Week 6:
Little Changes

July 13, 2016

July 7 – July 13

Displays

I keep finding that nothing in the Sustainability Office is stagnant. Displays are constantly changing in the hopes of pulling in and educating passerby. The water bottle display has undergone a revamp complete with adorable whiteboard art by Eden, another intern. We also intend to add in a giant informational poster, which George is working on now.

Another display is targeted specifically to college students and deals with living green on a university campus. It shows people many reusable/all natural alternatives to things used in everyday residence hall life. This display isn’t finalized quite yet and we’re looking for other things to put into it, but nonetheless I think it’s nice. As an Eco Hawk display, its contents are taken to and from the orientation fairs. Because everything gets shuffled back and forth, the layout of this display changes ever so slightly every time it gets set back up, which I think gives it life and stops it from being monotonous.

Table Tents

Science Thursdays (the weekly event with the food trucks) continue to go well. Each week it seems like more and more people are able to compost their waste without assistance. Of course we eventually want everyone to be able to compost without any help. Thus, we are constantly looking for new ways to get information to the food truck patrons. We decided that having some informational table tents would be a good idea, and I  was asked to create a design for them.

The table tents will be used to deter people from simply lumping all their waste into one pile and trying to throw it all away together. Already the design has been through a couple of iterations with multiple drafts. The first was very heavily inspired by the triangular table tents in the Cornell dining hall, but that was scrapped for the next version. We decided to make it two-sided instead of three-sided so we could secure them to the tables easier (and they wouldn’t blow away from the heavy winds outside). I greatly prefer the second design. It seems more readable while still having less empty white space. While still not finalized, this most recent design is very close to what we will eventually use.

While I’m not a graphic designer by any means, I still had a ton of fun making these table tents. Even though the three-column layout wasn’t kept, I think it’s neat that something from the Cornell dining hall gave me inspiration for a U of I project. It’s like our two college cultures got a little bit closer together!

The Climate Narrative Project

While going over and categorizing some photos from the office camera I came across pictures of a fascinating project that U of I did earlier this year. It’s called the Climate Narrative Project, and it’s meant to serve as a visual representation of climate change. Already three years strong, this program shows no indication of stopping anytime soon. For this project, six students met once a week to plan and individually execute creative ways to teach people about climate change.

What I find really intriguing about this program is the unconventionality of it all and the limitless possibilities the students involved explored. The only real connection between the projects is that they all explore climate change. The students produced a few conventional ideas like a short film along with some ideas more off the beaten path. Some of the other projects this year included a recipe book, a cooking show, and a skit.

I think it would be fascinating to try to incorporate something like this at Cornell. It really is an ingenious way to get people interested in climate change by using such a wide variety of media. I’m going to do more research on it this coming week and find out exactly how this program is implemented.

While there were no big sweeping changes in the office this week,  just enough happened to keep things interesting. I found another U of I project that could possibly be brought over to Cornell and got to test my internal designer. Next week is shaping up to be interesting as well, as George leaves on another vacation on Friday. Right now he’s making up a list of things I and the other interns can do while he’s gone. I can’t wait to see what he has in store for us!

Want to learn more about the U of I Office of Sustainability and what they do? Click here!