Want to help the planet? Start with the person.
Governments and corporations are taking major steps to reduce their environmental impact — including the United States Postal Service (read how here) — but the opportunity to live greener belongs to each of us. The new Go Green stamps help show us how.
“We could have shown big concepts or broad-stroke initiatives, like wind power or solar power,” says William Gicker, creative director of Stamp Development, “but we wanted to send the message that each one of us can take small, everyday steps to make our world a greener place.”
These positive steps — from riding bikes to planting trees — won’t help just the environment. They’ll help your environment, encouraging better health, lower energy bills, and maybe even a little shade a few summers from now.
Yet whenever the environment is discussed, the line between motivation and guilt trip is easily crossed. So the illustrator for the project needed both a passion for the subject and an accessible style — someone with a proven track record for communicating in ways that are both environmentally friendly and . . . friendly.
“The idea was to keep it light,” says art director Derry Noyes, “not to scold as if shaking a finger and saying, ‘Go do all these things and make the planet better.’”
She knew of one artist who might be perfect for the job: a filmmaker and animator who had founded a nonprofit group, Climate Cartoons, to create kid-friendly environmental messages. So in the spirit of “reuse and recycle,” Derry recycled one of her oldest relationships — recruiting her older brother, Eli, for the project.
“He can come up with different approaches very quickly,” she says. “That’s the beauty of working with an animator. And he’s all about being playful.” View a slideshow of Eli’s sketches for the Go Green stamps.
Early in the collaboration, it became clear that the original plan for four stamps would not be enough. As the process continued, researchers and experts suggested many more “go green” ideas. “We realized that you can’t do only four things to help the environment,” Eli Noyes says. “We can all do so much more than that.”
Eventually, the four images became many more that Eli and Derry condensed to fit a pane of 16, including an innovation from Derry: As an example of putting nothing to waste, she worked the title of the pane itself into a stamp. Members of the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee enthusiastically embraced the final result.
Just as the Postal Service is working every day to operate in a more environmentally friendly way, we can all make a difference . . . step by step.