About Katherine Hui

Recent Posts by Katherine Hui

Make Christmas A Makedo Celebration Bring Creativity To Your Holidays

We are big fans of Makedo (quite possibly the greatest making kit there is) so we thought we’d share the love this holiday season and give some away to you our loyal green things. Think of this as pain-free Christmas shopping, win your presents instead of buy them.

Makedo is a set a connectors for making stuff from things around you. It’s reusable and connects all kinds of materials. Best of all, it knows no age. Anyone can make things with it from children (3+ years) to those who prefer to nap without their teeth in.

It’s perfect for turning bits of waste and scrap materials into useful and unique objects.

Here are some brilliant creations from Makedo:

To enter all you have to do is visit our Facebook page and tell us what you’d make (or someone you’d like to give it to would make) with a kit. Be creative. Think wrapping paper. Think empty boxes and packaging.

Tell us on our Facebook wall and hopefully we’ll help you check someone off your list.

A Full Enhanced Climate Kid Takes On Every Season At Once

Remember Climate Kid?

Born from our partnership with UNICEF UK in March, Climate Kid tells the story of an ordinary boy developing extraordinary body parts to cope with his changing environment. Climate Kid was part of a wider campaign about illustrating what Climate Adaptation is and how people around the world will need to cope.

We are delighted to share that we won Bronze at the International Green Awards 2011 for Climate Kid in the Best Green Audio-Visual Award category. Well done team!

Can We Be Dreaming Of A Green Christmas This 2011

(This article was written for Book Magazine, a lovely online publication for students. Thanks Dominic Wells for getting us involved!)

Why should we be encouraged to buy, buy, buy on the grounds that the festive season is all about giving?  Giving is an important part of the Christmas tradition – just think of the Three Wise Men – but that doesn’t have to mean celebrating the newest, coolest, shiniest, top of the line gizmo. We forget about last year’s third generation iPhone because we simply must have This Year’s Model.

Socially we all play our parts in a giant consumer nativity play, and as we’ve wised up to this, so the big corporations have become stealthier about it. Take the new John Lewis Christmas advert: a small boy impatiently waits for the 25^th of December to arrive, only to ignore his own presents and dig out a gift for his mum and dad. Awww, because Christmas is about giving, right? But what seems on the surface a sentimental, anti-commercial message still has a hard-sell at heart: ‘People who care buy their presents at John Lewis. And we make it so easy, a ten-year-old child could do it.’

Brands playing a leading role in Christmas over-consumption is hardly a new thing. There is of course the urban legend – or in brand terms, ‘Coke-lore’ – that Coca-Cola invented Santa Claus, with his red and white suit and jolly round face. There is in fact some truth to this. In the 1920s Coke wanted to remind people that you could drink their beverages all year round. So they enlisted Santa Claus as depicted by a cartoonist, to help convey the message that ‘thirst knows no seasons’. And the modern day identity of a florid, flaming red Father C. bellowing ‘ho, ho, ho’ was born.

So, is it possible to be dreaming of a green Christmas unlike the ones we used to know? A Christmas where presents aren’t resource-intensive and wasteful (one in ten toys are broken by New Year’s Eve, and 46 million get thrown away), one that places value on the thought and meaning behind a gift rather than its price tag? One that isn’t so defined by brands and our desire to consume them?

Yes.

In fact, some of the nicest and most original things to give at this time of year can’t be bought but are made or created by the giver. Ingenuity and creativity go a very long way when it comes to gift gifting.

Beginning with the wrapping of gifts, there are so many better and cheaper alternatives. It’s an age-old tradition: some say it originated in China centuries ago, others say Rome, where gifts would be wrapped and sealed with wax and string. Concealing the contents of a package to heighten surprise is not a new thing at all; it’s just become a tradition that generates colossal waste – 32.5 sq miles of wrapping paper ends up in our bins each year.

So take a cue from other cultures. In Japan they “Furoshiki” their presents. Furoshiki is a reusable cloth that can be tied in a variety of ways to make every gift look unique. The best part, aside from the material being reusable, is that it’s highly functional. With clever little folds and ties, you’re able to create packages that have handles and straps that make them easy to transport.

How about the most common Christmas conundrum: how can I spend less money?

You can give a service or an experience. And that doesn’t necessarily mean blowing £100 on a Virgin hot-air balloon flight. Why not offer up your own skills as a gift? You could teach your parents or grandparents how to blog, tweet or Skype; offer to bake, or babysit, or make a meal for friends.

