RR02

In chapter seven of John Heskett's book, Design, I was intrigued by the importance of global design amongst nations throughout the world. We all see items or flags that represent countries or cultures but we never stop to think why is it that this certain product makes me think of the UK? For example, I loved the story on the bright red telephone kiosks. I know I have seen these growing up, and automatically think of London or Paris, but definitely not a city in the United States. Eventually these kiosks got replaced with more efficient, plain glass phone kiosks and the UK became outraged. The nostalgia of the old, red kiosks had held so much symbolism and were some sort of identity for the UK that their disappearance caused an uproar. The original creator of the red kiosk never thought his initial design would hold so much power and identity, but that is magnitude of success design can have. BP's logo change was another fascinating topic. I can remember the old BP logo, and passing it everyday in the middle of my hometown. Yet sometime in the past ten years, the simple image for BP changed to one that involved a little green and yellow sun like design. This was all a move to prove that BP was becoming more "sustainable" and eco-friendly. With the changing times come changing logos, companies will do what they have to do to make consumers believe their products are changing for the better. I think it is so bizarre that I did not even realize the BP logo has changed, yet before I was completely used to the old sign. As a consumer, I had allowed the company to change its look and I have accepted the change in appearance easily.

Cradle to Cradle is already a very intriguing book. Right off the bat I was intrigued by the way he mentioned everything in a common household that is full of toxins and chemicals. Although it made me a little disturbed and uncomfortable to know the chair I was sitting on could be housing many unhealthy ingredients, it was amazing to understand that the materials in our daily lives contain so many unnatural components. Even the "recyclable environmental" carpet had ended up using more energy to create, by forcing odd materials together that normally do not mesh, than the standard "non environmental" carpet. Environmental design in the '70s and '80s was a shocking subject as well. It is funny to think back then the only environmental design known to our culture was adding some solar panels to an already fairly ugly and poorly laid out design. The pages of the book also struck me. Right away I felt how they were thicker and harder to turn. I knew the topic of what they were made from would be brought up, and I was shocked to learn they were more reusable than typical paper from the trees. Their hard, plastic-y feel was actually more sustainable and reusable than the thin, brittle paper we are normally used to.