Logos and mascots and branding, oh my!

I’m not a branding expert, nor have I ever worked in advertising (perhaps Meghan or my sister can help with this), but it’s my humble belief that a lot of the green logos out there suck. It’s not as though hippies have bad taste — there are tons of slick, eco-friendly designs and products out there; it only takes one look through Treehugger to find proof — but my theory is this: Bureaucrats always have bad taste (have you ever seen an eye-catching federal budget? Didn’t think so), so when government officials take control of green legislation, it’s never pretty.

Want more evidence? Here:

First up, we have the new logo for the Canada Organic Regime. This is the sticker that will appear on everything that is at least 95% organic, according to new regulations, which kick in sometime in June:

I can’t figure out what’s worse, the design or the name. Is a regime ever a good thing? And I’m sure the folks in Quebec will love the fact that the French “Régime Bio-Canada” appears upside-down.

Thankfully, a lovely Torontonian named Allison Carter has taken some initiative by offering a great rebranding of this whole campaign, which you can view here.

But even worse than a bad logo is a bad mascot — Foodland Ontario has a mediocre yet recognizeable brand, but attempting to render its simplistic Trillium logo into human-sized Muppet has only led to an awkwardly generic, asparagus-looking creature, not to mention possible copyright infringement with the Jolly Green Giant. See below:

If you think that’s bad, then you might want to shield your eyes from this next dude — he’s the new mascot for Toronto Environment Volunteers, but he looks as though he just walked off the set of Lord of The Rings:

And yet, considering the previous TEV mascots included a compost bin and a life-sized stack of newspapers made out of foam, the tree might actually be an imporovement.

Now, while my American friends are probably thinking this is an issue that doesn’t involve them — a mere side effect of some lacklustre Canadian design scene grounded in bilingualism and Group of Seven rip-offs — well, they need to think again. Let’s take a look at the United States Department of Agriculture’s logo for its certified organic produce:

Bo-ring. And when you see it at print-size, which is less than an inch in diameter, you can’t even notice those diagonal lines suggesting a farm scene. Why couldn’t there be something fun here? Like a sun and a rainbow? And organic kittens?

In fact, out of all the organic/sustainable/eco-friendly logos out there, the only half decent ones I can think of are the newly revamped Fair Trade logo and the somewhat Starbucks-ish Rainforest Alliance logo:

What do you guys think? Why are green logos so dull? Should we not be excited whenever we see a symbol of organic food or fairly traded coffee, not bored and underwhelmed? And who gets commissioned to design these things anyway?

Pics from the SNiG launch in Toronto!

OK, I promise I’ll stop droning on about my book — but not quite yet! Maybe by September. Yeah. Anyway, for those who are not yet sick of all this retched self-promotion, take a look at some of the photos from my recent book launch at the Libra Lounge in Toronto. It was a complete success, almost to the point of being disturbing — everyone from ex-boyfriends and high school teachers to former lifeguard colleagues and journalism school classmates showed up, and I only had about 30 seconds with each of them before I had to move on to the next. A friend of mine warned that this is what weddings are like, but with more politics involved. Yeesh. Anyway, here you go:

My mum made these centrepieces as a nod to the cover design (and no, those are NOT my legs on the book cover)

My high-school English teacher Ms. Carrier, alongside my mum and sister

I had to make a quick speech... (that's Meghan on the far left)

... and sign some books

It was PACKED in there! I didn't move, eat or drink for two hours (then again, I kind of didn't move, eat or drink for my whole challenge, either)

One of the best surprises of the evening: My aunt came in from Hong Kong for a visit (I only briefly admonished her for the carbon cost of that). My dad is there on the left, too.

That’s it! A big thanks to my amazing publicity team at Wiley, especially Erin and Caroline, for making the night such a success. In the mean time, I’ll be at Paragraphe Books in Montreal, on McGill College Avenue, this coming Monday, May 25th, at 3 p.m. — so if you’re in Montreal, drop by! I’ll also be coming down to New York around July 15th to be on a panel called Greening Gotham (more info to come) and am always in Toronto for all your signing/interviewing needs!

All right, enough blathering about myself for now. Carry on!

Take on a green challenge, but remember: This is not a competition!

Sorry for the lapse in posts, everyone — I was on vacation and checking in with my extended family for two weeks, then the Canadian book launch happened (pics to follow!), then regular work happened, then it was a weekend of baseball games and sailing in the rain, then my boy won a huge grant from the King Abdullah foundation that was announced at the World Economic Forum yesterday and we celebrated with dumplings, chalk drawings and a screening of Last Night. Phew!

But I’m back for realsies now, and while checking up on some of my favourite blogs today, I came across a post by Arduous in which she admitted feeling a titch insecure/overwhelmed by all the wondrous green feats being accomplished around her. “Many of us, for better or worse, are really into the comparison game,” she notes. But of course, because this London blogger is also a self-aware academic with the capacity to throw down thesis statements like Kanye throws down rhymes, she very artfully concludes the following: “Living a sustainable life isn’t about trying to outdo one another in a bid to be the greenest of them all. It is, fundamentally, about trying to achieve balance. Balance in your life. Balance between you, society, and our environment. Balance between what you really need and what’s kind of superfluous.

After all, you can only be living sustainably if you can, in fact, sustain it.”

Yeah!

Couldn’t have put it better, myself. I remember when I first began my 366-day challenge and thought it was such an original idea — then I discovered No Impact Man and realized this Manhattanite was taking the exact same idea to a higher, arguably more commendable level and had already scored a book deal, a couple film contracts and an appearance on The Colbert Report. More e-digging led to even more challenge-based blogs, tracking people who were living without plastic for a year, saving all their garbage, going vegan and so on. It’s weird because my idea for the blog came from a very selfless place — it came from a true desire to respect the Earth and realign my values — so the fact that my selfish need to be the first person doing such a thing, or at least doing it best, had surfaced and taken over was truly disturbing.

But surely some of you must have similar lapses of judgment, no? Envy at a colleague’s stainless steel lunch kit? A mixture of awe and jealousy upon meeting the head of an amazing environmental nonprofit? Feelings of both inspiration and guilt after watching a documentary on the oil crisis? Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just me and my annoying A-type tendencies coming through.

Either way, I think Arduous makes a nice point, which we should all remember when we go about these endeavours to keep our thermostats down through the winter or leave our cars at home for the week — respecting the environment is a challenge, but it’s not a competition. We’re all in this together, so we need to smile at one another’s lunch kits and bicycles, commend each other for our accomplishments; and, when we’re feeling down about our heavy footprints, take a deep breath and go fly a kite (like my friend Caley, in the photo above).