, and facilitates interdisciplinary research connected to biology and medicine. The program operates across the Schools of Humanities and Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, Earth Sciences and the School of Law. Contact: Heideh Fattaey, Director of Bio-X Programs & Operations This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

State University of NY, College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Kevin Stack teaches an ecological building course based on biomimicry. Contact: Kevin Stack This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

University of California at Berkeley, Bioengineering
Biomimetic Engineering: Engineering from Biology. This graduate course, taught in the Mechanical Engineering Department, is cross-listed with Berkeley's Integrative Biology Department and the Bioengineering Department. Contact: Hari Dharan Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Director of Berkeley Composites Laboratory

University of California at Berkeley, Center for Integrative Biomechanics in Education and Research
The Center for Integrative Biomechanics in Education and Research will lead the development of a new field of Integrative Systems Biomechanics and train the next generation of integrative biologists. To extract principles in biology that inspire novel design in engineering and train the next generation of scientists and engineers to collaborate in mutually beneficial relationships. Contact: Robert Full, DirectorThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

University of Maryland, Mechanical Engineering Department
Developing Mechanical Engineering undergraduate curriculum to cover the design and manufacturing technologies and analysis principles that are needed to develop bioinspired products and devices.Contact: Hugh Bruckor Satyandra Gupta

University of Minnesota, College of Design
Contacts: Marc Swackhamer, Assistant Professor of Architecture, John Carmody, Director, Center for Sustainable Building Research

University of Montana, Environmental Studies
Cindy Gilbert from the Biomimicry Institute is teaching "Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature", fall 2007. Contact:Cindy GilbertThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScriUniversity of New Mexico, School of Architecture
Teaching biomimicry as part of a course called Sustainable Design. The students conduct a biomimic design project using the local ecosystem to inform their design solutions. Contact: Kris Callori

University of Illinois, Chicago, School of Architecture, College of Architecture and the Arts
Contact:Elva Rubio, Assistant ProfessorThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

And in that case, are there any classes in graphic design that introduce the idea of biomimicry?

Schedule At A Glance...

Thursday Feb 14 Annotated Bibliography/Literature Review

Tuesday Feb 19 Artist Statement / or Design breakdown

Thursday Feb 21 Introduction

Tuesday Feb 26 Methodology

Thursday Feb 28 Conclusion/ Timetable/ Preview

Tuesday March 4 Deadline for presentation of Prospectus in class

Assignment: Annotated Bibliography

For my thesis writing class, we have to choose six bibliographical entries and compile a sample Annotated Bibliography.

Here is what I've come up with:

Benyus, M. Janine. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. New York:
William Morrow, 1997. Biomimicry is a book focusing on innovations as an end product of human creativity. There are case-studies of problems that are approached using nature’s solutions to these situations. Written by science writer Janine Benyus, Janine proposes ten lessons/steps to lead a better and healthier existence for all.

Biomimicryinstitute.org. ©2007-2008 .
As a new science, Biomimicry studies and utilizes nature’s best ideas and then imitates them into design processes in order to solve human problems. The Biomimicry Institute is set out to promote biomimicry into our culture by transfer of ideas, designs and strategies from biology to sustainable human systems design.

Brower PhD., Michael, Warren Leon, PhD. The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices.
New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999. It’s hard to be environmentally conscious when you’re still a consumer, getting the things you need. This book, which was put together by the Union of Concerned Scientists, acts as a guide to our decisions or any decisions that really matter. The Consumer’s Guide sets apart the signifigant from the insignifigant, so you can stop worrying. For example, page 17 mentions that we, as consumers, need to be given choices at the time of purchase. If we aren’t given healthy choices, then we can’t make an environmental impact. On page 13, it is said that key decisions need to be made on the corporate level, rather than by the individuals.

Gatter, Mark. Getting it Right in Print: Digital Prepress for Graphic Designers. Harry N. Abrams, 2005. Getting it Right in Print pinpoints what designers must do in order to create an efficient workflow and successful printed product, starting with the file. Some of the important and relevant chapters cover environmental paper choices and inks. Page 24 brings up a specifically excellent point when it suggests that you know and choose a printer that uses an echo-friendly and certified process, knowing that printing can be a highly-toxic process.

Gobé, Marc. Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People. New York: Allworth Press, 2001. Emotional Branding explains how important it is to approach branding on an emotional level, based on the target consumer. Specific to part of my thesis visuals, which is enviro-friendly packaging, chapter 14, “Emotional Packaging: The Half-Second Commercial”, provides information on topics like consumer psyche, p. 200 and cultural association with packaging, p. 216.

