Ten Things I've Learned

Eco-Design

Global society is facing unprecedented levels and speed of change driven by a range of issues including the fuel, food, and financial crises, climate change.
There is increasing pressure on scarce resources, Concerns over the sustainability and equity of global consumption and production patterns are also growing in the context of predicted major increases in the population in the developing world coupled with less predictability of weather patterns.

How will consumers and producers adapt?
Despite the on-going prospect of economic downturn, environmental awareness remains high driven by continued media and societal interest in climate change. Perhaps we now face a cross roads. Is there a need for a Blue-Green roadmap to re-generate our struggling economies.
the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as a new engine for growth and job creation through sustainable technology development, is created in response to the need for all key stakeholders, to accept the need for more radical (sustainable) change alongside the change that is already happening.
New systems and structures are needed to take global society forward.
To achieve this will require 'sustainable innovators' and change agents in all spheres of global society. People, leadership and creativity will be at the heart of that change..
Being one of the key elements which are needed to direct a globalised economy towards a sustainable development, Eco Design is supported unanimously by industry, governments and environmental NGOs. In many areas Eco Design has made substantial progress.
However, there is a big risk. If the enhanced resource efficiency generated by Eco Design leads to better economic performance and the reduced resource consumption needed to produce goods makes pricecuttings possible, consumption will increase and there might be no overall environmental benefit because growing consumption may exceed the benefits achieved by Eco Design, this effect, is whats called Rebound-Effect is the consequences for Eco Design.

1). I've just learned about Rethink ... The Eco Design Game
It's a brand new board game with an eco-design twist. Players are asked to rethink existing, everyday products through the lens of environmentally friendly design. Redesign a chair using locally sourced materials or come up with new functions for an old shopping trolley — the goal of the game is environmentally friendly thinking and eco-design creativity.





The Business and IP Centre at the British Library in London played host to the launch event, demonstrating one of its main purposes in helping young inventors push new products to market.







While it helps to have an understanding of the basics of eco-design, the game is really meant for anyone and brings people together to bring to light ideas which use existing products and open up new opportunities.
The aim of the game is to spin a wheel ingeniously integrated into the box and then choose a play card based on the wheel result. Players then draw new ideas based around the play card. It definitely opens ones mind to the possibilities of changing the way that we currently use and make our products.
I believe that change will come by investing in the children of today who are the leaders of the future, for them to have a more stable earth to live on.

2). I've learned that I can make a difference, no matter how small, inspired by a notion, it will set an example that will inspire others, some have good intentions but lack initiative, they will soon follow the new trend.

3). I've learned when others say it will not work, it means .. we must find another whey to make it work, that's where I (a person in my community, the designer) come in to create a solution.
Because we designers are effective in the lives of all age groups in our communities, recognizing that our work contributes to the well being of the general public, particularly in regard to health and safety and must not consciously act in a manner contradictory to this well being.

4). I've learned to see things in a different whey, things that did not attract my attention, over looked because they are here, there and everywhere all the time, we stopped noticing, I guess this happens every time you add to your knowledge, it opens new worlds and new horizons.

5). I've learned that I'm actually living a well being life without giving it a name, I'm proud to realise that at an early age I made sound judgments that have paid off.

6). I've learned that giving back to society is not a charity, it's a duty, so it must be consistent and organized, led by knowledge, loyalty.

7). I've learned that mass corporate policies, shape our understanding of write and wrong, they are based on devious manipulation of predictable basic human reaction, to benefit the isolated few in the high ranks of the corporate driven society, hence the desire to create need in the consumer, in the long run it harmed the community, making the rich, more rich and the poor more poor.
Finally the corporate high ranks have accepted to own 100% of the responsibility for any consequences of what they do, intended or not.

8). environmental protection is not something new, it's a major focus in all industries, deliberately overlooked, due to customer convenience became increasingly more important.

9). I've learned that mankind is a complex creature, cannot make up his mind, one day he wants one thing , risking everything, knowing the consequences, then spends the next 100 years clearing his own mess.

10). I've learned through coming in close contact with the vulnerable, the elders, children and animals that life was meant to be enjoyable, through well being, those who are unhappy are so, because they're consumed in the well having life trend, keeping up with the Joneses.

I've learned ... you don't have to go with the flow ...

