TORONTO—At last week's DesignThinkers conference in Toronto, Green Patriot Posters collaborator and Urban Outfitters executive director of marketing Dmitri Siegel spoke about undesign, the environment, and posters in today’s world.


The publication, Green Patriot Posters — a book of climate change tear-out images from designers — is a collaboration between Siegel and climate change activist Edward Morris. Siegel said the goal of the project was to have designers submit work for the book and website that people will tear out or print and hang on their wall. “The medium where the project will be most relevant is online,” said Siegel. “People now trust their social graph more than they trust their government.”

When creating the project, Siegel wondered whether posters still exist outside the creative sphere. “Posters are beloved by creative people but the public space where they used to live has been taken up by advertising,” he said. “We looked at all the negatives and said we still want to do it.”

Allowing others to contribute to the project meant putting his designer hat in a box, said Siegel. “I had to think in terms of framing the problem of climate change as well as the solution."

The book was printed in the U.S. on 100% recycled paper using vegetable inks and wind power, said Siegel. “For those who ask, 'why print a book when the book is about climate change,' we say, 'we decided if the book was a means of distributing the posters then that’s an okay purpose for the book.'” Contact: Greenpatriotposters.org