Designers have a hand in creating virtually every product, artifact, and message we encounter in the world around us, yet collectively we are only beginning to see ourselves as agents of change.

Embrace the responsibilities of dealing with larger marketplace issues and engage in a quest for business practices and resources that allow you to make a difference in your day-to-day business lives.

Confront the real problems designers face and direct your talent and ability toward local and global issues. Strive to turn idealism into business practice through the development of more appropriate and meaningful design solutions.

Join the San Francisco chapters of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Industrial Designers Society of America on Saturday, January 21 for Compostmodern 2006, a day of sustainable design solutions.

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Compostmodern speakers represent a variety of backgrounds and possess a wide range of expertise; each of them will provide unique insight into sustainable business practice. Confirmed speakers include:

Keynote Speaker

Kalle Lasn

Founder, Adbusters Media Foundation

Kalle Lasn is the driving intellectual force behind the anti-corporate Adbusters Media Foundation and he is the publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Adbusters magazine. Early in his career, Lasn produced documentaries for PBS and Canada’s National Film Board. One of Lasn’s first environmental success stories came when he countered a media campaign by British Columbia’s forestry industry with his own television advertisement. When television stations refused to air Lasn’s anti-corporate ad, he and activist friends fought back through other media outlets. After hundreds of complaints the forest industry’s advertisements were finally pulled and in 1989 Adbusters was born. Lasn has also gained attention through the publication of his book Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge — and Why We Must. His new book, Design Anarchy, is due out this spring.

Speakers

Roian Atwood

Director of Community Relations, American Apparel

American Apparel in the country’s largest “sweatshop free” clothing manufacturer. Starting with t-shirts, American Apparel has grown to include a full line of men’s, women’s, and children’s apparel with stores opening across the United States and Europe. They continue to manufacture their clothing in Los Angeles and employ over 1000 people. Atwood will discuss manufacturing in the United States, American Apparel’s fair labor practices, and the socially sustainable goals that have gained the company positive attention and high regard.

Frank Barnett

Director of Manufacturing Systems, Environment, Health and Safety, Cenveo

With over 30 years of experience in the printing industry, Frank Barnett has been responsible for financial analysis, strategic and operations planning, manufacturing management, and real-time equipment process controls design. Frank has an extensive background in safety, environmental and health management, and regulatory compliance programs. He has served on panels related to waste reduction, development of closed-loop process controls, and alternative materials. Frank will discuss how he developed the design for the combined HVAC system and cogeneration power plant that was the basis for Cenveo’s industry-certified total enclosure printing facility.

Jay Bolus

Executive Vice President, Benchmarking and Certification, MBDC

Jay also provides direct scientific guidance on all MBDC projects as well as managing MBDC's growing team of chemists and engineers. Jay was directly responsible for the development of MBDC's Cradle to Cradle Benchmarking methodology, a tool to evaluate the impact chemicals and materials have on human and environmental health throughout their life cycles. Jay received a Master of Engineering degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Virginia. Jay's research focused on the fate and transport of organic contaminants in groundwater systems and their interactions with organically modified clays.

Amy Franceschini

Principal, Futurefarmers

Amy Franceschini is the founder of eco-friendly design studio Futurefarmers and has been involved in numerous projects aimed at raising public awareness of critical issues. She is a new media artist working with notions of community, sustainable environments, and the conflicting rituals of humans versus nature. Her work manifests “on” and “offline” in the form of net art, installations, and public art and has been included in numerous group exhibitions including; “Tirana Biennale: Interactive Art” at Deitch Projects, NY; “Bay Area Now 2,” at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Tranmediale, in Berlin. Franceschini will talk about the participatory roles we can take to transform our environment.

Chris Hacker

Senior Vice President of Global Design and Design Strategy, Johnson & Johnson

Chris Hacker recently joined Johnson & Johnson and is responsible for bringing strong brand identity and sustainable business practices to the company. In this position Chris leads all creative processes for packaging design and brand imagery. Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson Chris was Senior VP of Global Marketing and Design for Aveda and directed visual merchandising, packaging, store design and advertising. Aveda was recently awarded the prestigious Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for corporate excellence. Hacker shares his experience working with ecologically sensitive clients and corporations.

