2019
Melanie Walby
Melanie Walby majored in Graphic Design at the Minnesota branch of The Art Institutes International. She has worked at multiple places, including Media Loft; Juxtaposition; and FLM+. Early in her career as a designer, Melanie often found herself creating designs for clients that didn’t align well with her ethic of sustainability. Many clients were more interested in aesthetics, and little time was dedicated to the quality of materials or environmental-friendliness of the packaging. Melanie was uncomfortable with this lack of a sustainable focus in her work.
To find a way to express her sustainability ethic, Melanie began volunteering at AIGA Minnesota, the local branch of a non-profit that is centered around graphic design. At AIGA, Melanie was the volunteer/committee chair of sustainable design. Here she was able to create designs and pieces that were centered around sustainability, and this better aligned with her personal interests and ethic. Melanie believes that as a graphic designer you have an intrinsic amount of power just by being a person whose work is visible and influential. While she had creative liberty volunteering with AIGA, she was not getting paid for this work, which only further complicated the fact that in order to get paid, she had to work for corporate clients and create designs that she did not always believe in herself.
Melanie is not alone in struggling with work that oftentimes lacks an eco-friendly focus, and she says that many of the individuals she works alongside in the field have shared similar struggles. The contradictory nature of her work eventually led her to seek positions where she does not have to choose between an income and creating ethical designs. Melanie was offered the Design Director position at Pollen Midwest in 2017, where she now commissions illustration, design, and photography to tell stories of individuals enacting meaningful change.
Pollen Midwest
Pollen is a company that believes in the power of a story, where stories act as a vessel to foster human empathy and ultimately bring people together through the collective sharing of similarities, differences, and perspectives. As stated on their website, “Pollen is a media arts organization that fosters empathy, encourages connection across difference, and inspires meaningful action by sharing stories of individuals who want to change our collective story for the better.” Pollen uses visceral illustrations and intimate writing to transform these stories into narratives filled with emotion, with the ultimate goal to enact change. By providing a voice to people to share their stories, more ‘pollen’ is spread and thus collective action and movement might be enacted. Melanie is one of the many artists and creative motifs that work towards sharing stories and igniting passion for future change.
Pollen’s focus on empathy through storytelling is a powerful way to bring people to action for environmental justice. Melanie thinks complacency is dangerous. The majority of the people who are in privileged positions and could potentially help change things tend not to think about the lives of other people. It’s not necessarily that they don’t care, it’s just that they don’t have the same life experience, and they don’t understand what other people are going through. A lot of the issue comes from other people’s lives being out of sight, out of mind. Empathy encourages people to think about the lives of others with different experiences. Because of this, people have a greater understanding of what others go through, it becomes a personal issue, and then they’re significantly less likely to be complacent.
Environmental Justice
For decades, poorer and marginalized communities have suffered disproportionately from the effects of pollution, resource depletion, dangerous jobs, limited access to common resources, and exposure to environmental hazard. Environmental justice is recognizing the many inherent structural components and active agents that have created these disparities and working to create a more equitable environmental experience for all. Many of the stories that Melanie takes part in sharing, through her illustrations, are focused on the unequal distribution of environmental burdens on the BIPOC community, aligning with the environmental justice framework. These narratives can range from reimagining public safety during a pandemic to energy equity and justice and everything in between. Melanie lifts the oftentimes overlooked or silenced voices of BIPOC and vulnerable populations and shares their experiences through Pollen. As someone who prioritizes environmentalism and is a person of color herself, Melanie feels as though it is her part to share these stories that she can relate to. At Pollen, Melanie is able to design and create for causes and people that she feels more connected to, a welcome shift from when she began as a designer.
One series she is helping illustrate, titled A Wild and Precious World, focuses on environmental justice related stories. The first story centers itself on Ben Passer and Janiece Watts, the individuals that comprise the Energy Access and Equity Program at St. Paul’s Fresh Energy, a nonprofit organization that works to advance clean energy policy. The second story focuses on the co-founder and executive director of the Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy (CEED), Dr. Cecilia Martinez. CEED is an organization that equips marginalized communities with the tools and education needed to have a meaningful impact on issues of environmental justice, and Dr.Martinez has devoted her life towards noticing the details. The third story features Louis Alemayehu, an influential environmental activist in the Twin Cities. By highlighting stories centered around environmental justice, Melanie is doing more than fostering a community of shared experiences. She is showcasing the different ways environmental injustices are experienced and understood by different individuals.
Conclusion
Melanie believes that, as a designer, she has an obligation to be as ethical, true and sustainable as possible in her work. Being in a position where others trust her in sharing their stories to the world means that Melanie has to remain honest and purposeful in her work: as a designer she is creating for the purpose to represent others, not just herself. Packaging, signs, blogs, interactive media are not only an item to get a point across but also represent ideas that can be inspirational to those who read and interact with those stories. If she and her team use their art and creativity, they have the power to address and draw attention to many environmental justices that individuals within our communities encounter. Pollen, by setting a precedent for this, encourages other designers to do the same.
References:
https://www.pollenmidwest.org/events/pollen-live-a-wild-and-precious-world/
