Description
The Measure Your Choices project is designed to raise consumer awareness for two current, major environmental issues associated with food production—the world's water crisis and global warming. The ultimate goal is to create a positive impact on the world's water resources and climate change by encouraging and assisting consumers to shift their consumption habits. Graphic design, with its ability to reach massive audiences, is used to reveal to consumers the environmental impact of food production while drawing attention to a problem that is currently invisible to most consumers. Within the graphic design discipline, information design, an interdisciplinary approach that communicates clearly and effectively to massive audiences, is used in order to transform a complex concept into information that is easily accessible and comprehensible to a broad audience. Measure Your Choices is composed of a graphic system designed to reveal to consumers, at point-of-purchase, the amount of water used and carbon emitted in the production of a select range of food products (fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, and meat). The graphic system is applied to grocery store labels and grocery receipts, allowing consumers not only to compare the environmental impact of one product over another, but also to evaluate the total impact linked to each of their shopping experiences. In addition to a graphic system, Measure Your Choices includes other supporting materials, such as an awareness campaign, website, and exhibit, intended to bring awareness to the environmental problems associated with food production while encouraging consumers to get involved and learn more about the issue. The Measure Your Choices thesis exhibition, held at the Everett Gee Jackson Gallery at San Diego State University on May 8-14, 2010, served as a means of presenting the project to the general public in a professional and educational manner while testing the public's reaction and acceptance to the concept.
