Bringing together quotes and research from sources found, I put together a plan for the essay in a template, shared below.
This plan outlines the structure of first getting into the discussion of how green branding raises awareness and demand for environmentalism, how this can affect society positively in that environmentalism sustains human prosperity for longer into the future, but then also introducing how greenwashing practices mean this branding can misrepresent companies’ climate impact and act as a cover for environmentally and therefore societally harmful practices. I then bring in the case studies of two food brands with a green identity, explaining how they each communicate this and how Ripple Farm may have genuinely environmentally sustainable practices, whereas McDonald’s may be identified as greenwashing, with negative impacts. The plan would finally bring these ideas together acknowledging difficulties for the consumer to tell the difference between genuine (authentic) green brands and brands using a greenwash, meaning ultimately that impacts of this branding on society vary with the factor of greenwashing.
In writing the essay, I found other aspects needed explaining, context given, a mini-case study of Fiji Water was needed to aid the first section outlining how design communicates a green image and how greenwashing affects the impacts of this, and I found many more sources to back-up what I discussed and further inform the writing. Key changes in the content between the plan and final version include:
The process of writing the essay came quite naturally upon putting in the research and inserting this into the plan. I made a lot of necessary changes along the way in efforts to keep relevant to the question of the title and smooth out issues that naturally crop up in the first drafts. It was very important to keep going back over what I wrote to find the most appropriate wording.
I found that since I had a foundation of solid research, I was making points that I was consistently able to point to some kind of source backing up. Finding academic sources has continuously been a struggle due to search results from my University online search tool not returning the most relevant results to my enquiries, and repeatedly finding that sources are blocked behind pay walls I cannot get around. I was fortunate in selecting a topic which does have wide coverage, this could have been a serious issue if I had far fewer potential sources of which too many were inaccessible. This makes me think of how important it is to pursue a topic which has an existing academic discourse. Harvard referencing took close attention and practice, and is something I have become fairly confident with, having gone into this process with almost no knowledge of it.
I feel the subject of the essay has been a worthwhile area of focus. It gave me room to reflect on the importance of knowing my own social impacts in design in the person working practices section of the essay; having the knowledge about how design influences the society is essential to make any decisions towards being responsible about it. I put forward the impacts in how green branding pushes society forward in a positive direction, but greenwashing functions to misdirect this positive intention towards sustaining harm. The problem gets to a major point of how graphic design influences society. I land at the conclusion which doesn’t try to answer whether the impact of green branding is more positive or negative because my research points me to seeing that there is no easy answer to this that I can reliably assert. I am glad to have found a contemporary argument in design, with important implications to the future with climate change.
To know what screens will be most important for me to produce to display the app, how these link together and what design elements need to be accounted for, I am taking inspiration from existing apps with a contemporary design and interface.
New Forest Walks
The app New Forest Walks is an ideal source of inspiration because it focuses on walking in a specific area of the UK, whilst also giving information and recommendations about the area in general, focusing on appealing sites of natural beauty to attract people. The key difference, aside from being a different and perhaps less varied location, is the lack of a social feature.
The logo combines a signifier to the natural and to walking. It does this with use of the colour green, a darker shade in particular to keep the identity relevant to the forest location; the darker shade suggests a dense covering of trees whereas a lighter shade may likely suggest an open field or rolling hills no significant forest area. The triangular form on the app icon also helps to give a sense of making progress and moving forward, which fits with the theme of walking and exploring.
I notice the main home screen of the app uses a green background, helping to support the identity of the app and promote the experience of nature. Photographs of people walking in the new forest are immediately on display. The type on these images seems to be consistent and makes efforts to fit in with the photograph, being set on a darker overly on the photos. The design uses bold and regular variations to set bold text out as providing the most important terms, and this variation in the type subtly helps to keep the text and thereby the app more engaging.
I note the menu as a banner at the bottom of the app, a standard placement to allow easy navigation around what has been set out as the 3 main uses for the app; finding relevant information, planning walks and using the map to help with navigation. This is a dark grey, likely chosen to help it stand out apart from the white backgrounds seen on much of the app’s contents. Such menus need to take into account every background colour that may be seen with them.
