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No Remorse
by Wendy Jedlicka, CPP
Jedlicka Design, Ltd.
Every Thursday when I’d come by for our standing lunch get-together, Nana would have a new package or product to show me -- either something she bought herself, or something one of the other ladies in her senior complex would bring by.
At first I though it was just my Nana being inquisitive, taking advantage of my knowledge as a packaging designer, or looking to vent frustration all of us consumers feel when products or packages present more obstacles to use than the end thing delivers. But then I realized, I had become the vehicle through which a whole community of otherwise faceless shoppers were reaching out to get an answer to the question “Why did you do it this way?”.
Nana didn’t seem to be bothered when I’d have to keep saying, “I don’t work on that account” each week. She’d just reply sweetly, “That’s okay, maybe you’ll run into that designer at a conference”.
One day while updating a package for a floppy disk making client, I reached for the product and the whole bottom portion of the box slipped out of my hand, scattering diskettes all over my office floor. On all fours, scrabbling franticly under my desk to gather-up the disks before they collected too much dust (that would end-up inside my computer), I could hear Nana’s voice saying “Why did you do it this way?”
Why indeed? If -- my -- user experience was less than a happy one with this product, the 3 million of these I had just unleashed on to the world would be equally as unhappy. Was that good for the brand? Could the cost of this two-piece box be justified? And in a market that was fast moving to commodity pricing, what had these design choices done to the health of the company?
In the pantheon of epiphanies, this moment could not be heralded as an earth shaker, but for me it changed my life. From that point on, I wanted to have a real answer for the things I did -- I never again wanted to have to apologize for my work.
As I began to look around for information on how to do things in a better way, I started to look long and hard at my industry. Packaging is a full third of the wastestream. Whole forests are cut down to make packaging that carries a product briefly and then goes right to the landfill or incinerator. We drill for, pollute eco-systems, and expend great energy to manufacture packaging (or products) made from precious resources like oil or metals -- then toss them away after one use. And the list goes on, from one substrate to the next.
As I dug deeper I found there was a way to do the things I needed to do, create packaging that the clients actually needed (vs. thought they needed), and still provide a sound solution that went past getting product A to point B -- Sustainability and Systems Thinking.
“Sustainability? That’s that greeny thing right?” -- a comment I hear a TON from the designosaur crowd, but this time coming from an engineer in a meeting I was in. My response every time (my colleagues and regular readers will recognize this immediately): “Green? If you mean money, yeah. If you mean green like all squishy, Kombya -- hardly. It’s about creating a solution that will let the customer feel good about their product choices -- reinforcing brand loyalty, by keeping the buyer and eliminating the remorse. It’s about making products from recycled materials (or annual crops) that are then actually recycled. It’s about creating solutions that do what they’re supposed to do -- serving all stakeholders. It’s about making products that don’t make us sick to produce, own, or dispose of. It’s about restoring -- putting back resources we’ve just been blasting through. And it’s not about making more things, but creating systems and solutions that are long term and forward thinking.”
Every time I say these last words, I could envision Nana glaring at the designosaur de jour for being one of the people that made stuff that gave her such trouble. “You want to know what Sustainability really is?” I go on, “Sustainability means never having to say you’re sorry.”
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Wendy Jedlicka, CPP -- President Jedlicka Design Ltd. (jedlicka.com), is chapter chair for o2-USA/Upper Midwest and liaison for the o2 Global Green Design Network (o2.org), and packaging and economics faculty for Minneapolis College of Art and Design’s ground breaking Sustainable Design Certificate Program (online.mcad.edu).
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