Biomimicry + the Graphic Design process

Pixel Naturalist, Jessica Jones

2008-12-17T07:15:00.000-08:00

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!:
_____________________________

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)

2008-12-17T06:47:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-08-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-08T18:15:00.000-07:00

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
"Dont 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 "dont 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.

"Dont 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.

2008-05-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

Compostmodern '08

2008-04-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-04-11T04:17:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-04-11T04:02:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-04-11T03:10:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-03-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-03-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

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...

2008-03-01T09:12:00.001-08:00

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

YaY MLA.

2008-03-01T09:11:00.001-08:00

Epiphany Rising...

2008-02-26T15:25:00.000-08:00

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.

new office stuffff

2008-02-19T10:10:00.001-08:00

Degrees in Biomimicry.

2008-02-18T20:15:00.000-08:00

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

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 Schumaker

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

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 Redding

California State University - Northridge , Biology
Janet Kubler teaches an on-line course called "Biology Taught Functionally". Contacts: Janet Kubler

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

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 McNamara

Onondaga Community College
Kevin Stack teaches an ecological building course based on biomimicry.Contact: Kevin Stack

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 Mazzoleni

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

State University of NY, College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Kevin Stack teaches an ecological building course based on biomimicry. Contact: Kevin Stack

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, Director

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 Gilbert

University 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 Professor

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

Schedule At A Glance...

2008-02-14T21:10:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-13T17:50:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-27T17:25:00.000-08:00

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.

Totally Rad: Biomimicry for Package Design!

2008-01-26T16:13:00.000-08:00

Now that's what I'm talking about. This is basically what I want my true, visual component to be in order to support my thesis topic!

Timothy McGee, a trained interdisciplinary biologist at the Design Table with the Biomimicry Guild, helps clients explore how the natural world can help their company innovate and create a sustainable future.

I was recently recommended to read an article that Timothy has written, called Nature as Model, Measure and Mentor: Design Lessons from Mother Nature.

Timothy has raised some really great points:

"Walk down any market aisle and you will be awash in a sea of packaging. Colorful boxes shout persuasive slogans while blister packs foil even the most determined of curious fingers. Take a walk outside and remarkably the experience is quite similar. Colorful berries announce their ripeness while spiky pinecones keep their seeds safe from all but the most dexterous squirrels.

Surprisingly, nature faces the same packaging challenges: containing items together; protecting from the outside world; and advertising their contents to the right customers. Yet, life has spent 3.8 billion years of trial and error to get the process right, adapting, evolving, and creating conditions conducive to life. And as a result, nature's packaging is quite different from ours. The act of looking to the other 30 million species on this planet to learn about sustainable design is known as biomimicry. Here are just a few examples of what we might be able to learn.

Lettuce

Fluids can be difficult to contain in a fail-safe manner. Lettuce is almost 98% water, but when you puncture the skin it doesn't leak. This feat is accomplished by a fibrous matrix that retains water against the force of gravity. What if instead of a thick barrier protecting a liquid package from puncturing, the container itself wouldn't leak?

Ticks

How about the problem of a collapsible container, allowing concentrates to be rehydrated in their original container? The tick solves this problem by having an inflatable body, known to ingest up to 624 times their body weight. Unique coils expand in the tick's abdomen that allow for over a four-fold increase in size. Imagine a reusable, food-safe, expandable container that can fit in your pocket empty, and fill up with liters of water at your next stop.

Sandfish Lizard

Packaging is often used to protect contents from damage. Having a tough skin is nothing new to the sandfish lizard whose skin outperforms steel as an abrasion resistant material. Using a special glycosolated (sugar) surface on its scales, the lizard can "swim" through the sand without a worry. What if our packaging could survive rough handling, yet still be safe enough to eat?

Bananna

Packaging often needs to inhibit the flow of moisture or air to prevent spoilage. Likewise, many organisms need to stay wet—think about a snail that is mostly water. Dehydration would kill the snail. To avoid this fate, the snails have a built-in reversible system for an organic, tough, biodegradable, non-toxic sealant that easily fits unusual shapes or openings. Mimicking this sealant could completely redefine many types of packaging.

Bananna

The bright yellow banana certainly advertises itself well to likely consumers, but also has a rather handy modular design. The single units make up the primary packaging, while transport units are efficiently bunched. To consume, the end-user breaks off a single unit, with the remaining units held together until needed. What if more of our products were designed in a modular fashion such that each serving was kept fresh and sanitary with a watertight, freshness indicating, biodegradable material?