Be yourself ... no matter what they say

; )

Advertising

In order to understand what the advertising industry is today, it is helpful to appreciate where it has come from.
Advertising is a business, the commercial processes involved in promoting, selling and distributing a message issued in behalf of some product, cause, idea, person or institution, "the packaging of new ideas". drawing notice through various media achieved by the spreading of such information to arouse acceptance of public attention

bit of history

Advertising as a discrete form is generally agreed to have begun with newspapers, in the seventeenth century, which included line or classified advertising. Simple descriptions, plus prices, of products served their purpose until the late nineteenth century, when technological advances meant that illustrations culd be added to advertising, and colour was also an option.
The history of western advertising dates back at least the 1630s, when Frenchman Théophraste Renaudot placed the first advertising notes in La Gazette de France
in 1704 the first documented newspaper advertisement, an announcement seeking a buyer for an Oyster Bay, Long Island, estate, is published in the Boston News-Letter. And in 1729 Benjamin Franklin begins publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette in Philadelphia, which includes pages of "new advertisements."
In 1742 Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine prints the first American magazine ads.







An early advertising success story is that of Pears Soap. Thomas Barratt married into the famous soap making family and realised that they needed to be more aggressive about pushing their products if they were to survive. He launched the series of ads featuring cherubic children which firmly welded the brand to the values it still holds today. he took images considered as "fine art" and used them to connote his brand's quality, purity (ie untainted by commercialism) and simplicity (cherubic children). He is often referred to as the father of modern advertising.








It was not until the emergence of advertising agencies in the latter part of the nineteenth century that advertising became a fully fledged institution, the term "advertising agency" originated in 1842, when Volney B. Palmer opened for business in Philadelphia. Widely accepted as the birth of modern advertising, this marks the beginning of a creative industry that has radically transformed our culture and language, with its own ways of working and creative values.
Advertising agencies were a response to an increasingly crowded marketplace, where manufacturers were realising that promotion of their products was vital if they were to survive. They sold themselves as experts in communication to their clients - who were then left to get on with the business of manufacturing.





World War I saw some important advances in advertising as governments on all sides used ads as propaganda. The British used advertising as propaganda to convince its own citizens to fight, and also to persuade the Americans to join. No less a political commentator than Hitler concluded (in Mein Kampf) that Germany lost the war because it lost the propaganda battle: he did not make the same mistake when it was his turn. One of the other consequences of World War I was the increased mechanisation of industry - and hence increased costs which had to be paid for somehow: hence the desire to create need in the consumer which begins to dominate advertising from the 1920s onward.





Advertising quickly took advantage of the new mass media of the first part of the twentieth century, using cinema, and to a much greater extent, radio, to transmit commercial messages. This was beginning to show signs of working effectively in the 1920s but the Wall St crash put an end to widespread affluence, and the Great Depression and World War Two meant that it was not really until the 1950s that consumers had enough disposable income to really respond to the need creation message of advertisers.

The 1950s not only brought postwar affluence to the average citizen but whole new glut of material goods for which need had to be created. Not least of these was the television set, it quickly became the hottest consumer property, no home could be without one.
And where the TV sets went, the advertisers followed, spilling fantasies about better living through buying across the hearthrug in millions of homes.
The UK and Europe, with government controlled broadcasting, were a decade or so behind America in allowing commercial TV stations to take to the air, and still have tighter controls on sponsorship and the amount of editorial control advertisers can have in a programme.



Unhappy with the ethical compromise of the single-sponsor show, NBC executive Sylvester Weaver came up with the idea of selling not whole shows to advertisers, but separate, small blocks of broadcast time. Several different advertisers could buy time within one show, and therefore the content of the show would move out of the control of a single advertiser, rather like a print magazine. This became known as the magazine concept, or participation advertising, as it allowed a whole variety of advertisers to access the audience of a single TV show. Thus the 'commercial break' as we know it was born.



NBC executive Sylvester Weaver, He is remembered for supporting the idea that commercial television could educate as well as entertain



Advertising has always played in immense role in our society. Without advertising, the average consumer would not be able to be know what to buy. They would have nothing in their home, because no one told them to buy anything. It has become fact that advertising affects our daily lives everyday.
In 1915, a person could go entire weeks without observing an ad. The average adult today sees some three thousand every day. This study is based on the Circuit City advertisement for their newly priced high definition plasma televisions. There are six televisions on the advertisement along with every television playing the new released Star Wars Episode III. Every advertisement should be analyzed with great detail, which is what this study includes. Included is a complete analysis of the prices of the television, the incorporation of the newly released Star Wars film, and the “weasel words” that promote the purchase of the new home entertainment system.



