When we were putting together this green-focused issue of the frog design mind, we felt strongly that we should not wallow in "woe-is-me" statistics showing how dire the environmental situation is, but should focus instead on forward-looking solutions and ideas. But when we came across Chris Jordan's amazing photographic series, "Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait," we felt they were just too compelling to pass up. As a design company, we are constantly seeking ways to inspire action from meaning expressed visually, and Chris's work is a terrific example. The images are a gut-wrenching realization of the enormous cumulative impact made by millions of individual choices that, by themselves, seem small and harmless.

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Chris has this to say about "Running the Numbers":

“This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs.

My only caveat about this series is that the prints must be seen in person to be experienced the way they are intended. As with any large artwork, their scale carries a vital part of their substance which is lost in these little web images. Hopefully the JPEGs displayed here might be enough to arouse your curiosity to attend an exhibition, or to arrange one if you are in a position to do so. The series is a work in progress, and new images will be posted as they are completed, so please stay tuned.”

Chris' work is being exhibited at the Von Lintel Gallery in New York from June 14 to the end of July, 2007. More information is available at www.vonlintel.com. Chris is based in Seattle and is represented by the Von Lintel Gallery, the Paul Kopeikin Gallery (Los Angeles), and the Lawrimore Project (Seattle). His website, which includes more from this series, as well as other projects, is http://www.chrisjordan.com.

Our thanks to Chris for his kind permission in letting us use some of his work for this issue.