Peacock

Nature colors without toxic dyes or inks. Instead it uses structure. The colors produced by peacocks are derived from just one brown pigment, melanin. The secret of the peacock's plumage is in the microstructure, allowing light to bounce in such a way that bright blue, purple, and green are produced. The permanent color is safe, bright, and edible. Imagine if our print packaging was so safe we could eat it right along with out food.

These examples barely scratch the surface for ways that nature can help us innovate sustainable packaging. More importantly, looking for solutions can also help us reconnect to the natural world. Living organisms use local materials and resources to invent and evolve solutions to an incredibly diverse range of habitats and functions. Why can't our designs perform in the same way? By requiring our packaging and manufacturing processes to be locally dependent on the environment, we can once again establish ourselves as citizens of our world."

Links for today:

- http://www.esko.com/web/site.aspx?p=23

(Esko Graphics, a company focusing on packaging and commercial printing.

- http://www.packagedesignmag.com/issues/2007.12/nature.shtml

A Letter from the Biomimicry Guild!

2008-01-23T11:33:00.001-08:00

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

More on Literature Reviews...

2008-01-22T19:58:00.000-08:00

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/literature_review.html#top

Literature Reviews

What this handout is about

This handout will explain what a literature review is and offer insights into the form and construction of a literature review in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

Introduction

OK. You've got to write a literature review. You dust off a novel and a book of poetry, settle down in your chair, and get ready to issue a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" as you leaf through the pages. "Literature review" done. Right?

Wrong! The "literature" of a literature review refers to any collection of materials on a topic, not necessarily the great literary texts of the world. "Literature" could be anything from a set of government pamphlets on British colonial methods in Africa to scholarly articles on the treatment of a torn ACL. And a review does not necessarily mean that your reader wants you to give your personal opinion on whether or not you liked these sources.

What is a literature review, then?

A literature review discusses published information in a particular subject area, and sometimes information in a particular subject area within a certain time period.

A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. It might give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations. Or it might trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates. And depending on the situation, the literature review may evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant.

But how is a literature review different from an academic research paper?

While the main focus of an academic research paper is to support your own argument, the focus of a literature review is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of others. The academic research paper also covers a range of sources, but it is usually a select number of sources, because the emphasis is on the argument. Likewise, a literature review can also have an "argument," but it is not as important as covering a number of sources. In short, an academic research paper and a literature review contain some of the same elements. In fact, many academic research papers will contain a literature review section. But it is the aspect of the study (the argument or the sources) that is emphasized that determines what type of document it is.

Why do we write literature reviews?

Literature reviews provide you with a handy guide to a particular topic. If you have limited time to conduct research, literature reviews can give you an overview or act as a stepping stone. For professionals, they are useful reports that keep them up to date with what is current in the field. For scholars, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the writer in his or her field. Literature reviews also provide a solid background for a research paper's investigation. Comprehensive knowledge of the literature of the field is essential to most research papers.

Who writes these things, anyway?

Literature reviews are written occasionally in the humanities, but mostly in the sciences and social sciences; in experiment and lab reports, they constitute a section of the paper. Sometimes a literature review is written as a paper in itself.

top

Let's get to it! What should I do before writing the literature review?

Clarify

If your assignment is not very specific, seek clarification from your instructor:

Roughly how many sources should you include?
What types of sources (books, journal articles, websites)?
Should you summarize, synthesize, or critique your sources by discussing a common theme or issue?
Should you evaluate your sources?
Should you provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history?

Find models

Look for other literature reviews in your area of interest or in the discipline and read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or ways to organize your final review. You can simply put the word "review" in your search engine along with your other topic terms to find articles of this type on the Internet or in an electronic database. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read are also excellent entry points into your own research.

Narrow your topic

There are hundreds or even thousands of articles and books on most areas of study. The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to get a good survey of the material. Your instructor will probably not expect you to read everything that's out there on the topic, but you'll make your job easier if you first limit your scope.

And don't forget to tap into your professor's (or other professors') knowledge in the field. Ask your professor questions such as: "If you had to read only one book from the 70's on topic X, what would it be?" Questions such as this help you to find and determine quickly the most seminal pieces in the field.

Consider whether your sources are current

Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. In the sciences, for instance, treatments for medical problems are constantly changing according to the latest studies. Information even two years old could be obsolete. However, if you are writing a review in the humanities, history, or social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be what is needed, because what is important is how perspectives have changed through the years or within a certain time period. Try sorting through some other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to consider what is "hot" and what is not.