Pinto, Mark. Biomimicry at E4S. 17 Oct. 2007. .
Biomimicry at E4S is a blog entry that was created by Mark Pinto, who was educated in process improvement, knowledge management, strategic decision-making and adult/accelerated learning. Mark’s blog talks about using Biomimicry in the human idea process. Mark even sets a guideline, based on group decision-making. There are specific key words that caught my attention, like Fibonacci Sequence, Wisdom of Crowds and Natural Systems. The latter two terms deal with decisions based on groups; these groups of people are mimicking the natural process of animal groups and how they make decisions. This natural process is key to my thesis, focusing on how I can integrate Biomimicry into the design decision-making process among a team of designers.



This Annotated Bibliography will be applied to my thesis, and has been created based on my current references and resources.

Further Research

Key Words (cont.):

- Sustainable
- Self-Sustaining
- Enhanced Sustainability:
Source reduction, material elimination, energy reduction, greenhouse gas reduction, increased recycled content, use of renewable resources, shipping and distribution efficiencies, shelf impact.
- Green Chemistry
- Life-Cycle Management
- Nature as model
- Packaging
- Container
- Protection
- Graphics /Aesthetics
- Natural Selection / Human Selection
- Evolve / Evolving
- Conditions / Environment
- Species
- Adaptive / Adaptation
- Triple Bottom Line:
Financial bottom line; social bottom line; environmental bottom line.
- Agenda 21:
The name of the agreement signed by most countries at the UN Rio Conference in 1992. "Agenda 21 addresses the pressing problems of today and also aims at preparing the world for the challenges of the next century. It reflects a global consensus and political commitment at the highest level on development and environment co-operation."
- Capacity Building:
The development of the skills and activities of individuals in an organisation to their full capacity. It means investment made with the purpose of enhancing the ability of individuals to achieve their development goals.
- Carbon Footprint:
Is the measure of the amount of carbon dioxide or CO2 emitted through the combustion of fossil fuels - in the case of an organisation, business or enterprise, as part of their everyday operations. In materials, CF is the result of life cycle analysis that measures embodied energy.
- Carbon neutrality:
Is "the potential for net carbon emissions to be zero, all else being equal. For operational activity, this would involve some form of offset, with the question of ‘additionality’ being central. For plans and policies, carbon neutrality might mean no net increase in carbon emissions from the proposed activity/development, with offsetting done through investments in other sectors or locations. Both these definitions allow a clear distinction between carbon neutrality and ‘zero carbon’, where the latter is any activity (whether an operation, plan or policy) where absolute carbon emissions are zero".
- Carbon Offset:
Is a service that reduces the net greenhouse gas (see below) emissions of a party, by either reducing the greenhouse gas emission, or increasing the carbon dioxide absorption of another party.
- Climate Change:
Originally meant changes in climate over a period of time, although now it has come to mean the changes in climate, in particular temperature and rain, over the last few decades, and widely considered to be due to changes in industrial processes. Also called "Global Warming"
- Competency:
Is the set of skills and attitudes, described in terms of behaviours, which can be observed and which is essential for effective environmental performance. Competence is the ability to perform in the workplace to the standards required. (Environmental Management NOS)
- Continual Improvement:
involves the identifying areas for improvement, developing and implementing plans for improvement evaluating the results and using the findings to develop further improvements (Environmental Management NOS).
- Corporate Social Responsibility:
Is the commitment of business to contribute to sustainable economic development, working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to improve their quality of life. (Source:World Business Council for Sustainable Development)
- Counting Carbon:
Counting Carbon for Offset Purposes measures three sorts of the carbon sequestration: annual fluxes, long-term changes in carbon stocks, & cumulative carbon storage. Counting carbon within many organisations will measure and monitor energy, which will be translated into carbon use and CO2 emissions.
- "Cradle to grave"
Is a life-cycle approach that examine products, processes and services from origins through production to disposal.
- Demand-side:
Are the stakeholders who need skills and need to say what they are.
- Duty of Care:
applies to anybody who carries, keeps, treats, or disposes of waste, or who acts as a third party and arranges matters such as imports or disposal. They must ensure that nobody in the chain commits an offence regarding waste.
- Ecology:
Is the study of communities of living organisms and the relationships among the members of those communities and between them and the physical and chemical constituents of their surroundings.
- Ecosystems:
are systems in which organisms interact with each other and with their environment. There are two parts; the entire complex of organisms (biome) living in harmony and the habitat in which the biome exists.
- Environment:
Is everything that surrounds us, including ourselves.
- Environmental culture:
Is 'the way we do things for the environment around here' along with the shared assumptions, beliefs, values and norms. More on organisational culture.
- Environmental Management System (EMS):
Is the part of the overall management system which includes organisation structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes and resources for developing, implementing, achieving, reviewing and maintaining the environmental policy." (ISO 14001 Def) There are two main systems - ISO 14001 internationally and the EU Scheme EMAS.
- Environmental Performance:
Is the relationship between the organisation and the environment. It includes: the environmental effects of resources consumed, the environmental impacts of the organisational process, the environmental implications of its products and services, the recovery and processing of products and meeting the environmental requirements of law. (Environmental Management NOS)
