I just got back from a visit to the Potrero Hill Public Library to check out some seeds from the new San Francisco Seed Library. It was the nerdy highlight of my day. The renovated public library just turned year old and it’s beautiful. It’s a cozy space with two floors of books, and has huge windows with sweeping views of the city. I lived in the neighborhood during design school and would’ve loved to have had this library back then. It’s a great addition to the neighborhood. I talked to Lia, the branch manager, while deciding which seeds to get. She told me the Seed Library itself is a pilot program, run by volunteers from TransitionSF, SF Public Library Green Stacks Program and the Permaculture Guild (more about the guild & the class I’m taking in my next post!). It’s not quite self serve yet because they don’t have enough room, so Lia and her staff have drawers behind the second floor information desk dedicated to seeds. They provide you a form to check off what you want, then they retrieve seeds from drawers, give you little envelopes to put your seeds in, and then you go to the website to register what you’re taking (and later, what you are donating back). Lia was also really helpful in advising me which varieties of beans and peas might fair best on my foggy hill. The Potrero branch got lucky to launch this pilot program because Lia spearheaded the teaching garden at the Mission branch and wanted to be involved in this, too. Let’s hope I have better luck with the beans this year. Last year I only got 2 beans total. Today, my final seed check out was: scarlet runner beans, telephone pole peas, red romaine lettuce, oregano, thyme, and dill. ¡Buen provecho!

Compostmodern
An annual 2 day conference presented by AIGA San Francisco, Compostmodern is an interdisciplinary design conference dedicated to transforming products, industries and lives through sustainable design choices. Day 1 is your traditional line up of speakers, and Day 2 is structured as an un-conference as a chance to brainstorm in self directed groups. Highlights included Debera Johnson, Founder of the Pratt Design Incubator; Kate Daughdril, Founder of SOUP; Dan Phillips, Founder of The Phoenix Commotion; and Lisa Gansky, Author of the Mesh. Check out some of the videos here.

New Bohemian Signs
I realized that I’ve been subconsciously noticing various signs and sidewalk sandwich boards around town that have a great hand painted aesthetic, yet didn’t quite put the pieced together until I saw the postcard for an art opening featuring New Bohemian Signs. Turns out that all these lovely merchant signs were hand painted by this crew. The opening show was jam packed.

San Francisco City Planning Commission Meeting
I attended my first City Hall public planning hearing. SFUAA is heading up a proposal for San Francisco to re-zone the city so residents can sell the produce they grow in their yards. Pretty huge for the local food movement, urban homesteaders, and the future of food security. We had a huge turn out of support and no opposition. The Planning Commission was pretty excited about this effort, and expressed how great it was to have an authentic green initiative come across their desk. They voted unanimously to support the urban agriculture zoning proposal as it was introduced without any additional restrictions.

SF EcoTuesday
Sort of a shameless self promo plug here, but a lot of my time lately is dedicated to organizing a monthly networking and lecture series. EcoTuesday was founded 4 years ago by Nikki Pava and has grown to multiple cities. The focus is on bringing business leaders from the very broad field of sustainability to connect with each other. What’s unique about this event is that it includes some casual happy hour networking time, plus a talk presented by an industry thought leader, plus some structured introductions of all the attendees to facilitate making connects with like minded people. I’m pretty proud to be part of this great community.

Business Model Gameference
This one day work shop was pretty fantastic. Based on the book, Business Model Generation, with the author present to guide us through. Met some interesting people, exercised my brain in new ways, and felt both exhausted and energized by the end.

SonicLiving
Last but not least, SonicLiving is one of my current fabulous clients. I’m providing art direction and design for some behind the scenes developments they’ve got up their sleeve. It’s all a top secret startup stuff so I can’t really go into any detail. The nature of the work that I do is typically hush-hush, until it launches. I’ve got 1 other client in the same situation, and a couple more in the queue.

