“This Brand Is Your Brand” : Unconsumption in...

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Your daily source of inspiration for creative reuse and mindful consumption.

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We welcome your tips, suggestions, and feedback. Contact: unconsumption@gmail.com

[Background on, & press coverage of, Unconsumption can be found here and here.]

Consumption is a word used to describe acts of acquisition – generally, the acquisition of things, in exchange for money.

Unconsumption is a word used to describe everything that happens after an act of acquisition.

Unconsumption is an invisible badge.

Unconsumption means the accomplishment of properly recycling your old cellphone, rather than the guilt of letting it sit in a drawer.

Unconsumption means the thrill of finding a new use for something that you were about to throw away.

Unconsumption means the pleasure of using a service like Freecycle (or Craigslist, Goodwill, or Salvation Army) to find a new home for the functioning DVD player you just replaced, rather than throwing it in the garbage.

Unconsumption means enjoying the things you own to the fullest – not just at the moment of acquisition.

Unconsumption means the pleasure of using a pair of sneakers until they are truly worn out – as opposed to the nagging feeling of defeat when they simply go out of style.

Unconsumption means feeling good about the simple act of turning off the lights when you leave the room.

Unconsumption is not about the rejection of things, or the demonization of things. It’s not a bunch of rules.

Unconsumption is an idea, a set of behaviors, a way of thinking about consumption itself from a new perspective.

Unconsumption is free.

CONTRIBUTORS:

Founder & Editor: Rob Walker, journalist, Savannah, GA

Editorial & Community Manager: Molly Block, marketing and business development geek, Houston, TX

Brian W. Jones, designer & writer, Göteborg, Sweden

Kashvi Kumar, Environmental Studies and Economics major at New York University

Deirdre Nelson, ever threading artist, Glasgow, Scotland

Shanna Trenholm, writer. catalyst. force of nature. San Diego, CA

* * *

Alumnus & Unconsumption logo creator: Clifton Burt, graphic designer, Portland, OR

Further information about Unconsumption can be found here.

10:44 am - Tue, May 29, 2012: 24 notes

“This Brand Is Your Brand” : Unconsumption in OnEarth Magazine

I’m really pleased to pass along this essay I did for OnEarth magazine, all about our Uncollection efforts. It was an honor to speak to the publication’s audience, and a lot of fun to think through our “brand without products.” (— Rob Walker.)

The piece is here: This Brand Is Your Brand | OnEarth Magazine

Here’s an excerpt:

Around the same time that I was mulling over these ideas, some like-minded collaborators and I co-founded a group blog that we called Unconsumption. Our initial idea was to highlight inspiring examples of creative reuse and maybe, in the process, help slow the arrival of prematurely disposed-of objects into landfills. We’ve built up a nice audience — we have more than 20,000 followers at the moment — but at some point we decided that, like any growth-minded enterprise, we needed a logo. One of our colleagues created a symbol we began referring to as “Mr. Cart”: an upside-down shopping cart, flashing a smile. It was the perfect image, we all thought, to represent the Unconsumption project.

So now we had a brand! Given the nature of our endeavor, though, producing branded merchandise was out of the question. As much as I loved our adorable new logo, we had no products to emblazon. But there was an obvious, not to mention philosophically consistent, alternative: brand things that already exist.

More: This Brand Is Your Brand | OnEarth Magazine

Above illustration by Matthew Daley