A Letter from the Biomimicry Guild!

Hi Allie,
Thank you so much for taking the time to email us and for your interest in biomimicry.

A big part of biomimicry, other than being inspired by nature, is sustainability, and while I can't offer you too many examples of design firms or artists that have utilized biomimicry I can start by pointing you toward some sustainability sources. I also want to point out that biomimicry is a design methodology, and as such is often times most applicable to design at the ideation phase and less at the execution phase. In fact, most of the time if you have made it to execution and haven't been asking "what would nature do?" throughout the process it's too late to apply biomimicry.

Recently, one of our Guild BaDTs [Biologists at the Design Table], Tim McGee, has written an article for Package Design Magazine about biomimetic potentials for the packaging industry [http://www.packagedesignmag.com/issues/2007.12/nature.shtml]. The rest of the Sustainability special issue may be of some additional help to you as it discusses inks, labels, logos, and trends in sustainable package design generally [http://www.packagedesignmag.com]. I have found the advertisements to also be of interest [as they are a good measure of the companies that are engaged in this type of design], so you may want to have a physical copy of the issue.

In general the Biomimicry Guild is not as involved with graphic design as we are with other types of design such as product design and architecture. This is not to say that we don't wish to be or that we are of the opinion that biomimicry is not applicable to graphic design.

For more biomimicry and sustainability resources please see:
http://biomimicryinstitute.org
http://www.o2.org/index.php
http://biomimicrynews.com

On behalf of 30 million species we thank you for your interest in biomimicry.

http://www.biomimicryguild.com