Events Coming Up
Farm Together Now, book reading at Mission Pie
Permaculture Guild, design class
SXSW
SF EcoTuesday March
EG: Fifth Anniversay
Tales of the City, at ACT

A great example of this is our upcoming speaker, Dr. Larry Weiss from San Francisco company CleanWell. Dr. Weiss and business parter Sam DeAth teamed up with IDEO to create CleanWell, a line of healthy hand cleaners to promote healthy habits. Weiss and DeAth had a compelling mission inspired by a personal story and an all-natural product based in science. Using design thinking to build a business, IDEO brought their expertise to craft CleanWell into a meaningful experience and brand. The combination of CleanWell and IDEO has succeeded in connecting people to a brand that goes beyond a product by resonating with our daily choices in a tangible and thoughtful way. Good hand washing habits with a healthy, enjoyable cleaner negate the need for us to expose ourselves and environment to toxic chemicals.

Their collaboration resulted is a line of non-toxic, alchohol-free alternative to hand sanitizers and cleaners, produced cruelty-free and made from sustainably grown ingredients. The packaging is considerate in it’s sharp and simple visual design, including low-tac adhesive for easy removal for minimal branding in the home. IDEO designed the packaging and graphics for CleanWell’s line of spray and toweletts, as well as helped build operational and manufacturing capabilities. IDEO’s expertise comes from an interdisciplinary team including industrial designers, engineers, business specialists, and communications and graphic designers who create “multifaceted experiences that connect people to brands in harmonious, meaningful, and emotional ways.” Four years later, CleanWell can be found in Whole Foods, Rainbow Grocery, Walgreens, Target and many other retail locations. Both Seventh Generation and Method sell products powered by CleanWell technology. Through these partnerships the CleanWell logo itself has become a mark of excellence, representing the highest standard in all-natural cleaning quality. You can read more about the IDEO CleanWell case study here.

In preparation for our event next week, I’ll be visiting Dr. Weiss at the CleanWell office to talk about his keynote and see first hand how much a small, focus team can accomplish. Starting off with a clear mission and fantastic branding has clearly helped keep CleanWell true to it’s passion, “A Better Way to Clean”.

EcoTuesday is a networking event for sustainable business. Every event features a 20 minute keynote by an industry thought-leader, followed by the hallmark “Introduction Circle” where all participants have an opportunity to share about their about passion and find like-minded collaborators. Events take place nationwide on the fourth Tuesday of the month. Please join us at The San Francisco W Hotel at 6:30 pm. $5 with online registration ($10 at the door).

RSVP online for SF EcoTuesday, January 25 at 6:30pm, W Hotel San Francsico

The Power of Us
What to do when your scheduled speaker falls ill and can’t join us? Turn the ‘virtual mic’ on ourselves!

We hope Jurriann feels better soon and we do look forward to rescheduling him for an upcoming talk because we love what Ode Magazine is doing. This spontaneous turn of events actually gave us an opportunity to hear more from each other. And what do you know…we have an amazing community so varied and full of creativity. I was struck with the potential we had in the room that night – we are making it possible to green our homes and businesses through renewable energy, zero waste, supporting the local community, serving sustainable food, having a healthy sense of ourselves, healthy indoor and outdoor environments, and are able to create and sell our own sustainable products. Pretty fantastic! Let’s help spread the word about these folks. Here is a recap of most everyone we heard from:

Albert Hartman / High Tide
High Tide’s products provide on-demand reliable power required for remote geographies, emergency situations, and mass adoption of mobile electronic devices. Check out their bicycle mounted USB charger, RollerGen.

Michael “Merc” Martinelli / Verdafero
Verdafero helps organizations understand, develop, and execute successful sustainability initiatives by  offering consulting and software as a service (SaaS) tools for sustainable business development. Their focus is small and medium enterprises (SME) who want to effectively manage their “Triple Bottom Line” – People / Planet / Profit.

Ingrid Ramsay / Closets Van Go
Closets Van Go and Kitchens Van Go is dedicated to helping you make your home a masterpiece — artistically, affordably and sustainably. They have a mobile showroom and a large variety of green woods and finishes.