The app displays an integrated, built-in map feature as would be needed for an app of this kind. I must look into how I may be able to achieve this; royalty-free map images seem to be an appropriate stand-in if displaying the app in the form of still screens (in the same way that all major apps display their functionality on places such as the App Store). Whilst mostly as functional GPS feature with no distinct identity, I notice New Forest Walks uses the colour green in icons guiding the user, though the colour red is used to indicate the location of the user – perhaps in recognising this is the colour that will stand out most.
The list of walks which perhaps appear after prompted by search results, again shows a very neutral light design, not including design features from the first page in a green background. The type seems to be different from the home page as well, perhaps maximising readability (invisible type) by applying what appears to be one of the most prevalent sans-serif web typefaces. Efforts here seem to be towards directing first attention towards the images of locations.
The pages which show exploring more information about walking locations keep a neutral light design, likely in efforts not to distract from all of the information that needs to fit in the small space. The buttons/headings in rounded rectangular boxes do bring in some of the brand identity with the same shade of green as was seen in the background of the homepage. Rounded rectangles seem to be used a lot in general, perhaps to keep the app seeming friendly, so literally soft, and also acknowledging modern conventions of app design; app icons use rounded corners.
The banner at the top of the app acts as a location for a “back” arrow, even when there is no page to return to, meaning this does not disrupt the design as the space is always available. These sticky banners in the design keep navigation convenient, always accessible.
The image of the River Avon takes up a section of the width of the phone display, an important choice to use a well-selected image, giving it plenty of room to “speak for itself”. An external link to their website is also promoted on these screens with their logo used which bears an identity not dissimilar to the app in darker tones of green.
TripAdvisor
As a larger and far more generalised tourism app, it is less directly relevant for me to take inspiration from TripAdvisor than New Forest Walks. Is brand identity, as first seen above, keeps a neutral and adaptable appearance from the offset with highly readable design choices and the light background helping to communicate a sense of order, clarity and ideally honesty (as an app serving directly to influence the choices the user makes, as a tourism advisor). The owl logo is an indicator to what they aim to get across, known as a symbol of wisdom, travelling and exceptional eyesight; to see things clearly far into the distance. The user looking to explore a new place, potentially in an area unfamiliar to them if a tourist, would find these traits associated with the owl very appealing. Thinking about all of the different connotations of anything the designer chooses to include is important, such as how I examine the owl of TripAdvisor.
The main menu section of the TripAdvisor app contains almost no unique identity that one could point out as specific to TripAdvisor. The menu uses easily recognisable symbols for the menus and clearly marked titles to take the user to various parts of the app they intend to use. There is a priority here for a simple user interface over anything else. They don’t use every opportunity to reinforce their identity in some way, perhaps recognising that what is important for the audience member already using the app is that their experience is positive. The app isn’t directly a promotional material. I need to keep in mind that an identity I pursue for the tourism walking app doesn’t act in a way which compromises the user experience. The contents of the app on this screen; icons, photos and the map feature provide support to the words on the app by making them more quickly understandable.
Here TripAdvisor seems to use a Google Maps plug-in to suggest local places and guide the user to find them. I would expect a similar feature would need to be shown in stills of the app I am promoting. Organisation features here are examples of focusing on the user experience to fill in at their own convenience, whilst still being in service of the goal to sustain and increase tourism and bring people back to continue using the TripAdvisor service. The menu at the bottom of the screen is the same as in the first, really bringing out these unchanging menus as a key feature to aid navigation.
Here one can see part of the TripAdvisor’s social features, something that needs to be shown to be included as a part of the app I am promoting. It shows a user-shared photo at a specified location, which people can share (though not share and really engage with). Highlighting the unique experiences of others to attract people to venture to their own experiences is something I can interpret to be worthwhile, seeing it in this very successful app. The format of the image in Italy being easily recognisable as one for social engagement with a counter for votes, saves and reposts. This helps the audience trust the advice of the app since community engagement comes across as authentic, which might be missing if all content is provided by TripAdvisor themselves.
Promotional images about the app above bring out the app’s identity more (with its bold typeface) and use colours which really grab the attention of the audience – in the context of a variety of images with a different colour for each one to get across the limitless extent of variety offered on TripAdvisor. They chose not to pick a block colour like this to use for the app itself likely in thinking of what the user will be most comfortable with in the interface.
In conclusion, studying these relevant services for walking and tourism I take away some important facts about designing screens for an app:
Luke Whatley Design WestKent PART 2