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Our panel of international design experts explains why our food system needs a universal visual language.
Introduction
by Dan Altschuler MalekWhat is the challenge for designers in making Lex Icons™?
by Anne DiggesCould a shared, visual and global language for commercial, industrial, and consumer food terms lead to better collaboration and understanding throughout food systems?
by Guillermo CastillejaCan a language of icons help us visualize our relationship with all land?
by Dorn CoxWhat would improve food supply cycles?
by Robyn MetcalfeWhy do the Lex Icons™ help create standardized visualizations of complex concepts and principles?
by Isabelle HamlinHow can we universally improve clarity when trying to understand what's in our food?
by Nayane de Souza HablitzelWhat are Lex Icons™ and why are they an essential tool for explaining food systems?
by Kazuki KitaokaHow can Lex Icons™ change how we communicate when talking about food?
by Veeksha MehndirattaIs it true that a picture is worth a thousand words?
by Cameron WardOur panel of international design experts explains why our food system needs a universal visual language.
Introduction
Semioticians classify signs or sign systems in relation to the way they are transmitted. To illuminate one-way semioticians’ look at things, let us peek at stage and film semiotics, which study the various codes and signs on stage and in the movies, and how they are interpreted by the viewer in spite of their artificiality. In film, the actors often stand one behind the other, facing the audience and not each other; recalling the past is indicated by switching to black and white or via a wiggly picture; squeaky doors and shadows moving on stairways are associated with horror, and so on.
Managing Partner
UNOVIS & NEW CROP CAPITAL
I regularly have conversations with people from so many different perspectives (academic, corporate, government, lobbyists, etc.) and I’ve learned that before we try to fix something so complex, we all need to talk about it in similar ways. The biggest distance in understanding is between players of different sizes: a coffee grower in Costa Rica and a multinational like Starbucks, for example. Their fates are intertwined but there is a complete imbalance in the relationship. Both need to exist and both need to speak with a common understanding of the larger context they work within.
Language is a marketing tool and lots of ingredients have completely different naming paths. Shared definitions and visual language are opportunities for governments to reset the ground rules to communicate more effectively. Because of such large investments in capital needed for new solutions and because Asia has such large populations—and less affluent ones—they are taking the lead.
People have forgotten where their food comes from and this isn’t just inner-city children that may have never been to a farm. Consumers need to own-up to the fact that they play a big part in what is being served and their focused actions can help create a more healthy supply chain, etc. At the same time, we’ve lost a degree of respect for farmers and those that work the land. I didn’t have much understanding of farmers, myself, until I set-up a natural snack company many years ago. The current food system has put them into a situation where they have to compete with factory farms or move increasingly into small niches. Most people aren’t willing to pay premiums for better, healthier food but they will pay much higher prices for specialty items, like fine chocolate, or when they understand the differences in origin, quality, health, flavor, etc. So, anything that helps them to better understand the food systems, will help them make better choices as well as support better food outcomes throughout the supply chain.
The term “smallholders” includes small farmers who own/control the land they farm and those who do not. Often, the term “outgrower” is used to refer to a smallholder who is in a dependent, managed relationship with an exporter.
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Creative constraints in design can inspire innovative solutions by forcing designers to think outside the box and find new ways to achieve their goals, while providing a clear direction and framework for the design process. In the case of Lex Icons™, constraints (and templates) also help to ensure that the final icon is functional, easy to use and can be designed by anyone.
Designer
DIGGES DESIGN
When a written language can’t unite us a visual language can. It’s how we navigate a foreign city, interpret explainer videos, and assemble furniture. And now it can actually help us understand our food — how it’s grown and harvested, what considerations went into its production, and how it impacts the planet and our health. Through the globally-sourced Lex Icons™ project designers from across the globe have contributed to a lexicon of visual identifiers — simple and direct icons — that help to tell the story of food and agriculture.
The task of a graphic designer is to clearly communicate ideas through visuals. Like solving a big puzzle with a tiny drawing, Lex Icons™ designers break down the most complex ideas into very simple terms, and then illustrate them, confining their drawing to a 23 pixel hexagon. Each icon delivers a snapshot for someone to quickly understand a food or agriculture concept. In a single gesture, an icon can teach consumers more about their food, helping them become informed and stay mindful of their own personal values and goals before buying their food.