Susan Wright / Connect the Dots
Connect the Dots consults exclusively for the nonprofit community to reduce their environmental footprint as they continue to focus on their social missions.

Nicola “Nikki” Ferenz / Gamechanger
GameChanger helps both big and small companies build powerful, breakthrough brands with fast, flexible new approaches to growth and innovation.

Bodhi Vela Cole / Style Consultant
Bodhi believes that everyone’s unique beauty should be celebrated and embraced. Image coaching is a process where your internal world is transcribed into a wardrobe that has you feel your best.

Chris Sofis / Sofistry
Sofisty’s primary service offering is centered on Modern Cabana, an eco-fabulous spare room (think art studio, guest room, kids’ play room, yoga/exercise studio, massage studio, or brand new office space . . . you get the idea) which will fit in the smallest of San Francisco gardens.

David Nuss / Runka
Runka was born from a concern that all of us share in preserving the planet. The site provides options for purchasing both practical and exotic products that promote recycling and the use of sustainable materials.

Linda Delair / EarthSource
EarthSource’s mission is to proliferate the use of FSC-certified, sustainable and environmentally healthy wood products by educating architects, designers, woodworkers and contractors about the cost-efficiency and long-term benefits of specifying such materials for their building plans.

David Callicott / GoodLight
All GoodLight Natural Candles are paraffin-free, non-toxic, clean burning, 100% palm wax that contains no additives or blends, and use cotton wicks containing no lead or zinc or other metals. GoodLight works with the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and GreenPalm organizations pioneering sustainability in palm farming.

Matt Carreira / I Love Blue Sea
I Love Blue Sea sells the largest selection of only sustainable seafood that is sushi-quality fresh at the best prices. The fish is filleted right before it ships to you. The next day it’s delivered to your doorstep in all eco-friendly packaging.

Evan Wynns / The San Francisco Energy Cooperative
The San Francisco Energy Cooperative is a consumer owned cooperative corporation dedicated to providing ownership of renewable energy production to anyone who is interested in investing in our energy future and wishes to have a hand in its growth.

» Please join us for the next event! We meet on the fourth Tuesday of every month, 6:30pm at The Box in San Francisco.

» Are you interested in being a sponsor? Demonstrate your organization’s commitment to sustainability and share about your company to a roomful of engaged, interested sustainable business leaders. You can learn more about becoming a sponsor here. Please contact me to let me know if you are interested.

His point is if your intention is to travel North and you’re driving 100 miles per hour South, you will not solve your problem by reducing your speed to only 20 miles per hour. You are still going in the wrong direction. We are still going in the wrong direction. We need a new design plan, and we need to define our intentions. His rallying cry is to instead design our buildings and our products to be like trees (nutrient producing, energy renewing, diversifying, evolving). If we don’t create a world that includes and loves all 9 billion of us, then those that grow up hating the world will destroy it. We’ve already managed to go down that path.

It’s all in the book, you should read it if you haven’t. Or read this Vanity Fair article about it. It’s fascinating, and it is all good common sense. He’s launched the Green Products Innovation Institute to create a database of good materials, a team of assessors, and a product certification. The challenge was very well underscored to me last night. It was written 8 years ago. We designers, clients, entrepreneurs, teachers and consumers need to make the shift and commit to creating more good.

While I was living in Vancouver last year The Vancouver Institue of the Arts hired me to help them define their brand, update their identity, and improve their website. It was a fantastic project from beginning to end – lasting into early 2010. I love talking brand, messaging, audience, strategy, and all that stuff. I feel so great about the collaborative process we went through and the final outcome we arrived at. The logo and new website structure gives them a new direction to run with, and is a solid set of communication tools they see themselves reflected in. I’ve since handed the design-baton off to local Vancouver designer Christina Lauer who is now doing a great job with business cards and more marketing materials.

