Dr Rebecca Green (Becky) is a graphic designer, illustrator and academic. She has taught graphic design, image production and user experience design at Queensland universities and in Hong Kong since 2008. She has a passion for the exchange of knowledge between expert and learner, as well as a keen desire to make a substantial contribution to the supportive education of new generations of designers and thinkers. With 20 years’ graphic design experience, Becky has worked in museum design, as art director at a record label, in multimedia for education and in general design studios before forming her own sustainable design practice in 2007.

Becky’s research focuses on the contributions of graphic design to sustainability, both from a theoretical, or ethical perspective, as well as a practical one. Her current research investigates how graphic designers use the visual language to communicate complex issues such as climate change. While there is much theory surrounding framing of messages, imagery and content strategies for climate change communication, there is little understanding of how these elements are translated using aesthetic style into designed graphic artefacts. Given the rapid advancement of digital media technology, which has led to the dominance of an even more image-based style of visual communication, the role of the graphic designer is escalating. As well as its importance to the field of graphic design, this type of research is critical for the fields of science, science communication, and social science. Earlier Masters thesis work earned the Griffith University Award for Academic Excellence and the AGDA Gordon Andrews Scholarship, which resulted in the production of a sustainable graphic design Mac App available from Apple, the Australian Graphic Design Association (AGDA) and its global umbrella organisation ico-D (formerly ICOGRADA). This free app has been downloaded more than 20,000 times, providing designers all over the world with practical information on how to design more sustainably. It is currently being updated, with version 2.1 out soon.