2 Inspirations

1) Design Barcode

Japanese design firm that became most famous for their barcodes that have been integrated into a product design or are simply creative for creative's sake. This sort of thing has been done before, but they make it both attractive and practical - effectively turning something dull and mundane into something fun and entertaining.

Link to the Japanese Website

Link to the English Website







They also create other sorts of design like this bottle for "Diet Water"

When full:


When empty:





2) Green Bird Series



Unfortunately, I have been unable to determine the creators of this poster series, but it is something I've constantly come back to as an amazing piece of work. The pure simplicity of so many of the designs (supporting recycling) transcend the language barrier.

For their campaign of environmental care, they've put together a large number of posters, postcards and now commercials.


The text below says something to the extent of, "It doesn't matter how your throw your trash, wrong means wrong."

In Japan, one recycles bottles (known as PET for the kind of plastic used) separate from the bottle cap, which people tend to forget. So the poster is asking people to split them for greater happiness.

I'm afraid I don't know an accurate translation of this, but is probably something along the lines of "Doing our part to make the future shine."

"If you clean up trash, you'll find many wonderful things."

"More than smoking or not smoking, wouldn't it be great if more people stopped littering?"

Hopefully my translations are accurate and make sense.

They also have some amazing commercials:

This one is my favorite. It features a smoker who decides to litter and his shadow.

Here is a second one. This time, we have the adventures of two fellows trying to dispose of a can.