Now that I’m back in San Francisco I’ve been focusing on local business and organizations that are making tomorrow better. I was so excited to get the chance to design a poster for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s annual Family Bike Day in Golden Gate Park. It was a dream project as my sole directive was “make it sophisticated and cute”. Awesome! And if that wasn’t enough, my first round of feedback included the words “ohmigosh *WE LOVE IT* Seriously…it is so awesome and perfect!”.

I <3 nice clients.

After The Deadline: a plugin for WordPress and TinyMCE with contextual Spell Checking, Advanced Style Checking, Intelligent Grammar Checking. The demo was great and I’m eager to try it out.

Minute Memes: reframing copyright restrictions one idea at a time, through a series of short, captivating, classroom-ready videos by award-winning artist and animator Nina Paley (Sita Sings The Blues). The back story of publishing Sita Sings The Blues was really fascinating too.

The Creator Endorsed Mark: a logo that a distributor can use to indicate that a work is distributed in a way that its creator endorses — typically, by the distributor sharing some of the profits with the creator.

Kloop: The founder Rinat Tuhvatshin talked about his harrowing experiences in taking great risks to present the truth in national news. The audience was clearly moved by his story…

“@alexbcnd: #wordcampsf #wcsf I think we just had the best presentation given at any Wordcamp, Rinat Tuhvatshin of Kloop.kg in Kyrgyzstan.”

GenGreen & 3rdWhale: Brand Advisor
Two green focused media companies, GenGreen of Colorado and 3rdWhale of Vancover BC, have recently merged into one mega green company. I’ve joined as a part time Brand Advisor to help them move to the next stage. I’m super excited to be involved in designing some really interesting things that are on the horizon.

AmericanCupcake: Brand, Website & Product Design
This project is tormenting me with amazing photos of delicious cupcakes. Good thing I have willpower. American Cupcake has been around as a cupcake caterer in San Francisco for several years, and the word is out that AC is expanding their cupcake empire with their first cafe set to open in early 2010. I’ve been hired to bring the essence of the best cupcake around, to all of you. AC is a small, local business, started from scratch (literally) by Devin Alper, and features locally sourced ingredients and sustainable business practices. Yums.

GreenCafeNetwork: Pro Bono Brand Advisor
GCN is a fantastic operation located in San Francisco. It is the only non-profit organization dedicated to reducing Americans’ environmental impacts by greening the coffeehouse industry and harnessing café culture for community and individual environmental education. I’m rooting for quick, mass expansion across all of North America!

It looks to be an eclectic mix of speakers, and a few familiar faces from previous TEDs:
Dean Kamen
Craig Venter
Sanjay Gupta
Martha Stewart
Annie Wojcicki
David Pogue
Tim Brown
Keith Black
Jill Sobule
Dave & Bill from Woods Hole
Donna Karan

view full list here

1) SunPod Greenhouses
Loved these mini greenhouses for your balcony or small space! After seeing these, my balcony looks so bare.

2) EatLocal.org
Vancouver Farmers Markets. “You are what you eat. Prepare to meet your maker.”

3) Fuel Vehicle Technologies
R&D company specializing in improving the automobile and its impact on the earth. Currently ranked 5th for the XPrize.

4) Dahlia Drive Clothing
Resurrecting the fashion wasteland. Super cool one-of-a-kind handmade silkscreened slip dresses.

5) “Goodies” Homemade by Themla
Local BC pickled veggies, and jellies and jams. “You’ll want to keep a lid on these, once tried the guests and kids won’t leave them alone.”  Yum! We loaded up with pickled asparagus and blackberry jam. We also really wanted the dills and beets.

6) Flora & Fauna
“Locally, ethically, and sustainably made fashion.” Cutest clothes ever. Want! Pauline also donates a portion of her sales to the Vancouver Aqauarium and Critter Care Wildlife Rescue.

7) AusPen, EcoSmartworld.com
Refillable, non-toxic whiteboard markers.

KaliWags
Healthy snacks for dogs. I bought some for Lucy and after having taste she sniffed through the kitchen until she found the drawer I had stored them in. She loves them.