This morning, Yahoo! posted a story on guerilla marketers using mobile billboards for “surprise attacks”. Essentially, the billboards are projected onto existing surfaces with digital projectors. This isn’t a new idea. Years ago, my cousin and I went to nightclub managed by a friend of his. The club was in an awkward, out-of-the-way location and the view of its sign was obstructed by a water tower. They asked the owner of the water tower if they could pay him to paint their logo on the tower. He declined. So they bought a projector and at night, projected their logo on the water tower. It worked.

Two things struck me at the time:

1. It’s unimposing. During the day, when the club’s not open, the sign’s not there (nor did it need to be). It made for less visual clutter and at the same time, a more effective promotional device.
2. It’s sustainable. Think of all the materials it takes to construct a billboard. Then think of the fabric and ink used to print an 8- by 24-foot ad.

Many people think of sustainability as the ability to reuse or recycle materials. That’s not it at all. Sustainability, as it pertains to design, is the reduction of necessary materials and the use of low-impact materials. Usually, it involves consolidating two things into one. An apt example, taken from The Designer’s Field Guide to Sustainability:

Instead of designing a special arm band to carry a runner’s keys during a workout, design a running sock with a key pocket. People are going to buy socks anyway.

This process is one which designers have used for decades, long before sustainability was fashionable. The best logos are often conceived this way. A relationship between two ideas is established through the assimilation of two distinct visual elements. Take, for example, this mark designed by Pentagram where the notches in the key are created by a skyline:

The reason this logo works has to do with the way people see it. They establish the connection the same way the designer did. An “Ah-ha!” sort of feeling takes over them once they see that the notches are illustrated by a skyline.

So, in a way, designers have always been dealing with sustainability. We’ve always sought to simplify, to reduce complexity and consolidate two things into one. Sustainability needs to be embraced by designers, not only because it’s environmentally responsible, but also because it will facilitate the creation of more effective, compelling work.