randform

There is currently a big discussion in Germany about the violence of youngsters and how to adress them. In particular on a meeting in Wiesbaden the christian democratic union decided to enforce the punishment of criminal youth, like e.g. to raise the maximal youth sentence from 10 years to 15 years a.s.o.

(more…)

This is a follow-up to my last post about food and environment

Despite the fact that probably most consumers know about the conditions at intensive egg farms (here e.g. a video about an intensive egg farm without a guarantee how correct the footage is) I was astonished to find the above package in a local supermarket.

The astonishing part of the above is the way graphic design managed to make the writing “käfighaltung” (caging) look as something pleasant. Part of it is that we are used to the fact that if someone advertizes something big than this must be good (at least from the point of view of the advertizer). In the addition the blue and white stripes (presumably the cage bars) look a bit as an awning – as if the cage is mainly a shield and not a cage. For me this is a remarkable example of how design may change the desirability of objects. It may serve also as an interesting comment on the objectivity of selection criteria.

I can’t think of how the design of the above package could be improved, besides may be making it into a present:

Climate change will directly affect future food availability and compound the difficulties of feeding the world’s rapidly growing population, this could be more dramatic then previously assumed. It is also sort of wellknown that the livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global and especially regarding global warming see e.g. this FAO report. So in principle for the environment it would be best to be vegan. (see also this cornell study)

(more…)