The consumers need to be entertained by television, newspaper, and internet has launched a new type of advertising. Advertisers are beginning to use famous entertainers in their advertisements so that people pay attention to them. Almost every advertisement that is seen today has somebody that the consumer will recognize. Whether it be a movie star, a comedian, athlete, or a reality television star, the advertiser will make sure that a percentage of the viewing audience knows that person. Not only do they attract our attention with the use of somebody famous, they also attract our trust. By seeing this person on television all the time and especially if you like this person, you feel comfortable with the product almost immediately without even knowing what it is or does.

People in advertising spend a lot of their time dealing with ethical choices. Because ads are made of choices: What to show ... and what not to show. What to say ... and how to say it. Who to put in the ad ... and who not to.
Let's start with Truth in Advertising. Telling the truth seems like a pretty basic ethical standard. But as any Philosophy major can tell you, there's Truth ... and then there's Truth.
Which raises the question: What can you legitimately simulate to illustrate the truth? Before you answer, "Nothing!" ask yourself if a higher purpose would be served if Pampers commercial showed the real thing instead of that fake blue water.

Sometimes there's a difference between the pure truth and the useful truth.

Something marketers are beginning to realize is that how a brand actually behaves counts more than what they say, This is good news. Advertising copywriters used to have a monopoly on telling a brand's story. Now, thanks to the Internet, the most influential voices in advertising are ours ( the consumers ): We hear about a product, the first thing we do is go online and see what our peers ( other users ) are saying about it.
So advertisers tell the truth, but not always the whole truth. ( We want to put our clients in the best light, McDonalds doesn't advertise the calorie count for Big Macs, but they make it easy to find out ). Most people don't want to know.
On the other hand, drug makers have to to spell out side-effects because the information can mean life or death.
Advertisers know this. Ads for reputable companies almost never lie. The cost of being caught out is simply too high. It can take years to undo the damage. Also, the people inside the company want to be able to look at themselves in the mirror. We often think of business people as belonging to some other, vaguely malevolent species, but remember that most of them are you and me ( consumers ) in a few years.

How much of the truth we owe to others is an ethical question. In practice, the answer depends on who they are and what's at stake, Obviously, advertising practices are relative, the courts of law have the same problem in defining obscenity.
So here's a pop quiz: Is the world better served by an advertiser that universally acts according to its own corporate conscience...? Or an advertiser that unfailingly respects the social mores of its audiences?The brands we respond to most are a little bit like clubs, where only "we" get it, (whoever "we" are). Shared experiences and inside jokes make us feel like insiders. But does the advertiser have an ethical responsibility to the larger community: to outsiders who might see the ad by mistake and find it hurtful?

different people react differently.

Truly Ethical living, with a capital E, requires more than honesty, fairness, decency, and even right action. It requires owning 100% of the responsibility for any consequences of what we do, intended or not.

It takes a brave advertiser to swim against the cultural tide. Dove did it and caused a sensation, Dove is succeeding by challenging convential ideas of beauty that advertising helped to create.











Advertising online

The Internet changes everything, it's an interactive market, challenging the ethics of advertisers more than mass media, like television. Because it is more democratic and more private. Only big companies can afford million-dollar ads; and it's hard to get away with much when 10 million people are watching you on TV. In a very real way, the audience serves as the Conscience of the marketer. But a website or a podcast is free to reflect or incite the passions of a much narrower community.
The one-to-one world of the Web is very different than the one-to-many world of broadcast advertising. The Internet is ethically agnostic. Which makes our ethics more important. We have to tools to communicate as we wish.
We are the conscience of your organizations.

D.P.B. Second Book Cut Outs

Through this experiment, I managed to improve the city layer and palace layer proportions, putting in mind the size of a (6-8) year old hands.
And adapted the triangle supporting method for the figures, which is a success.

D.P.B. First Book Cut Outs

When I first presented my idea of dressing up paper dolls, which I enjoyed As a child, an application, where a child is taking part in an interactive fun educational method, introducing children to historical heroes from passed civilizations from Mesopotamia
The feedback I got from my course leader, that it's not interesting.
It struck me that boys will not like this interactive book, so I need to shift to a different unisex application, interesting to girls and boys.
Visit to an Assyrian Palace, my new solution is a cut out educational book, reviving culture through art, all the pages include parts of a final desk top, stand up layered scene, for children (6 - 8) years old

The first layer is The Assyrian city skyline, the next layer is an indoor image of an Assyrian Palace, the scene will be completed with figures ( cut out and colored ) of people who live and visit the palace



Through this first dummy, I've found that the method used to support the figures is a flop. will look for a more practical method that will support the figures and is simple enough for a 6 - 8 year old

Business for Design .. Final Nab3a Brand

Business for Design Nab3a Branding Logo

To build my logo design as a form, an icon which is also a word, I decided to dismantle the Arabic calligraphic letters, and use a neutral unit or motif, I've found that the letters ( C c , U u , D AND 3 ) in typography have allot of potential in creating calligraphy.

