Sustainable design meets sustainable vote

Published Feb 05 2010, 05:58 PM by webteam

As a designer you might think this is an easy profession in which to practice green-like living, but it's not as easy you might think. There are hardly any resources out there that help illustrators like me find answers to their sustainable design questions. But a new site has changed all that, re-nourish.com helps fill a massive void by providing accessible and reliable sustainable design information. Eric Benson, Yvette Perullo, and Jess Sand, all designers in their own right, launched the site with a mutual interest to help make sustainable design what design is, not merely what it "could be."

The site offers a variety of cool interactive tools. Any cost-conscious designer will appreciate the 'Project Calculator' that allows users to calculate materials and cost savings quickly. There's even a 'Paper Finder' tool and guides to greener print design, packaging design, and digital design.

Seeing as they are helping me out to be more green, I figure I'll help them out and plug the contest their in. Pepsi is giving away millions in grants each month to fund ideas that will have a positive impact. Re-nourish is eligible under the 'Planet' category for a $50,000 grant if they finish in the top ten at the end of the month. Visitors can vote once a day every day during the month of February to help Re-nourish empower the next generation of sustainable designers around the globe! You can vote here: //www.refresheverything.com/renourish.

Perullo, an adjunct professor at the New England School of Graphic Design at Suffolk University, describes how the Pepsi grant would help expand Re-nourish: "So far this has been a labor of love, but to really reach the students, educators, and working designers out there, winning this grant would help us do just that."

-- Kevin Banks