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Strategies for writing the literature review

Find a focus

A literature review, like a term paper, is usually organized around ideas, not the sources themselves as an annotated bibliography would be organized. This means that you will not just simply list your sources and go into detail about each one of them, one at a time. No. As you read widely but selectively in your topic area, consider instead what themes or issues connect your sources together. Do they present one or different solutions? Is there an aspect of the field that is missing? How well do they present the material and do they portray it according to an appropriate theory? Do they reveal a trend in the field? A raging debate? Pick one of these themes to focus the organization of your review.

Construct a working thesis statement

Then use the focus you've found to construct a thesis statement. Yes! Literature reviews have thesis statements as well! However, your thesis statement will not necessarily argue for a position or an opinion; rather it will argue for a particular perspective on the material. Some sample thesis statements for literature reviews are as follows:

The current trend in treatment for congestive heart failure combines surgery and medicine.

More and more cultural studies scholars are accepting popular media as a subject worthy of academic consideration.

See our handout for more information on how to construct thesis statements.

Consider organization

You've got a focus, and you've narrowed it down to a thesis statement. Now what is the most effective way of presenting the information? What are the most important topics, subtopics, etc., that your review needs to include? And in what order should you present them? Develop an organization for your review at both a global and local level:

First, cover the basic categories

Just like most academic papers, literature reviews also must contain at least three basic elements: an introduction or background information section; the body of the review containing the discussion of sources; and, finally, a conclusion and/or recommendations section to end the paper.

Introduction: Gives a quick idea of the topic of the literature review, such as the central theme or organizational pattern.

Body: Contains your discussion of sources and is organized either chronologically, thematically, or methodologically (see below for more information on each).

Conclusions/Recommendations: Discuss what you have drawn from reviewing literature so far. Where might the discussion proceed?

Organizing the body

Once you have the basic categories in place, then you must consider how you will present the sources themselves within the body of your paper. Create an organizational method to focus this section even further.

To help you come up with an overall organizational framework for your review, consider the following scenario and then three typical ways of organizing the sources into a review:

You've decided to focus your literature review on materials dealing with sperm whales. This is because you've just finished reading Moby Dick, and you wonder if that whale's portrayal is really real. You start with some articles about the physiology of sperm whales in biology journals written in the 1980's. But these articles refer to some British biological studies performed on whales in the early 18th century. So you check those out. Then you look up a book written in 1968 with information on how sperm whales have been portrayed in other forms of art, such as in Alaskan poetry, in French painting, or on whale bone, as the whale hunters in the late 19th century used to do. This makes you wonder about American whaling methods during the time portrayed in Moby Dick, so you find some academic articles published in the last five years on how accurately Herman Melville portrayed the whaling scene in his novel.

Chronological

If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials above according to when they were published. For instance, first you would talk about the British biological studies of the 18th century, then about Moby Dick, published in 1851, then the book on sperm whales in other art (1968), and finally the biology articles (1980s) and the recent articles on American whaling of the 19th century. But there is relatively no continuity among subjects here. And notice that even though the sources on sperm whales in other art and on American whaling are written recently, they are about other subjects/objects that were created much earlier. Thus, the review loses its chronological focus.
By publication

Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on biological studies of sperm whales if the progression revealed a change in dissection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies.
By trend

A better way to organize the above sources chronologically is to examine the sources under another trend, such as the history of whaling. Then your review would have subsections according to eras within this period. For instance, the review might examine whaling from pre-1600-1699, 1700-1799, and 1800-1899. Under this method, you would combine the recent studies on American whaling in the 19th century with Moby Dick itself in the 1800-1899 category, even though the authors wrote a century apart.
Thematic

Thematic reviews of literature are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time. However, progression of time may still be an important factor in a thematic review. For instance, the sperm whale review could focus on the development of the harpoon for whale hunting. While the study focuses on one topic, harpoon technology, it will still be organized chronologically. The only difference here between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: the development of the harpoon or the harpoon technology.

But more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. For instance, a thematic review of material on sperm whales might examine how they are portrayed as "evil" in cultural documents. The subsections might include how they are personified, how their proportions are exaggerated, and their behaviors misunderstood. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point made.
Methodological

A methodological approach differs from the two above in that the focusing factor usually does not have to do with the content of the material. Instead, it focuses on the "methods" of the researcher or writer. For the sperm whale project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of whales in American, British, and French art work. Or the review might focus on the economic impact of whaling on a community. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.
Once you've decided on the organizational method for the body of the review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out. They should arise out of your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period. A thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue.

