DesignersForClimate Newsletter


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Dear creatives & designers 🎨👩‍💻

This week has been very productive with onboarding some members and preparing a project proposal on circular economy.

If you are interested in joining or supporting any of our projects, please reach out to the project managers 🙌

We hope you had a nice and relaxing weekend! Enjoy your Sunday and catch up on current climate events with our recommended articles and our Lunch & Learn discussion below. Stay safe and please don't forget to wear a mask (and throw it away once you're done with it) 😷❤️

UPDATE ON PROJECTS

Act For Climate

This week's focus has been on preparing a project proposal for the No Waste Challenge on circular economy. The team had a first brainstorm session and decided that for this proposal, they want to focus on the "bigger picture". Nature itself, as a closed system, is basically circular, so why aren't we? We are also very lucky to have two people from the fashion industry on the team who can provide the team with some valuable insights into supply chains etc.

Also, check out this short gif we created with some snapshots on the art style and team 🥰

If you'd like to contribute to this project, please reach out to Liz!

Team Lead: Liz Parsons

Team Members: Pieter Vanrdomme, Line de Carné , Dilara Arslan, Angela Wyss, Wes Corman and Sarah Schwesig

Team Meeting: Every Monday

Climate Dictionary

The Climate Dictionary project team has started work on its branding and has been collecting some ideas and inspiration for its art style. Basically, the project is supposed to offer a playful way of reframing the debate abound the Climate Crisis, starting with capitalising the words Climate Crisis and Nature. The team was inspired by the AP's decision to capitalise the words Black and Indigenous to stress "the the need to be inclusive and respectful in our storytelling and the evolution of language."

If you'd like to contribute to this project, please reach out to Dilara!

Team Lead: Dilara Arslan

Team Members: Claire Chéry, Pieter Vandromme, Sofia Elisabeth Ratzinger

Emojis For Climate

The team is on a short hiatus. They are waiting for the new project call in April to figure out how to continue from there, as Unicode will change its submission process.

Curious to see what they have come up with so far? Here is a summary of this week's presentation! We're curious to know what you think about them!

If you'd like to contribute to this project, please reach out to Juliette!

Team Lead: Juliette Lukacs

Team Members: Claire Chéry, Line de Carné, Pieter Vandromme

Team Meeting: Every Monday evening

Data Sketchers

The Data Sketchers have found a new illustrator to help with implementing the many ideas the team has! We are really curious to see what new beautiful and informative illustrations the team comes up with and how they can take their project to the next level 💯

If you'd like to contribute to this project, please reach out to Line!

Team Lead: Line De Carné

Team Members: Pieter Vandromme, Liz Parsosns

LUNCH AND LEARN

Solar Punk

This week, we discussed the idea of Solar Punk which is about rebellion, counter culture, declonialism, anticapitalism. It is also deeply connected with Afrofuturism which concentrates on humans' connection to Nature and how to harmonise Nature and culture.

Everybody assumes the future will be dystopian and we asked ourselves why? Surely, movies like Blade Runner or Mad Max contribute to this perception - their compelling storytelling and art style makes us dream of our future role as an e.g. cyber punk badass. How can we use these methods to show people that rebelling against the current system and being part of a collective, global counter movement is in fact, much more badass than trying to survive and fight corruption on an already destroyed planet as a lone wolf?

In short, we like the idea of positive affirmation that Solar Punk implies. Just like putting filters on pictures of yourself to make yourself look better can actually make you feel better about yourself, we believe that creating positive and inspiring images of the future can keep us motivated to continue our fight for a fair and green society!

INTERESTING READS AND OTHER CONTENT

Circular Economy

As part of the research for the No Waste Challenge, the wider network has been doing some research on what the expression circular economy means and how we can achieve it. We need to learn to respect the closed dynamic of the earth's systems and build systems with Nature itself as our template.

Also, our current system is not only destructive to the environment - our technology boom violates human rights and creates miserable working conditions for miners who extract the raw materials needed for our phones etc.

Some of our members will be attending an event on the future of fashion as part of XR Germany's week on Fashion Action. Maybe there's also an event that interests you?

Climate Crisis & the arts

Art has an important role in communicating the urgency of the Climate Crisis - art is the mirror to our soul and can prompt feelings of empathy and a deep understanding and nuanced perception of the world around us.

We came across this project where artists translate scientific findings and other climate-related topics into stunning and moving pictures. We were also deeply moved by the works of Nikkolas Smith, an artist who calls himself an "artivist", and his depictions of the Black Lives Matter movement and the "unfinished" paintings of the Black lives lost to police brutality.

And slightly off-topic: you need to check out this article and stunning animations and stunning animations about how the Climate Crisis is affecting our oceans and their complex systems!

Food and Climate

An interesting Bloomberg article: "Food waste and loss are responsible for as much as 10% of global emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. If it were a country, this discard would rank third in the ranking of the world’s sources of greenhouse gases, after China and the U.S. Among the most effective climate solutions, non-profit Project Drawdown ranks cutting food waste ahead of moving to electric cars and switching to plant-based diets."

And an inspiring project in Atlanta: A forest with free food! 😋 🍓🥬 🌶️

And in other news...

...well, you'd best check the news or any of the amazing and very informative media outlets for news on climate policy, science and negotiations like the Carbon Brief or Climate Home.

While we think it's important to know what's going on in the world and want to help you contextualise important issues, we want to focus more on positive and inspiring ideas at Designers For Climate otherwise we'll end up with eco-anxiety and so will you if you! We need to keep going and stay strong! 💪 🌞

Designers for Climate

hello@designersforclimate.net
Alfred-Jung-Str 1, Berlin
Germany

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