Who We Are
We are a small group of talented designers and communicators who are tuning into the change happening in the world today. We are currently facing exciting opportunities to integrate our lives as never before, exploring new paradigms in how business operates and how we relate as communities, from local to global. Among the many changes taking place, there is a call at this time to redefine how business is practiced and purposed, creating more balanced structures which effectively nourish and sustain the participants - owners, employees, resource communities, the environment, and customers, even the products and services themselves.
We look to work with and promote businesses and individuals in two distinct areas, innovation and tradition. Currently, there are exciting advancements in product design, technological innovations, and social reform. The value of tradition is equally inspiring in the work of craftspeople, artisans, and artists. Consciously woven together, these two fields provide us with the resources to build a more beautiful and balanced world.
Powerful Communication
The Basics
Recognizing the interconnectedness of all things, we are excited about creating higher levels of integration in the world today. More than ever, we are faced with the results of our actions and the opportunities to find healthier and more responsible and responsive ways of living in the world. One of the most important questions in any design is "Does this benefit the whole?"
Material Choices - The materials and techniques used to support our creative strategies are conscientiously chosen for each product’s life cycle: how it’s made, what it’s made of, where it’s produced, and where is it going.
Conscious Strategies - Recognizing the need for higher, more natural levels of integration in the projects we undertake, we look at how to embody these principles within a particular project, whether it be a web site, a marketing campaign, or business identity design. By starting here, we ensure that the finished product successfully integrates these principles with the creative needs of our clients.
Our Practices
Wind Power:
We invest in wind power as a means of offsetting our "carbon footprint." What does this mean? Every day we use energy to power our business. This energy is currently only available through our local energy company, Excel Energy and comes from "dirty" sources meaning coal burning power plants. The main problem with coal burning power plants is their emission of CO2 which is one of the major contributing factors to global warming. They also produce other forms of pollution such as particulates, residual solid wastes, and gases other than CO2. While Excel does offer a "windsource" program, they make no guarantees and offer no information as to what resources are supplying a consumer's energy use under the program. So, under Excel's windsource program, we may be using 100% wind power, or we may be using 10% wind power and 90% coal burning "dirty" energy.
After doing a considerable amount of research of the options available to us, we decided that Native Energy's Windbuilder's program was the most responsible choice, allowing us to contribute directly to the manufacture of new wind farms and bypassing the commodities market that has developed around Renewable Energy Credits (RECs). Native energy does a great job of explaining why carbon offsetting is important on their web site http://www.nativeenergy.com/
Commuting:
Of our four employees, we have two that bike to work everyday, one who walks, and the fourth takes the bus for a 20 minute commute. We are proud to have such a minimal footprint around gas usage and are excited about purchasing an electric vehicle for around town business necessities.
Design Resources:
Web: For our client's we have a number of clean powered web hosting solutions. We are currently offsetting our own site usage through Native Energy and are in the process of switching to a wind powered web hosting company.
Print: We currently offer printing on 100% FSC certified recycled stocks and are researching other materials available such as Teraskin's stone paper which is composed of mineral powder and non toxic resin, incurs no water pollutants in the manufacturing process, can be safely incinerated, and is biodegradable. This paper also uses less ink for printing than regular paper. We are also currently delving into the work of William McDonough (http://www.mcdonough.com/), author of the book Cradle to Cradle (a must read), in order to more deeply understand product lifecycle thinking.