A vitally important aspect of Lex Icons™ is that it maintains visual integrity throughout the entire body of work. This in effect ensures its brand integrity, signaling to viewers an icon’s authenticity and provenance from a vetted panel of domain experts. As the collection grows and becomes more readily used around the world — through education, community outreach, in the marketplace, and on packaging — its recognition grows exponentially. Lex Icons™ become a gold standard for consumers to seek out before making purchasing decisions.
By aligning with the established visual style, designers can grow the recognition and significance of this wide-reaching project. Think of Lex Icons™ as a living organism that grows out one icon at a time; while each icon is unique in its concept and meaning, the style, or “hand”, is consistent. Designers can contribute to this work by following the guidelines set forth in the Lex Icons™ Project overview. We’ve made it simple on purpose. Our guides and templates offer base elements that can be used as starting points. Colors, line weights, and even layered Adobe Illustrator files offer all that a designer needs to get creating. A peer review system, judged by both designers and domain experts, ensures the final outcome is the best solution to iconify a complex idea.
Biomimicry is the imitation of natural biological designs or processes in engineering or invention.
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A growing list of terms
How big does the Food icon system need to be and how many terms need to be represented?
There is no easy answer to this question. The Food Clarity activator team assembled a list of over 1000 terms pertaining to food systems, and this list is hardly complete, given that some researchers have identified nearly 10,000. In exercises used to prioritize these terms, it became clear that many are more useful than others and 500-600 terms is a sweet spot for communicating the most important processes, elements, and even ingredients to global, commercial supply cycles.
Our aim is to launch the food icon challenge in rounds of 200-300 terms. Within just a few challenge rounds, we should have a cohesive visual inventory allowing the vast majority of food professionals to communicate the bulk of their needs.
Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community.
Senior Advisor
GLOBAL ALLIANCE FOR THE FUTURE OF FOOD
There are many people doing incredible work globally to improve various food systems but too much of it is siloed within specialized frameworks, vocabularies, and languages, This work is disconnected from others and, therefore, not supportive of wider, systemic solutions. A group of food experts and designers have been devising a visual language to unite various food system stakeholders across the world in order to improve this communication and collaboration. The first phase of this process is complete, outlining how to complete a vastly larger system that transcends languages. In order to complete this system, the Lex Icons™ Challenge will be a crowdsourced competition to collaboratively design a large system of open-source icons of key food terms and concepts, and frameworks that can be used globally by professionals and consumers alike.
When we started this project, our hunch was that various popular food frameworks were not so different, despite their vocabularies. At their heart, most food frameworks and initiatives work with the same elements and have compatible goals. In addition, work around the world in every community relies on clear communication that often needs to transcend language. The global food supply cycle touches so many regions, people, and stakeholders, that any one language isn’t enough to communicate throughout. We don’t expect a visual language system to solve every communication challenge but we expect that it can ease communication and comprehension and help people understand how disparate efforts and approaches support similar goals and outcomes.
The goals of this project include:
While the first audiences for this system are those in the industrial and commercial parts of food systems, we do expect these icons to be used by many other groups—right down to eaters and other food consumers. From farmers, marine farmers, and those throughout the agriculture and aquaculture industries, to food businesses, restaurants, certifiers, and consumers, consistent communication is an obvious ideal. Constructing a viable system, however, is not without its challenges.
First, our food systems are vast and spread all over the planet. Supple cycles are long, encompassing all kinds of growing, raising, processing, transportation, packaging, and markets. In addition, some stakeholders use different terms to differentiate their offerings, whether this confuses users or makes things more clear—or both, simultaneously. It’s no surprise that terms are misunderstood at all levels.
However, our initial investigations and prototypes have proven to us that visual languages can help, even if not exhaustively. The discussions that these symbols provoke, alone, have been valuable in illuminating expertise from different people and sectors.
Our next step is to use the learnings from our prototype and launch the first round of the challenge to designers worldwide. It will likely take two, three, or more rounds of challenges to fill out the iconographic system to meet the needs of so many stakeholders but the process for each challenge can be the same.
The quality of being done in an open way without secrets.,
Supply chain transparency from farm to plate enhances consumer safety and awareness, market value, fair pricing, food justice, ecological impacts, and animal welfare.
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Regenerative agriculture is all about embracing complexity – producing food in collaboration with the unique qualities of the land and environment and making sure those unique qualities are stewarded. Lex Icons™ help show these unique qualities, allowing producers to pass on an understanding of the land’s complexity to consumers.
