Communication beyond words
This week I've been quite in awe of Banksy's work.
If this comes as news to you, the elusive, anonymous street art genius has created one animal-themed graffiti a day for the past nine days in different parts of London (I collated them for you, above). The series culminated with a gorilla (whoop whoop! my favourite as the cherry on the cake!) letting other animals free from the London Zoo.
People have been speculating about the meaning of it all. Besides the cleverness of how each image plays with its surroundings (I mean, the rhino?! Look at the cone on the car bonnet... perfection), is this an environmental message? Is it about the way we are mistreating and imprisoning nature?
Or is it about animals as metaphors for human beings, a reminder of Orwell and his Animal Farm?
Perhaps both...
One thing is for sure, they are strong messages with a strong ethical feel to them and they don't have a single word in them.
What does that tell you?
You don't have to use words to communicate sustainability.
You can tell more with a picture because there is an immediate emotional trigger in images that words need to work harder to deliver.
Whatever your style of communicating sustainability, don't discount visuals as they can be what makes a real difference to your influencing powers.
This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/