Re-nourish is a nonprofit organization that provides online tools and advocates for awareness and action for sustainable systems thinking in the visual communication design community. We aim to help the practicing graphic designer, educator, and student make responsible and pragmatic design decisions for a healthy people, planet, and profit.
Our Mission
About Re-nourish
Re-nourish is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides online tools advocating awareness & action for sustainable systems thinking in the communication design community. We are, at the moment, just two people who want to make things better. We believe that ‘good design’ values people, the environment, and improves lives. Instead, design is currently on an unsustainable path centered on overconsumption, waste, and ignoring the natural systems around us. Re-nourish aims to help the practicing communication designer, educator and student make positive greener, and pragmatic design decisions. Our tools and resources are created to be straightforward and implementable now. Our case studies and blog provide inspiration and knowledge to help designers implement more sustainable strategies.
After all, to ‘renourish’ means to foster, cherish, and strengthen positive growth. Those are our goals and we need help making sure it happens. This will take a committed community. (You.) Join us.
Transparency
Re-nourish believes in delivering ‘free’ awareness to incite change. We do not accept financial support from advertisers or other commercial interests tied to the design industry. This allows us to remain unbiased to provide information based on our own research, sound environmental science, and industry best practices.
Although we try, we don’t promise to have all the answers. Technology and best practices are changing every day, and we try to keep up! Notice anything amiss? Contact us.
Our Supporters
We are grateful to our supporters who donated. See the full list here.
Speaking & Workshops
Eric and Yvette have traveled the world encouraging others to design for sustainability. We love to share our stories, knowledge, and passion for responsible design through lectures and workshops.
Who we are
Eric Benson
Co-founder & Partner
Eric Benson was born in Arizona and raised in Mid-Michigan where he later received his BFA in graphic and industrial design from the University of Michigan in 1998. His MFA thesis at the University of Texas became Re-nourish. This work translated into an academic career teaching graphic design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At Illinois he runs Fresh Press Agri-Fiber Paper Lab, where he explores sustainable papermaking using corn stover, soy stalks, prairie grasses, and other waste fibers from local farms.
Eric’s creative work has also garnered numerous design awards and hung in notable venues like The Walker Art Center, the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the Hammer Museum, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and RISD.
Yvette Perullo
Co-founder & Partner
Yvette Perullo is a Boston-based designer and educator. She received her MFA in visual communications design from Purdue University and her MA degree in graphic design from the New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University where her research focused on developing tools and resources to encourage sustainable design practices―the foundation of her work with Re-nourish.
She has lectured internationally on sustainable graphic design and implements sustainability methodology in her own work and teaching. Yvette is an independent visual and user experience designer based near Boston, Massachusetts specializing in design for organizations and campaigns that make a difference, improve lives, and inspire change.
Contributors:
Bryan Weber
Tools/Back-End/PHP/SQL
Veronica Pham
Illustrator
Anna Bonomi
Social Media Manager
Hannah Pollard
Social Media Manager
Nate Lamkin
Front-End Developer
Past Contributors:
Israel Alvarez
Original Content Management
Amy Parker
Design Intern
Diana Caballero
Design Intern
Awards and Recognition
16th Annual Communicator Awards
Award of Excellence, 2010
Design Firms Web Award
AIGA (re)Design Awards
3rd Place, Sustainable Organization, 2009
Cooper-Hewitt People's Design Award
Finalist, Smithsonian National Design Awards, 2009
Top Ten Sites for Designers
HOW Design, 2010
Web Pick of the Week
Communication Arts, 2009
A “wonderful web app where designers can figure out the optimum way to utilize printing with as little waste as possible.”
Re-nourish is an “online sustainable design mega-tool…”
Press Coverage and Mentions
“Sustainable Graphic Design: Principles and Practices” by Peter Fine, Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
“The Design Activist’s Handbook” by Noah Scalin and Michelle Taute, HOW Books, 2012.
“Education Lacking for Sustainable Graphic Design” by Nuel Naverrete, EcoSeed, Dec. 23, 2010.
“Re-nourish the Design Industry” by Zara Arshad, Notes on Design, November 2010.
“Designing Change: Re-nourishing Sustainability” by Jessica Kuhn, HOW Design, May 2010.
“Accounting for graphic design impacts,” Sustainable Industries, Nov. 8, 2010.
“Graphic Designers Team Up to Measure & Reduce Impacts,” GreenBiz, Oct. 25, 2010.
“Graphic Designer Wants to Make His Field Greener,” R&D Online, Dec. 2, 2009.
Mohawk Loop A Living Almanac, 2010.
“The Big Book of Green Design” by by Suzanna MW Stephens and Anthony B. Stephens, Harper Collins, 2009.
Re-nourish has also been featured or mentioned in Graphic Design USA, the Dwell blog, Konigi.com, Freelance Switch, Icograda.org, Felt & Wire, Layers Magazine, Dexigner.com, the Boston Phoenix blog, and other publications.