Interview with designer Jarren Nylund
Jarren Nylund is a Brisbane designer and activist. At the start of 2011 he decided to take a completely different direction with his life and career – and what an exciting story he has to tell.After 10 years as a graphic designer in a variety of design studios, Jarren decided to leave his full time job in search of something more rewarding and meaningful. He’d always had an interest in environmental issues and had just never taken the plunge to do anything proactive. And for the underlying fear of being labelled a ‘hippy’ by conservative friends and family.
Jarren’s first move from the design world, lead him to start working as an activist for Greenpeace. He became heavily involved in the recent Say Yes Australia Campaign. It was from this campaign, that he became involved with other environmental organisations and their projects.
And this is where the idea for Design Good came about. Jarren is now the owner and Principal Designer of Design Good, the studio he set up to help some of these environmental organisations to communicate more effectively.
Beware of lots of political and environmental jargon in Jarren’s interview below! But I think it’s definitely thrilling to see a designer’s spark come to life from discussing something they are so passionate about.
The Design Good website is coming soon, so for now, like the Facebook page to keep in the loop with Jarren’s projects.
In a few words, describe yourself…
Graphic designer, climate change activist and campaigner … with a sense of humour.
What are you spending your time on at the moment?
I’ve just recently finished up working on the Say Yes Australia Campaign, after spending the last six months heavily involved as a community organiser and activist, whilst also designing many of the promotional materials for the campaign. But it was really worth it, because we won the campaign! And I’m now so incredibly happy that Australia finally has a price on pollution—it’s an incredibly important first step in tackling climate change.
I’ve now just started working on a few more design jobs for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) which I’m pretty excited about. The first is the website for the Repower Australia campaign which I designed (pictured above). And there’s also a brand new and exciting program the AYCC is planning…
There’s also heaps of other stuff I’m working on, but I won’t go into all of the details!
Do you have a ritual for getting into the creative mindset? Or a creative process?
I really don’t think so. Perhaps I need to adopt a ritual of getting out of the creative mindset?
What or who inspires you?
Earlier in my career I was always really inspired by many of Brisbane’s great designers, particularly any designers which were using their work as a means of visually communicating messages about social and environmental justice. This led me to fall in love with the work of, a not-so-local designer, Jonathan Barnbrook.
More recently, what really inspires me is seeing people that get out there and take a stand for what is really important, and devote their lives to making the world a better place.
The work of environmental/social change activists and campaigners, and intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Peter Singer.
What are you most proud of?
Every single thing that I have been working on this past year has been something that is truly important, and therefore something that I am proud of.
It has therefore been jam-packed full of proud moments, but I’ll just pick a few…
As a part of Say Yes Australia, Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) commissioned me to design a set of six posters, one for each state of Australia. The posters contained just a small selection of the thousands of “I Say Yes Because…” messages which people added to the Say Yes Australia website during the campaign.
These messages were selected based on where these people were from, and then arranged to form the shape of their state. ACF invited me and other Say Yes activists to come to Canberra and meet with politicians in Parliament House for ‘Climate Advocacy Day’ and use these posters as gifts. I got to meet with Minister Greg Combet’s senior advisors, Senator Jan McLucas, Senator Claire Moore, Senator Larissa Waters, and Deputy Leader of The Greens, Christine Milne. As a group, we met with 50 politicians, each being given the poster of the state they represent.
Earlier this year I designed some merchandise for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC). AYCC organised that absolutely massive Power Shift 2011 event which was held in Brisbane in October this year. You may have heard about it (there was a massive flash mob in King George Square), if not, you can watch the highlights of the three-day climate change conference here.
It was absolutely thrilling to see 1,000 young people wearing the t-shirts that I had designed around, and to see so many passionate young people coming together who all want action on climate change.
During the conference Graham Perrett (ALP member for Moreton) purchased one of my “I’m not as smart as a climate scientist, but I’m smart enough to listen to them” t-shirts for Wyatt Roy (LNP member for Longman) to pass on to Tony Abbott.
Christine Milne was there too, and she purchased a bag with the same message for herself. Shortly after the conference, Don Henry (CEO of Australian Conservation Foundation) got in touch with the AYCC to send one over to Al Gore in the United States!
Another thing I got be involved with earlier in the year was the Friends of the Earth (FoE) court case against the coal mining giant Xstrata. The premise is that Xstrata plans to build what will be the biggest coal mine in the southern hemisphere just 400km North-West of Brisbane, and if this coal mine were to go ahead, it alone would be responsible for more carbon emissions than New Zealand!
A court case like this is far from cheap, so they needed a campaign to generate interest in the case, and help them fundraise the money required. They came to me and asked for my help. I came up with the idea for the “Stop the Wandoan Mega Mine!” messaging and graphics, and designed t-shirts for the campaign which were used to fundraise, and then become walking billboards for the campaign to generate even further awareness. The court case is now complete, but we’re still anxiously awaiting the decision from the judge.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was a child, I aspired to be a lot of different things when I grew up, it really varied from year to year, and month to month. But it was always within the theme of creativity or fun.
The irony is that the topic of climate change is neither of those things, many see it as doom and gloom. Which is why I really enjoy bringing my sense of fun and creativity to the issue of climate change, which helps to engage people, and helps them see it in more positive way—and that is what is really needed for us to solve the climate crisis.
