Sustainable matters:
A materials library for University of Sussex
A materials library for University of Sussex
Year 1 project, 2019-2020 - see full credits below
Our first year students were tasked for their visual communication module to collaboratively develop a display for material samples and build a communication campaign around it. From this open brief, they decided to investigate materials' impact on the environment, and how this could be assessed. Their research led them to consider labor conditions in the processing and manufacturing of materials, carbon footprint, distance between extraction, manufacturing and final use of the materials, durability and end-of-life process. Their final classification is based on materials engineering categories (1: polymers; 2: metals; 3: composites; 4: ceramics) and the impact on the environment (1: compostable and/or low-emissions manufacturing process; 2: recyclable and/or unknown impact of the manufacturing process; and 3: landfill and/or high emissions manufacturing process).
They all collected materials from their everyday life or contacted suppliers for samples. Each team worked on a different aspect of the project: the branding, the communication campaign, the content itself, the furniture to present the materials and the website.
THe identity
The logo was inspired by circular symbols often used in the circular and green economy. The four colors and four parts of the arrow each evoke a category of engineering materials.
THe LIBRARY and materials placards
The students decided on a playful display, with placards with alternative depths. The final piece of furniture includes side triangular panels to enable the display to sit by itself. In the pictures below, you can see the initial models and explorations of how to use patterns to indicate material category. It is followed by details of the final version, made with laser cut plywood.
The material placards were also made of plywood. Students on the content team wrote materials description, with the aim to illustrate the relevance of this material to product design and provide succinct information about the sustainability of using these materials - and the difficulty of estimating the full impact of materials on the environment.
Communication campaign
To advertise the materials library to all students on campus, a group of students designed a series of posters. A main difficulty they encountered was to convey the complexity of evaluating materials sustainability (instead of for instance focusing on plastic waste). The class decided to adopt the most abstract poster, as depicted below.
THe Website
Last but not least, a group of students built a website on which to access more information about each material, as well as additional resources for sustainable product design and materials, using Webflow. This taught them how to build a database, methods such as card sorting, wireframing and prototyping interfaces with Figma, as well as concepts such as responsive design.
Credits
Branding team: Sophie Sykes, Annarose McGill, Xiao Ma, Jacques Glibbery
Content team: Elena Jorgensen, Lucy Bilgin, Eleni Zachariou, Toby Bowie, Lawrence Mbanefo
Website team: Alexander Mcdonagh, Lois Capel, Imogen O'Flanagan, Maxim Morkel
Content team: Elena Jorgensen, Lucy Bilgin, Eleni Zachariou, Toby Bowie, Lawrence Mbanefo
Website team: Alexander Mcdonagh, Lois Capel, Imogen O'Flanagan, Maxim Morkel
Furniture team: Pablo Samoilys, Henry Wenham, Charlotte Bryan, Chloe Fish, Payam Poushariati, Cameron Smith
Communication team: Emily Lewis, Ellie Haarburger, Kyle Hoskins, Carla Spampinato
Communication team: Emily Lewis, Ellie Haarburger, Kyle Hoskins, Carla Spampinato