Better yet, you could give something that in itself symbolises a deeper sense of giving: plant a cherry tree in someone’s name in Japan to help reconstruct the environment damaged by the earthquake; or go to Goodgifts.org who have gifts like hospital kits and seed packets for communities in rural Kenya.

Why not invent your own holiday tradition? It’s a great way to curb consumption and be kinder to the planet. I’ve always loved Secret Santa. It’s always been a Hui family tradition, but with a green-friendly twist: the gift must be homemade. In the past I’ve done mix CD’s, made bowls out of old records and hand-sewed a duvet cover.

It’s easy, pain-free and downright rewarding to start making the green Christmas dream a reality, and the only thing you’ll have to sacrifice is the urge to spank your wallet and wear out some shoe leather on the high street.

Crafternon Tea Club Hosts A Sustainable Christmash Special

This festive season the Crafternon Tea Club, a collective of artists and designers who believe that sustainability = creativity, have upped their game. In partnership with Etsy they’re throwing a Christmash gift-swapping, re-gifting special this Thursday 8th December at the Trampery, 13-19 Bevenden Street, London, N1 6AA (2 mins Old St tube).

Entry is free, there will be plenty of drink good music and people who will be loving the pre-loved.

We’ll see you there!

 

Black Curtain Friday

This is just wonderful. The folks at Holstee have decided to take a stand against Black Friday by making sure no transactions go through their site. They’ve pulled a black curtain across their website with a lovely message to about their hiatus. Hats off to Holstee!

Debate & Discussion on the Future of Mobility at Mobility 2025 in Paris

Last week, I spent some time with the Eco-mobility.tv crew telling them how we at Do The Green Thing think about the future of mobility. We chatted about all sorts of things, from innovation in public transport to different ways people and governments have been making commuting enjoyable.

Have you ever wondered what transportation will be like 13 years from now? Maybe cars will have better designs, and maybe trains and buses will have developed in such a way that staying grounded is peoples’ preferred option.

This week in Paris, Mobility 2025 will debate these things – the future of mobility. Ecomobility.tv is bringing together mobility experts, journalists and bloggers to debate about the future of mobility. You can stream the debate live here as well as contribute your own thoughts via the Twitter hashtag #Mob2025.

Shades of Shame’s Energy Saving Creative Lighting Technique

During Energy Savings Week, we asked people to send in pictures of their Shades of Shame. A Shade of Shame is any light fixture that is an eye sore, something that could be enhanced by the presence of a Plumen Light bulb – quite possibly the most beautiful and energy efficient bulb on the market.

Saved On The Inside And Out With Creative T-shirts And Packaging

More to our Saved Campaign is the story behind the packaging. We love spotting brilliant packaging ideas and it was important for us for Saved to reflect the purpose of the campaign which is rescuing things from waste. We were very lucky to have Daniel Weil, a partner at Pentagram, design our Saved packaging. We caught up with him for some tea not so long ago so he could share more of the Saved story with us.

KH: Why did you chose this material?

DW: It was important that the Saved packaging matched the expectation of saving things – and the bigger objective. The cardboard material used was salvaged from Grace Martin printers, who generously gave us their run offs. When a printer is changing the work being printed, hundred of papers are needed to put through a machine to clean it between jobs. These pieces of run off paper get discarded once on side of the page is completely saturated with colour.

KH: Talk me through the design.

DW: The design of the packaging is simple. No adhesive is needed. The interlocked band means it can be used multiple times. The beauty in this is the crisp new white side of the paper as the outside so when people open their Saved shirt they are pleasantly surprised by the inside. This theme is also present in whole idea of Saved, and that is look beyond what is outside. The width and height of the packaging was specifically chosen to comply with a size prescribed by the post office. If it is of a certain size, then the package can be posted as a letter rather than a parcel.

When a Saved T is put in the packaging, it’s put in a small clear bag. This is to negate the need to have waterproof packaging. These bags came from a retail packaging supplier near Spitalfields market. This particular supplier used to be the main supplier to almost all off the green grocers. Over time as green grocers started fading away, so did the supplier. It was a 3rd generation owned old shop. So we helped ‘Save’ the shop in a way as they had a lot of stock but little business.

KH: Did you find it restrictive the idea of coming up with packaging for a purpose?

DW: I understood that there would be restrictions but saw these as opportunities to make something appropriate and life enhancing. To make something with a purpose is adding a new sense of value, one which is around perception and cultural things rather than material. To have value things don’t need to be expensive, it’s more about an enhanced experience. The packaging gives the message that you can be good and look good.

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If you’d like to see our Saved packaging in the flesh why not order a T.

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