What comes to mind when you think of the word ‘plastic’? Few people think of the color green, but this is exactly the association that you will be making soon.
Bioplastics are a type of plastic that is more environmentally friendly. First, instead of being created from fossil fuels, they are created from agricultural products such as vegetable oil and starch. Second, they are completely biodegradable. You can throw them in your compost bin and just a few short months later be harvesting tomatoes out of the remains of your Pepsi bottle. In other words, these plastics are completely sustainable, which is why they are called ‘bioplastics’.
Many people have mixed feelings about using plastic in their daily lives. On one hand, plastics are among the most convenient and versatile materials on the earth. On the other hand, many people are concerned about the ecological impact of them. Until bioplastics came along, plastic had to be made from a dwindling reserve of petroleum products and the waste could not break down under natural conditions. Obviously bioplastics solve a huge problem and thus deserve their very own logo design.
The new logo features a hexagon, a shape commonly associated with chemistry, as the blossom of a flower. The mix of nature and chemistry is clever. The green color is a common sense choice as well. We are not too sure about the gradient; it doesn’t feel natural for some reason. However, on the whole this is a great logo that will represent its company well.
Where will you be seeing this logo design? First, you may be seeing it on Pepsi bottles in 2012, when the company aims to introduce bioplastics as the new plastic bottle for their products. Second, you will be seeing it on all Cereplast bioplastics. Cereplast is indeed the rightful owner, having bought the logo fair and square from graphics student Laura Howard. Ms. Howard’s work was chosen from 1,500 different submissions on Earth Day in a contest modeled after the 1970 contest that led to the creation of the now familiar recycling symbol. We know: contests are bad. This one, however, was held for the sake of tradition, so we will forgive them.
Although Cereplast owns the logo, we are assuming that, as with the recycling logo design, this image will be used on all products made of bioplastics as a public service announcement of sorts. After all, customers need to know which plastics are more environmentally friendly. Bioplastics can also be composted, which is an important reason for them to be labeled. If Cereplast decide to keep this out of the public domain and use it only for their own company, that really sucks. Still, we understand. It’s a great logo, and no company wants to pay $25,000 for a logo design that everyone else will be using.
Who ever would have guessed that plastics would someday have their own logo? The world is a changing place, and even the most mundane products need a logo to represent them and their cause.