Research Director
WOLFE'S NECK CENTER FOR AGRICULTURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
We are asking more about agriculture. The value of a food system and the relationship to climate, biodiversity, and how we relate to each other is a far larger economy than the food fiber and energy that is exchanged as agricultural commodities. The smallest patterns of land stewardship start from an individual’s observations, at eye level, and form the unique fingerprints they leave on the landscape. The ground-level patterns start microscopically but express themselves and change with our management of water, fire, plants, animals, harvests, and fertilization. It is at this level where land stewards’ decisions are made that directly affect the billions of organisms in each handful of soil. It’s where improvements to soil health are planned, practiced, measured, and adjusted. It is where businesses are built. It is the place where individuals implement practices informed by data and their own observations. We can observe in our own backyards how these ground-level patterns of regeneration build on the infinitely intricate details of nature. It is a process that we may all experience and which leaves, not a footprint, but a unique fingerprint on every product that comes from the land.
To share the stories of our unique fingerprints on the land requires a universal language that can communicate across cultural boundaries and be a meaningful record of our interaction with nature, which is why Lex Icons™ have such an important role to play. Lex Icons™ assembled meaningfully together can form the foundation for a Visual Language to make visible the unique “Fingerprint” of people on all land. An agricultural fingerprint, when represented in a visual language, enables a shareable data-driven story about people and our influence on the land over time.
Lex Icons™ are an effective tool for communicating the local nuance of agriculture because they are simple, easy to understand, and visually appealing. They are human-readable but can also be digitally exchanged and data-driven. They can help bridge the gap between technical information and public understanding and help build a broader and more accessible public dialog around agriculture. Lex Icons™ are useful for explaining regenerative agriculture in particular because they are visual representations of complex concepts and ideas which are combined and adapted to local conditions. Lex Icons™ preview a pathway to de-commodify the food system, while still enabling efficient exchange and vibrant food economies.
By coupling Lex Icons™ with scoring systems and data-driven representations, individuals and organizations are more easily able to consistently communicate challenges and opportunities involved within an individual farm and also communicate the unique nature of regional foodsheds.
For example, Lex Icons™ can communicate in a rapid and accessible way the use of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, in agriculture, or the conservation of natural resources, such as water and soil. Lex Icons™ can also be used to highlight labor practices, local food systems, and the reduction of food waste. The use of Lex Icons™ when coupled with data, scoring and benchmark systems can help engage audiences, especially those who may not have a background in agriculture, in discussions about regenerative agriculture and the role of agriculture in achieving development goals.
An example of how I might use Lex Icons to represent a “fingerprint” follows:
Healthy soil is loose, friable, and well-drained, approximately 45% minerals, 25% water, 25% air and 5% organic matter, has good structure and texture, plenty of nutrients and a pH between 5.5 and 7.5, and has large numbers and types of organism.
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The COVID-19 pandemic brought to attention some big food supply chain issues and questions. Food safety concerns grew as people wondered if food sales had a role in the coronavirus spread, food security concerns ballooned with many people stuck in their homes or left without consistent income, and food sustainability concerns gained attention as global supply chains broke down.
We’re seeing major challenges in the design of global food systems. The concept of optimization through specialization will be reconsidered in the future. We now question our dependence upon global sourcing as pandemics shut down entire regions and international trade in favor of feeding local populations. Increased automation in the industrial food system could improve worker safety, public health, and access. The ideal is a fully resilient and redundant food-sourcing system that can rapidly respond to changes and threats to the food system.
Currently, specialized food systems, such as the plant-based supply chain or the meat protein supply chain, do not have a language for communicating with each other. Those designing a new, integrated, and resilient food system, need a neutral, yet precise tool for conveying the activities within their own separate supply chains.
New communication tools can bridge different supply chains for the purpose of creating more resilience, adaptability, and traceability in a world of rapid change. Consumers need to know how to make their own food choices while having a complete understanding of the practices and impacts of the food they are consuming.
Prioritizing and committing to a diverse group of stakeholders, scales, and products throughout the value chain, between businesses and locations.
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To get more information about the backstory on how The Lexicon and Adobe created the first basic set and the design thinking behind Lex Icons™ go here.
Design Manager
ADOBE
Communicating urgent and complex matters as fast as possible to a wide range of audiences is very important today. Explaining complex multilayered systems in a matter of seconds and grasping the complexity of the world we are living in is essential to transport those messages successfully.
The option of visual storytelling not only around food terminology is powerful. Designers’ creativity can be endless when given support and a design system that lets them focus on the message. When done right, these causes, with a deep foundation of essential and reusable elements, can be strong enough to encourage, engage and inspire an open community of designers to give a gift that keeps giving.