I used The letter C like Abric or piece of Lego, on it's own it has no meaning or effect, but it's position and relation with the next one and the one after will create a form, an icon for other cultures, and a word in Arabic for my company.

It represents me to I go with Arabic

Business for Design .. Nab3a Brand

I chose Nab'a as a name for my compani

In Arabic it's the feminine of the source
my company is the source of hand made arts
I have a soft spot for this name , because it's also the name of my late aunt who passed away at the age of four,so I want her to live through her name brought back ti life.

Business for Design Branding Theam

When I first started my companies identity theme, why do I want my company to carry this mane ?. I went down two paths:

Nab'a:

In Arabic it's the feminine of the source
my company is the source of hand made arts

Deim:

In Arabic it means the land that is cultivated, then wights rain, there's no water source near by.
The meaning is in he principle,of making the effort, working hard, going all the whey and having faith that it will bear fruit.

D.P.B : Researching pop up cardboard theatre

Before kids had Mp3 players and PlayStations, they found many of their adventures in books. Now that some of the consumerism of the 21st century has been stripped away by the Credit Crunch, books are still here to enrich children’s lives: inexpensive, imagination-firing brain food and a doddle to wrap!

By exploring more into the world of (pop up/ cut out) interactive books for children, it has shown me how effective the different heights and color palettes of the layers can add to the attraction to the final product of a cut out theatrical scene

Crtical Debate in Design: Product packaging

History of Packaging

The earliest packaging solutions appeared at least 9,000 years ago, when people began using baskets, bowls and animal hides to wrap and contain their goods. Soon afterward came the invention of clay pots, which, when buried in the soil, afforded improved product storage.
Paper may be the oldest form of what today is referred to as "flexible packaging." Sheets of treated mulberry bark were used by the Chinese to wrap foods as early as the First or Second century B.C. During the next fifteen hundred years, the paper_making technique was refined and transported to the Middle East, then Europe and finally into the United Kingdom in 1310.


The first commercial cardboard box was produced in England in 1817, more than two hundred years after the Chinese invented cardboard. Corrugated paper appeared in the 1850s; about 1900, shipping cartons of faced corrugated paperboard began to replace self_made wooden crates and boxes used for trade.
Corrugated (also called pleated) paper was patented in England in 1856, and used as a liner for tall hats, but corrugated boxboard would not be patented and used as a shipping material until December 20, 1871
Over the millennia, people gradually discovered new packaging technologies - such as glass, kerchiefs, sacks, boxes and barrels.



The function of packaging has changed markedly over the years. In the beginning, it fulfilled two main functions - transportation and storage. The ordinary paper bag, among the oldest and most enduring of all packages, continues to fulfil the same straightforward purpose - in helping consumers carry goods home from the marketplace. As with any package, the effectiveness of the paper bag stems from three main characteristics: It is made from long-lasting material, helps protect contents in transit and saves space.



Modern retailing practices demand increasingly sophisticated packaging solutions. Product manufacturers need value-added packaging that promotes sales by providing pleasing, eye-catching aesthetics and important consumer information. Packaging also plays an essential role in product branding – by communicating ideas, values, and life styles. Packaging is essential to differentiating products and making them unique.

The Growing Importance of Design

Creative design in product packaging became a major commercial art during the 20th Century. The modern supermarket emerged in the United States in the years following World War Two and quickly spread to other continents. By offering a wide selection of brands and self-service, it fostered packaging that helped to sell the product by combining product promotion with consumer information. The first literature devoted to product packaging, The Modern Packaging Encyclopedia, 1946-47, was published just before mid-century, and the number of packaging exhibitions and competitions has grown steadily ever since.


The Birth of Branding

During the 19th Century, as producers encountered growing competition in selling their wares, some began to differentiate their products in order to attract customer attention and build loyalty. The art of branding was born.
One rather recent development in packaging is the labeling of the product with the company name and contents information. Official trademarks were pioneered in 1866 by Smith Brothers for their cough drops marketed in large glass jars. This was a new idea _ using the package to "brand" a product for the benefit of the consumer. In 1870, the first registered U.S. trademark was awarded to the Eagle_Arwill Chemical Paint Company.




