Sun Day
OPPORTUNITY
On April 22, 1970, Earth Day rallied 20 million Americans and sparked a cascade of lasting change: the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
Half a century later, at another environmental tipping point, environmentalist and writer Bill McKibben and Earth Day co-founder Denis Hayes set out to create its cultural successor in the name of clean energy.
They call it Sun Day.
Why the sun? Humanity has always depended on the sun as our bringer of life, light and heat. That relationship was fractured by the explosive use of fossil fuels over the last century. Fossil energy may have powered economic and social gains, but it also filled the atmosphere with carbon, turning our skies into a global sewer.
Now, for the first time in history, the cheapest form of energy is a sheet of glass pointed at the sun.
The math is astonishing: sunlight striking Earth delivers 10,000 times more energy than humanity consumes. It’s as if we’re endlessly showered in the very thing we need most. Sun Day is a call to action: the way forward is here.
What we need now is the global will.
A DESIGN FOR A MOVEMENT
COLLINS was invited to help. How would we define and design for such an idea? McKibben’s brief was simple, but not so easy: build a system cohesive enough to unite millions, universal enough to be understood across cultures and languages and bold enough to fly on a flag.
Our answer: the system had to be participatory.
We studied grassroots symbols that have endured: the peace sign of the 1950s nuclear disarmament movement, Gilbert Baker’s rainbow symbol, the Extinction Rebellion hourglass, even the bold stars and stripes of the American flag. Each represents different human hopes, yet they share a common visual language—familiar geometry, nothing complicated. Forms so easy to doodle on a napkin, paint on poster or mark in the sand, that anyone can recreate and claim them as their own.
After countless sketches, we distilled the idea to its essence: five bold rays forming half a sun. The other half is left open, for people to complete themselves. Because movements thrive when people see themselves in them.
As McKibben says, when it comes to solar power, “we are halfway there, halfway to go.”
We hope this symbol will stand for both: the progress we’ve already made and the work we still have to finish—together.
TOOLS FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION
First, a digital commons.
With our technology partners at garden3d, we created an online platform where anyone can draw their own sun and place it in a global gallery. The site doubles as a bulletin board for actions and events, helping Sun Day build local and global momentum.
Then, a living typeface.
With the remarkable people at Commercial Type, we created a new, custom type family designed to be filled in, redrawn and remixed. It was crafted to be re-crafted—by millions of other hands.
FROM THREAT TO SOLUTION
Sun Day reframes the sun from a threat to the solution. It makes clear that this is no longer “alternative energy,” but a smart path forward.
On Sunday, September 21, hundreds of events unfold around North America and the world to exclaim just that.
The story, we hope, will move beyond protest, policy, or politics. We hope it will start to show how design – as a plan for action – can help catalyze real collective momentum—just as it did for Earth Day five decades ago.
Join in, here: sunday.earth
Team
- COLLINS
- Beth Johnson
- Mason Lin
- Eron Lutterman
- John Choi
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- garden3d
- Hugh Francis
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- Commercial Type