Systems Thinking for the Graphic Designer 101:
A Toolkit for Making Positive Impact
The planet and humanity needs designers to change the way they make things. This was the astutely accurate thesis from the 2002 book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart.
Their book changed my life. I had for some time wondered what negative impacts all the printed ephemera I designed had on our natural environment. I worried about deforestation, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). It wasn’t until after reading their book that I was fully aware of the negative environmental and social impacts the designer created. I was confused and frustrated. I quit my job, went to graduate school, started the non-profit Re-nourish, and even gave a TEDx talk about it.
That was from 2004–2006. In 2017, my partner and I decided we had more to offer to the design community and wrote the book Design to Renourish: Sustainable Graphic Design in Practice. There we proposed a revolutionary systems thinking design process for the graphic designer. (You can read an excerpt here).
It is a four step process that utilizes existing human centered design (HCD) and design thinking methods, but is starkly different as it asks you to look at all the potential triple bottom line connections and…