Sometimes, though, you might need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. Put in only what is necessary. Here are a few other sections you might want to consider:

Current Situation: Information necessary to understand the topic or focus of the literature review.

History: The chronological progression of the field, the literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.

Methods and/or Standards: The criteria you used to select the sources in your literature review or the way in which you present your information. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed articles and journals.

Questions for Further Research: What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

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Begin composing

Once you've settled on a general pattern of organization, you're ready to write each section. There are a few guidelines you should follow during the writing stage as well. Here is a sample paragraph from a literature review about sexism and language to illuminate the following discussion:

However, other studies have shown that even gender-neutral antecedents are more likely to produce masculine images than feminine ones (Gastil, 1990). Hamilton (1988) asked students to complete sentences that required them to fill in pronouns that agreed with gender-neutral antecedents such as "writer," "pedestrian," and "persons." The students were asked to describe any image they had when writing the sentence. Hamilton found that people imagined 3.3 men to each woman in the masculine "generic" condition and 1.5 men per woman in the unbiased condition. Thus, while ambient sexism accounted for some of the masculine bias, sexist language amplified the effect. (Source: Erika Falk and Jordan Mills, "Why Sexist Language Affects Persuasion: The Role of Homophily, Intended Audience, and Offense," Women and Language19:2.

Use evidence

In the example above, the writers refer to several other sources when making their point. A literature review in this sense is just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence to show that what you are saying is valid.

Be selective

Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the review's focus, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological.

Use quotes sparingly

Falk and Mills do not use any direct quotes. That is because the survey nature of the literature review does not allow for in-depth discussion or detailed quotes from the text. Some short quotes here and there are okay, though, if you want to emphasize a point, or if what the author said just cannot be rewritten in your own words. Notice that Falk and Mills do quote certain terms that were coined by the author, not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. But if you find yourself wanting to put in more quotes, check with your instructor.

Summarize and synthesize

Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each paragraph as well as throughout the review. The authors here recapitulate important features of Hamilton's study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to their own work.

Keep your own voice

While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice (the writer's) should remain front and center. Notice that Falk and Mills weave references to other sources into their own text, but they still maintain their own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with their own ideas and their own words. The sources support what Falk and Mills are saying.

Use caution when paraphrasing

When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. In the preceding example, Falk and Mills either directly refer in the text to the author of their source, such as Hamilton, or they provide ample notation in the text when the ideas they are mentioning are not their own, for example, Gastil's. For more information, please see our handout on plagiarism.

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Revise, revise, revise

Draft in hand? Now you're ready to revise. Spending a lot of time revising is a wise idea, because your main objective is to present the material, not the argument. So check over your review again to make sure it follows the assignment and/or your outline. Then, just as you would for most other academic forms of writing, rewrite or rework the language of your review so that you've presented your information in the most concise manner possible. Be sure to use terminology familiar to your audience; get rid of unnecessary jargon or slang. Finally, double check that you've documented your sources and formatted the review appropriately for your discipline. For tips on the revising and editing process, see our handout on revising drafts.

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Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing the original version of this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout's topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find the latest publications on this topic. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial.

Anson, Chris M. and Robert A. Schwegler, The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers. Second edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

Jones, Robert, Patrick Bizzaro, and Cynthia Selfe. The Harcourt Brace Guide to Writing in the Disciplines. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997.

Lamb, Sandra E. How to Write It: A Complete Guide to Everything You'll Ever Write. Berkeley, Calif.: Ten Speed Press, 1998.

Rosen, Leonard J. and Laurence Behrens. The Allyn and Bacon Handbook. Fourth edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000.

Troyka, Lynn Quitman. Simon and Schuster Handbook for Writers. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002.

Homework assignment #2: What is a Literary Review?

2008-01-22T18:57:00.000-08:00

For my homework assignment #2, I need to research what a "literary review" is, and how I would write a "literary art review".