Grace Hawthorne and Shoshana Berger

CEO and Editor-in-Chief, ReadyMade magazine

ReadyMade is already a cult classic magazine. Its monthly issues teach interested readers new and engaging ways to reuse and recycle everyday materials and reduce waste. This winter they published their first book based on the success of the ReadyMade magazine. Filled with great ideas and unique tips, the book, like the magazine, is sure to become a well-loved publication. Always a crowd favorite, Grace and Shoshana bring their ideas on adaptive reuse to Compostmodern for a second time.

Dan Imhoff

Author of Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World

Dan Imhoff is a writer and researcher publishing extensively on issues related to food, sustainable agriculture, the environment, and design. A co-founder of the California-based nonprofit Watershed Media, he continues to encourage awareness and inspire direct action around urgent issues. His books include: The Guide to Tree Free, Recycled, and Certified Papers; Building With Vision: Optimizing and Finding Alternatives to Wood; Farming With the Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity on Farms and Ranches; and Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World.

Greg Moore

Executive Director, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy

Greg Moore is the Executive Director of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and is responsible for the preservation of some of the Bay Area's most historic parklands. To bring attention to his agency's mission and to enhance visitor experiences Moore has collaborated with Michael Schwab, a graduate of the Art Center College of Design and one of the country's most recognized and best loved illustrators. Together they have created seventeen award winning and iconic images for the Conservancy. Moore and Schwab will discuss the genesis of their partnership and the role design plays in communicating a message of ecological and historic preservation.

Joanne Oliver and Marc Woollard

IDEO

Designers Joanne Oliver and Marc Woollard will highlight IDEO’s continued efforts to incorporate sustainability into the company’s integrated design process. Recent research on bioplastics have resulted in a new packaging project for Pangea, a line of organic body care products. Oliver and Woollard will highlight questions their team learned to ask in order that their design solutions embody sustainable ideals in graphic design, copy, and packaging. They will also comment on the process of using sustainability as a lens to rethink everyday objects in new ways.

Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey

Owners, Heath Ceramics

Catherine Bailey, formerly a senior designer for Nike’s footwear design group, and Robin Petravic, who founded the design and engineering consultancy, The Control Group, are the new owners of Heath Ceramics. Today they are responsible for one of America’s most historic ceramics production facilities and they continue to produce original din-nerware, tile, and accessories that were designed by Edith Heath. Petravic and Bailey will talk about the challenges of successfully operating a small manufacturer in the United States and the principles of social and environmental sustainability that have defined and continue to guide the company.

Ron Radziner

Principal, Marmol Radziner + Associates

Ron Radziner is part of an award winning and multi-disciplinary architecture studio that also runs a full-service metal and cabinet shop just across the hall from their design office. Most recently Ron and his studio have designed a LEED platinum rated and certified building for TreePeople, an environ-mental education and advocacy program. Ron and his architecture partner Leo Marmol have recently launched a new prefab construction company that offers several variations on the modernist home. Radziner will explain his design/build ideology and the importance of sustainable solutions for the building industry.

Paul Saffo

Institute for the Future

Paul Saffo is a forecaster and strategist with over two decades experience exploring long-term technological change and its practical impact on business and society. Saffo is Chairman of the Samsung Science Board, a Forum Fellow at the World Economic Forum, and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Services. His essays have appeared in publications that include Business 2.0, Fortune, The Harvard Business Review, Newsweek, The New York Times, and Wired. Paul leads the Institute for the Future, a 30-year-old foundation that provides strategic planning and forecasting services to major corporations and government agencies.

Michael Schwab

Michael Schwab Studio

Born in Oklahoma Schwab attended the Art Center College of Design. He has created award winning work for The United States Postal Service, Sundance, Apple, Nike, Coca Cola, Ralph Lauren, Robert Mondavi, Amtrak, the 2002 Olympics, and of course the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. Michael will share the stage with Greg Moore and discuss the genesis of their partnership and the role design plays in communicating a message of ecological and historic preservation.

Andrew Wagner and Frank Escher

Senior Editor, Dwell magazine

Principal, Escher GuneWardena Architecture

Before joining Dwell, the San Francisco-based architecture and design publication, Wagner was the founding editor of LIMN, the unorthodox design and arts magazine published by the equally unorthodox furniture and design company of the same name. In addition to Dwell Wagner is the contributing architecture and design editor at Breathe magazine and a consulting editor for Places Journal. His writing has been published in Azure, Blueprint, Breathe, Travel and Leisure, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Wagner will present updated research on sustainable solutions for the home with Frank Escher, the winner of the Dwell Home II sustainable design competition.