Convenience as a Competitive Advantage

While environmental protection remains a major focus of product packaging, customer convenience became increasingly important from the 1990s onward. Research shows that two-thirds of all purchasing decisions are made at the point of sale and that customers willingly pay more for added convenience.

Future Packaging Trends

In the future, sophisticated packaging will help products stand out through the use of shape, color, surface and texture, it will be multifunctional, convenient and entertaining. It will keep products warm or cold, change colors and shapes and offer useful enclosures. It will be recyclable, edible, refillable and re-useable - as a toy or a storage box, for instance.
Innovative packaging design is a powerful instrument for positioning products, differentiating them and increasing their value to consumers. It will remain indispensable to marketing high-quality consumer goods.



On 13 March 2008, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, announced the 2008 Budget, which says it includes “[...] measures aimed at tackling climate change.”
nitially, encouraged that the government is a least listening to the public acknowledgment, that action needs to be taken to tackle climate change, One of the budget actions, to [potentially] charge for plastic carrier bags,the Daily Mail Newspaper did launch a BAN THE BAG campaign [pictured above], so maybe just maybe such media campaigns are our only hope in helping the public see the reality.
he Netherlands and Sweden top for environmental waste management, with 20 per cent of waste being recycled and the remaining incinerated to provide energy that is pumped back into the national grid. Denmark and Germany are close with an impressive 35 per cent recycling rate and 65 per cent burned for energy.
In contrast is the UK, with a 27 per cent recycling rate and 10 per cent burned to create energy, with over 60 per cent (or 16.9 million tonnes) going to landfill sites. Considering methane – a by-product of decomposing waste at landfill sites – is widely regarded as a bigger contributor to greenhouse gases than CO2, it’s a shocking indicator of how far behind the UK is in terms of waste management.



From the most minimal – like greaseproof paper covering speciality cheeses in Waitrose – to complex structural packaging to protect laptops and peripherals from damage and static charges, packaging serves the same purpose (known as the 3 Ps): to Protect, Preserve and Promote the product. Now added pressure from environmental lobbyists and eco-savvy consumers means that packaging must protect more than just its contents – it must do its bit for the planet too.

Of all the design disciplines, packaging design has the worst environmental reputation. Whether it’s an excess of card inserts, heat-sealed blister packs or layers of plastic wrapping, the designer’s desire to get their clients’ products to stand out on supermarket shelves results in swathes of needless waste.

the blame doesn’t lie squarely at the door of the designer. Design groups are absolutely dedicated to sustainability, but they make natural scapegoats.
Unfortunately, this masks a far bigger underlying problem: that the process of waste management – especially in the UK – is a far bigger contributor to environmental damage.
packaging designers can do their bit of responsibility to the environment. Packaging material and manufacturing innovations make it easier now than ever before to switch to a more sustainable model of production. Whether it’s recycled or FSC-accredited paper for labelling, vegetable inks for print or cellulose-based plastics, there’s an abundance of options available for the environmentally conscious packaging designer.
There is no hard and fast rule to developing greener packaging; it tends to be a symbiosis between designer, manufacturer and client. Daylesford Organics – a company dedicated to providing fresh, organic produce direct from its dairy in Gloucestershire – insisted from the start of the design process that the packaging be as environmentally friendly as possible. Together with EcoLean and Teresa Roviras, its signature milk jug packaging is more energy efficient to manufacture, 100 per cent recyclable, and retains a premium feel. The resulting design netted Roviras her second D&AD Silver Award and yellow pencil in 2006.

Another design started with EcoLean, a Swedish company specialising in 100 per cent recyclable packaging. The EcoLean jug is made from calcium carbonate (chalk) and a polymer to bind the chalk together to make a strong yet supple sheet plastic. The manufacture process is much more energy efficient, cutting CO2, and the end product weighs far less than rival cartons or bottles, making distribution more environmentally sound.







manufacturers are reaping the benefits of a sustainable source of raw materials. Large packaging manufacturers are increasingly working to attain Government accreditations from the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) and ISO 14001. This means that many mainstream products now use packaging from a sustainable source, or use printers that work hard to improve energy efficiency. For example, Benson Box Ltd and Nampak cartons are two FSC-accredited box-based packaging manufacturers that supply packaging for Nestlé cereals, Easter egg cartons and many other Fast Moving Consumer Goods.