Here's what I've found so far
(according to http://classiclit.about.com/od/forstudents/ht/aa_litreview.htm):

1) In general, a literary review provides enough information to help the reader decide whether they want to read about the (book; art piece).
2) The writer must know the topic thoroughly (background, origin, those involved);
3) know the author's/artist's purpose;
4) Do some background research. Read about the author;
5) consider title and subtitle purpose;
6) read related material;
7) think about a plan of action (how you think the book/art could best be critiqued)
8) move on to your first review draft
9) Try one (or a combination) of these beginnings: summarize the book/artwork briefly in the first paragraph; use a passage from the book/artwork and follow it with a comment that explains why this quotation is typical (or not typical); mention what you think the author's/artist's purpose is in writing the book and how well he achieves this purpose; discuss the theme or major problem in the book/artwork; and/or present information about the author/artist, along with background material, qualifications, or philosophy.
10) Depending on how you start the review, the rest of the piece will be affected by your choice. But the general direction and focus of the piece follows from there.
11) State each of your ideas about your opening statement with generalizations.
12) Explain how each of your examples prove your point.
13) Be careful to provide transitions between paragraphs
14) Tie your review together with ideas related to your theme.
15) End your review with a paragraph (or two) that brings your theme into final focus for your reader. You might come to a conclusion about the theme, the author's purpose, or about the overall effectiveness of the book.
16) After letting the review sit for a few days, read it out loud, listening for awkward phrases.
17) Check your quotations for accuracy and appropriateness. Also, make sure you haven't overloaded your review with quotations.

TIPS:
* Do not attempt to write the review unless you have read about the artwork carefully and completely.
* Do not make general statements about the artwork without supporting them with specific examples or quotations.
* Ask a friend to read the review. A fresh eye can often catch problems with the review that you might have missed.

tuesday jan 22 2008 @ work

2008-01-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

This is what I do all day at work....

As for this evening, I will be working on more storyboarding.

sunday jan 20 2008

2008-01-20T14:42:00.000-08:00

Today I posted my blog, and here are some previous notes that I've been keeping since late summer 2007:

Books I'm reading:
- Biomimicry, by Janine Benyus
- The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices, by Michael Brower, PhD and Warren Leon, PhD
- The Craft of Research, by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb and Joseph M. Williams

Websites for my research + inspiration:
http://www.biomimicry.net/
http://cero9.com/ (a student's work from MICA, focusing on biomimicry and arch)
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/everythingsanargument4e/default.asp?s=&n=&i=&v=&o=&ns=0&uid=0&rau=0
http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/essays/abstract.html
http://www.netdiver.net/
http://okaydave.com/
http://database.biomimicry.org/start.php
http://3cofgc.blogspot.com/
http://www.shelfimpact.com/archives/article_topics/packaging_design_trends/
http://www.packagingdigest.com/
http://www.eggusa.net/flash/

Videos for Inspiration:

Important points to cover in my research:
- What is Biomimicry?
- Has Biomimicry been used in graphic design before?
- If Biomimicry is to be used in graphic design, then what would it be called?
Biographics? Biographic Design?
- Who/what designers are looking to organisms and ecosystems for design inspiration?
- Where has Biomimicry been used, and how can it help my research?
- Who is my audience?
- How is my topic relevant to today's issues?
- Why do I think my topic is relevant?
- How can I respond to my audience's anticipated questions?

* As designers, we have a responsibility to create a better world through our way of communication, whether it's print or digital. Biomimicry is a new discipline that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and systems in order to solve our man-made, humanly problems. So, if biomimicry is used to solve problems in the structure of life in order to make our surroundings less problematic, more sustainable and green, then how can it be applied to a graphic designer's design process, and how will this effect the project outcome?

*the Vision: To naturalize biomimicry in the design profession in order to increase respect for our natural surroundings and to better our present and future.

*Focus: To create conditions that are conducive to life and our environment.

*Key words/ideas:
Photosynthesis
Natural Selection
Self-Assemble
Reusable
Self-Sustaining
Ecosystem
5 senses
Change the way we make materials, store information and conduct business
Systems Theory: How natural systems build up to a certain state to create systems
Green Chemistry
Time Degradation
Enhanced Sustainability:
- source reduction, material elimination
- energy reduction
- greenhouse gas reduction
- increased recycled content
- use of renewable recourses
- shipping and distribution efficiencies
- shelf impact

saturday jan 19 2008

2008-01-20T13:34:00.001-08:00

I spent the day in Baltimore, MD this Saturday visiting MICA, the Maryland school of art. I didn't get to see the entire campus, but did get a chance to see some gallery work designed by some of the students. It was rather lucky of me to find what I did, because it had everything to do with Biomimicry and was helpful to my research, even though it had to do with architecture.

As for my schedule, here it is for January:

Here are some other photos I took:

My Notes:

- Cero9.com, a link to one of the student designers
- Some key words that may be helpful to my paper:
+ not a space, but a local modificaiton of the climate
+ point of interchange
+ for socialization
+ emissions
+ what relationship package design can have with its
specific environment