adidas grün: “guerilla gardeners”.

I’ll spare you my usual brand-cult diatribe about how I worship the ground Adidas walks on…oh shit, too late. So Adidas is the king. Once again, they go beyond merely creating and marketing a product to integrating it into a lifestyle and entertaining you while they demonstrate it.

Adidas Original’s new Grün line (German for “green”, dontcha know…) is their foray into the environmentally aware / sustainably created game. Sure, there are the old standbys like making the rubber soles from recycled tires, but Adidas is also investing research into creating shoes and clothing out of renewable, eco-friendly resources like bamboo. We all know that recycling is good, but reducing the amount of what needs to be recycled in the first place is where the future of the planet lies, and Adidas is taking steps to make that happen.

Knowing that environmentalism is a mind-set, not just a selling point, their Grün campaign has kicked off with “Guerilla Gardening”. For all intents and purposes, it’s graffiti with plants. The aim is to take a neglected, off limits urban space and turn it into a thing of beauty – be it with spray paint or with grass. Check out the “seed bombs”…

The line divides into three facets: “Made From” features track suits and apparel made from sustainably grown bamboo, cotton, crepe rubber, hemp, and rice husks.

All of the clothing in the “Reground” range is fully biodegradeable – right down to the zippers and buttons. One of the shirts in the Women’s “Reground” collection is made from from a mix of organic soybean and cotton fibres, and the neckline is inlaid with sunflower seeds.

Finally, everything in the “Recycled” line is exactly what it says – shoes and apparel made from 100% recycled plastic soda bottles, rubber, and others materials that otherwise would have sat in a landfill for eternity.

To prove it’s point, Adidas has taken the organic push and put it into more traditional marketing channels – like these green billboards made mostly from living plants and flowers:

Shoe pics via Sneaker Freaker

jeremy huchison: we are multicolored.

This article also appeared on Josh Spear

As digital artist in residence for the NYC’s Lower East Side Tenement Museum, graphic artist Jeremy Huchison’s latest project is a study of what happens when people explore the grandiosities of nationality in a more personal light.

We Are Multicolored asks visitors to answer three simple questions “Where is your home?” “What other country has affected you?” and “Where have you dreamed of going?” Supplied with the flags of the three nations you answered, you then use the project’s design tool to develop your own personal flag.

By distilling their own experiences and self-image through the globally-recognized act of producing a flag, each person is given a chance to investigate which nationalities, cultures, and plain ol’ personal design styles they would choose to represent that essence of themselves to the rest of the world.

Every time a personal flag is created it’s added to a “superflag” – a continuously shifting tapestry made of all the flags created on the site. Users can click on any individual flag to learn about the person it represents and why they chose the nations they did.

Here’s my flag. It sucks but it means well. Aside from telling us that I should never pursue a career as a graphic design or flagmaker, it’s made up from the flags of Canada (where I live), Sweden (where I want to live), and Madagascar (where the best vanilla comes from).