Sustainable Design Should Be Foundational

Episode 3 – Lisa Zimmermann

Lisa Zimmermann joins Eric to share her research and teaching tips in sustainable design from her day job as Lecturer at Griffith College in Dublin, Ireland. She laments how much we still don't teach in design school – from where paper comes from to the life cycle of the products we make, and how changes in our design curriculums don't come fast enough to match the quickly changing times.

About our guest

Lisa Zimmermann is a German-Irish design researcher and educator specializing in "climifying" the profession of Communication Design.

While her passion for advertising, copywriting and design persists until today, she realized early on that she couldn't work for traditional ad agencies for moral reservations towards working for clients she doesn't consider ethically sound.

Her initial research into Sustainable Graphic Design Practice in Ireland, undergone during an M.A. in Design Practice led her to specialize in this niche area of Graphic/Communication Design. According to her findings, Sustainable Graphic Design can only be achieved through close collaboration of the design, print, paper technology, and IT sectors, and she made an effort to work in all four of them, to gain a deeper understanding of their point of view and pain points. An M.Sc. in Environmental Sciences at Trinity College Dublin led her to undergo research in environmentally friendly paper sizing options – paper sizing is the process of coating paper with starch and chemical ingredients to make it possible to print on it.

Lisa currently lectures a broad range of students in the Design faculty of Griffith College in Dublin, Ireland in the areas of web design, typography, communication design, and digital tools/software skills. But rather than just integrating sustainability principles in the existing modules she teaches, she is also developing a "Certificate in Sustainable Communication Design" program aimed at professionals.

Lisa is passionate about her dog Milo, gardening, learning, cold-water-swimming, and her new podcast "Conscious Communication Design" (available on iTunes, Spotify, etc). She also hosts workshops on Digital Environmentalism and wants to expand her network, so please get in touch!

On the web

lisazimmermann.com

Music in this episode

The musical guest is Kurt Bielema performing "Passing Phase".

Theme music by Casual Motive

Climate Design Assignments

At the end of each episode, we ask our guests what their ideal climate design project would be. They have four weeks with a class full of design students. We translated their response into a project brief that you can use for your class.

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Episode Transcript

Eric: On this episode of Climify. I'm joined by Lisa Zimmerman. Lisa Zimmerman is a German, Irish design researcher and educator specializing in clarifying the profession of the communication designer. She currently lectures abroad at a broad range of students in the design faculty at Griffin college in Dublin, Ireland.

She specializes in the areas of web design, typography, communication, design, and digital tools and software. But rather than just integrating sustainability principles into the existing modules, she teaches, she's developing a