Boyer’s redesigned logo (Copyright: CNN)
A French graphic designer has started a new project to demonstrate that global brands could both cut costs and help preserve the environment.
According to CNN, Sylvain Boyer believes that, simply by making slight alterations to their logos, world-famous brands such as McDonalds and Starbucks could save their money and simultaneously benefit the environment. “All it takes” according to Boyer, “is to redesign the logos to use less ink”, and he believes that only a small change to each logo could make a massive difference, considering the frequent use of printed logos by “corporate giants”, and the range of materials they are printed on.
To demonstrate his belief, he has launched the “Ecobranding” campaign.
“It all came to me in 2013, the year my first daughter was born. I was designing a birth announcement card with many colours which was looking great on the computer, but when I submitted the design to the printer for silkscreen printing the bill was greatly expensive too! I decided to reduce the number of colours, with a direct consequence of making it more affordable and greener,” he explained in an interview with CNN.
For his campaign, he redesigned the logos of various major brands, reducing the amount of ink involved, which resulted in savings that varied from 10 to almost 39 percent (in the case of the Starbucks logo).
“We used the tools of the offset printing industry, which allow us to calculate very precisely the rate of printed surface. Then it’s only mathematics,” he said.
“Every creative decision taken in brand design has a direct impact on our environment. When you draw one logo for a big company, in fact you draw millions of logos because it will be reproduced millions or billions of times in many formats, with a major ecological and economic impact,” Boyer continued.
With printing ink “one of the world’s most expensive liquids”, costing more than champagne and branded perfumes, companies could save vast sums by implementing Boyer’s methods, as he explains:
“Last year, Starbucks produced about 670 million paper cups, with its logo printed on each one. We can estimate, and I insist that it’s only a speculation, that a single logo print could cost $0.15 and use 0.06 ml of ink. Our redesigned logo uses 38 percent less ink, or 0.0228 ml per cup, which could save nearly 4,000 gallons of ink a year. Since ink can cost up to $10,000 per gallon, that could equal savings of up to $40 million.”
In addition, using less ink would “reduce the impact of printing on the environment”. Companies such as SPRANQ and Ryman Eco have both developed eco-friendly fonts that use a reduced amount of ink compared to various popular typefaces.
“The central idea of Ryman Eco was to design a compact, readable type that saved ink by reducing the overall surface area of the letters printed,” said Dan Rathigan, who designed the font.
“Admittedly, this is dealing with savings of very small margins indeed. Grey’s campaign for Ryman Eco was intended to start conversations about how many small gestures to reduce material waste could contribute to a larger impact.”
When it comes to “Ecobranding”, despite the financial and environmental benefits that would follow from making changes to their logos, Boyer understands that it might not be smooth sailing, as corporate giants may be reluctant to make any alteration to their iconic images.
“Maintaining the differentiating attributes of the brand while providing an eco-friendly design is going to be the major challenge that we will have to face,” he said.
“It’s a debate about branding in general. Some people think we should not touch the ingredients of the brand because it’s a sacred temple, others think that we can evolve the brand without changing its DNA to better meet the expectations and aspirations of our time.”