- Environmental Practices:
Are those work practices which reduce negative and promote positive impacts on the environment.
- Environmental Practitioner:
is a skilled employee who is capable of helping implement procedures for improving the environmental performance of the organization.
- Employee Involvement:
Refers to internal communication, training and assignment of responsibilities in job descriptions, as outlined in EMAS.
- Global Warming:
Is an increase in the near surface temperature of the Earth.
- Greenhouse Gases (GHGs):
Are gases in the atmosphere that contribute to the "greenhouse effect" (below). Some greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere, while others result from human activities. Naturally occurring greenhouse gases include water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, and ozone.
- The "Greenhouse effect":
Some sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface is absorbed and warms the earth - which then radiates energy at much longer wavelengths than the sun. Some of these longer wavelengths are absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before they are lost to space. The absorption of this longwave radiant energy warms the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases also emit longwave radiation both upward to space and downward to the surface - this being the "greenhouse effect". (although this isn't how greenhouses are warmed...)
- Green Productivity (GP):
Is a strategy for simultaneously enhancing productivity and environmental performance for overall socio-economic development that leads to sustained improvement in the quality of human life.
- Green-wash (green'wash', -wôsh') – verb:
The act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.
- Health and Safety:
Refers issues related to chronic ill-health caused by work (occupational health) and more acute damage caused by physical environment.
- Just Transition:
Keeps workers and communities whole when toxic chemicals, or other environmental damaging processes, are banned or phased out.
- Level 1 (Foundation):
Indicates an initial stage below the usual standard for work. The QCA definition of Level 1 is "competence in the performance of a range of varied work activities, most of which may be routine and predictable."
- Level 2 (Intermediate):
People who work under supervisions or who work in teams are considered as 'Intermediate' or level 2. The QCA definition is "The QCA definition of Level 2 is competence in a significant range of varied work activities, performed in a variety of contexts. Some of the activities are complex or non-routine, and there is some individual responsibility or autonomy."
- Level 3 (Advanced):
People at level 3 are employees who do not have the responsibility of managers, but do not work under supervision, and have the freedom to move about at work. The QCA definition is "competence in a broad range of varied work activities performed in a wide variety of contexts, most of which are complex and non-routine."
- Level 4 (Management):
Is for people who are responsible for organising people and production. QCA definition is "Competence in a broad range of complex, technical or professional work activities performed in a wide variety of contexts and with a substantial degree of personal responsibility and autonomy. Responsibility for the work of others and allocation of resources is often present".
- Life Cycle Analysis (LCA):
Examines the impact a product has on the environment from the beginning to the end of its lifetime, in order to idenitfy where to increase resource-use efficiency and decrease liabilities.
- National Occupational Standards (NOSs):
NOSs set out realworld job skills defined by employers, and other stakeholders
National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) are qualifications which assesses someone’s competence in a work situation. NVQs are based on national occupational standards.
- Precautionary Principle:
Is part of the Rio Declaration that says: "Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation" (Principle 15).
- Product Stewardship:
Denotes the responsible management of the health, safety and environmental aspects of the basic configuration of a business in terms of a product throughout its life-cycle and / or the investment and operations to produce a process or provide a service.
- Quality and Curriculum Authority (QCA)
Is the guardian of standards in education and training in England & Wales. The Scottish equivalent is SQA.
- Reasonably Practicable:
'As far as is reasonably practicable' "implies that a computation must be made by the employer in which the quantum of risk is placed on one scale and the sacrifice in the measures necessary to avert the risk (whether in money, time or trouble) is placed in the other." Edwards v NCB 1949 used in H&S at Work etc Act 1974
- Resources:
Are the people, time, equipment, materials, services, energy and premises. (Environmental Management NOS).
- Risk Assessment:
Is the process of estimating the risk to health or environment of a product or work process by determining the possible extent of damage and the likelihood of that damage occurring. The goal is to produce "objective" data as a basis for making managerial or regulatory decisions.
- Sector Skills Councils (SSC):
Replaced the National Training Organisations as the bodies responsible for developing skills and the standards to define them.
- Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA)
is the central body responsible for conducting the overall development of both generic and sector skills
in the UK.
- Sustainable Development:
"Is development that meets that needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." according to Our Common Future - the Bruntland Report in 1987
- Systems:
Are sets of interacting elements organized in relation to a goal. Systems theory gives a view of how complex networks work, often using analysis of mow natural or eco-systems work. At work, quality systems are set up to provide the required goals as efficiently as possible.
- Triple Bottom Line:
Is for companies aiming for sustainability, who have to perform to not just a single financial bottom line, but the simultaneous pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality and social equity - Profit, Planet & People.
- Zone of Acceptability
Refers to package design, and what is acceptable to consumers, based on how they relate to the item.