How can graphic designers tackle the climate crisis?

The prevailing climate crisis stands as an unparalleled global emergency, necessitating a conscientious response from graphic designers. With their unique creative skills, designers bear a profound responsibility to contribute to climate action. The current landscape of professional design remains predominantly oriented toward the selling of products, many of which are either superfluous or composed of materials that have a negative impact our already fragile planet.

In 2021, Purpose Disruptors, a cohort of advertising insiders committed to combatting climate change, calculated that the UK advertising industry, in 2019 alone, was responsible for emitting over 186 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. This startling revelation translates into an additional 28% burden on the annual carbon footprint of each individual in the UK (Purpose Disruptors, 2021). While similar statistics for the graphic design industry are not yet available, it is reasonable to infer that the industry, which is significantly enmeshed with advertising, is substantially contributing to the escalating climate crisis.

In his 1972 book "Design For The Real World," Victor Papanek proposes constant activist behaviour for professionals in their design practice to avoid producing excessive and useless products (Ibid.). Papanek’s most significant demand is that designers should be advocates for users (Papanek, 1927) instead of working to accumulate wealth or fame, and he calls for designers to face reality and act for social concerns and humanitarian effort. Papanek claims that the designer must understand and anticipate their design’s consequences for politics, health, income, and the biosphere (Papanek, 1927).

Although designers must be aware of the excess products they may create, it is equally crucial that they recognise how they can use design to change the minds of consumers. Designer and researcher Jorge Frascara state in his essay "Graphic design: fine art or social science?" that graphic design aims to change attitudes and thus behaviour in its audience (Frascara 2006). There are many ways designers can tackle the climate crisis, and it is not necessarily about making objects that are able to address the problem physically.

Graphic designers are valued for their problem-solving skills, and both designers and the clients they serve are increasingly expected to consider issues of sustainability and take responsibility for the impacts of the products and systems they create (Dritz). Convincing designers to bring their natural strength as creative makers and thinkers to work alongside natural and social scientists would be beneficial to tackling the climate crisis.

Who graphic designers work for is also important. Senior designer at Supple Studio, Katie Cadwell, says that given the scale of climate change, designers today have a moral obligation to be pickier about which clients they work with, adding that working with someone is endorsing them. If all designers decided to only work with people who are benefiting the planet, then the best-looking brands on the shelves would also be the ones with an eye on our future (Dritz). Designers should be using their talents for good.

In an interview, Tessa Simpson, a designer at studio O Street, talks about how it is a core part of graphic design to make information digestible and pleasing to the eye. Simpson explains that there’s a lot of data out there about the impact of climate change, and now more than ever (Dawood, 2019). Simpson argues that data needs to be packaged up, branded, and communicated to the masses (Ibid.).

Climate activism looks vastly different than it did ten years ago. New design languages have evolved, spurred on by the urgency of the climate crisis and seeking to spread the message as quickly as possible. A quick scroll through Instagram shows climate resources in pastel tones with heavy serifs alongside graphics from Extinction Rebellion. Activist messaging spreads more quickly when complex issues are expressed in a clear, visually pleasing way. In what seems like an act of subversion, many activist groups are adopting design strategies generally reserved for large corporations.

In the last five years, one of the main tools for raising awareness about the climate crisis and climate activism has been accessible design, mobilising people in greater numbers. For example, Extinction Rebellion creates branded protest materials set in their own custom typeface alongside their simple logo, all of which are available to download for free on their website, allowing their members to be instantly recognisable.

Access to free design applications and free marketing tools such as Instagram have made it simpler to spread messages quickly and without barriers to access such as cost. Dense infographics and scary photos of forest fires and droughts do little to raise awareness of such an immediate issue. Using design to tell stories is much more effective and helps consumers be reminded of their natural life relationship with their surroundings.

In an interview, Seetal Solanki from studio Ma-tt-er says that design is all about relatability and accessibility. It’s about getting people to feel like they can be part of something and for it not to feel like it’s too aspirational (Morley, 2021), and freelance illustrator Ben Tallon says that graphic designers should avoid the temptation to be visually angry and preachy, and instead try to be clever, subtle, and original in sharing facts that make for difficult reading (Dawood, 2019) by working alongside scientists and environmental specialists.

Reflecting on this essay, it becomes apparent that the role of graphic designers in addressing the climate crisis extends beyond aesthetics and marketing. Grappling with the scale of the challenge, I arrived at the realisation that the work of graphic designers will be important in the collective effort against climate change. The inherently daunting and data-dense nature of the climate crisis demands that designers distill complex information into accessible forms for the wider public. However, it has also reaffirmed to me that the ultimate solution demands a paradigm shift at a policy level, with politicians being held accountable for the wider systemic changes necessary to mitigate the climate crisis.