The visual clarity and information of the Lex Icons™ designs are translated in an approachable and friendly way, the way you would like to know more and involve yourself. When you create, adapt, and share a standardized visual vocabulary, you can recognize critical terms and lessen the mental load of complex concepts. Scaling knowledge quickly by looking at informational Lex Icons™ works well when getting those elementary stories out. This design system can grow to build even more complex and diverse techniques. Even when subject areas and production parts overlap, they are still recognizable as part of the story network. They won’t stand out as alien elements, which are usually harder to understand because they don’t follow the design principles we built the set.
Hundreds of designers worldwide have now used these icon shapes and patterns. They have built this incredible visual language, a vocabulary forming a storytelling lexicon, which explains with the help of just a few lines, something immensely complex, and this visual translation should not underestimate its potential to grow and scale communication.
Reduced entanglement" in fishery refers to the reduction or minimization of accidental capture or entanglement of non-target marine animals, such as marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds, in fishing gear.
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It is estimated that 32 million Americans have food allergies, 5.6 million of those being children under 18. 90% of food allergies are caused by one of these foods: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soybeans.
Product UX Designer
IKEA
Food is an essential part of our lives, so people must clearly understand what they choose to consume. The Lex Icons™ project aims to help clarify complex food-related concepts and principles, creating simple and familiar visual elements for all.
As a designer living abroad with food allergies, I know firsthand how difficult it can be to interpret lengthy ingredient lists in an unfamiliar language. Lex Icons™ can enable us to make more informed decisions about the products we consume and how we communicate our complex food system, making information more accessible, understandable, and accurate for everyone.
With the Lex Icons™ design guidelines, we can empower creators to communicate complex concepts, such as food allergens, into a set of icons that are easy to understand and create. These icons have a unique hexagon-outline shape, highlighting the icon’s identity.
Iconography is a powerful tool for visual communication. One of the main advantages of using standardized icons is that they can help overcome language and cultural barriers. Icons can be understood by people from different parts of the world, regardless of their linguistic background or educational level. Icons can also be easily integrated into various media, such as digital screens, packages, and other print materials, making them highly adaptable communication tools.
It was a privilege to participate in such a significant project and witness the involvement of creators from around the world.
The top eight allergens as defined by the United States FDA, which include soy, wheat, milk, eggs, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, peanuts.
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The World Food Forum (WFF) is an independent, youth-led global network of partners facilitated by FAO. It aims to spark a global movement that empowers young people to actively shape our agrifood systems with the aim of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a better food future for all.
Global Coordinator
WORLD FOOD FORUM
Food is universal. Every human needs it not only to survive but to thrive. Likewise, the food systems that encompass the journey of food from farm to plate span borders and traverse continents. Today we are living in a world where we depend on one another for our global food supply, and collaboration across cultures is essential to ensure its safety, transparency, and sustainability.
Lex Icons™ are an open-source visual language that enables key players in our food systems — such as farmers, ranchers, restaurateurs, supply chain managers, and consumers — to seamlessly communicate across cultures, regions, and languages. At its core, Lex Icons™ is a key set of standardized terms and definitions that describe various aspects and principles of our food systems translated into intuitively recognizable icons. These icons can then be used on food packaging, restaurant menus, educational tools, research papers, mobile apps, or almost anywhere we want to communicate about food.
For example, the Lex Icon for Women’s Economic Empowerment could be used on a label for a food item from a company that actively supports giving women equal access to employment and market opportunities. Another example is the Lex Icon for compostable. This could be used on a food container made out of organic matter that can go into your home or community compost.
In short, Lex Icons™ is a visual language that enables an alignment of food systems concepts in a readily available and easily shareable way. Anyone anywhere can use them to communicate and understand a full range of concepts describing our food systems. In turn, this can lead to increased food systems transparency and greater food literacy, while empowering people in all areas of our food system to create market and system changes that improve our global food supply.
Women's economic empowerment is the increased capacity of women to participate in, contribute to and benefit from growth processes in ways that recognise the value of their contributions, respect their dignity and make it possible to negotiate a fairer distribution of the benefits of growth.
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Visual language is processed by the visual cortex in the brain, which is a specialized area for processing visual information. Visual language can convey information quickly and efficiently, and can be especially helpful for people who have difficulty processing spoken language. Speech and visual communication are two parallel and often interdependent means by which humans exchange information, with the former utilizing time-based linear progression while the latter represents concepts in a spatial context through image elements.
Spatial Experience Designer
BRMA
With sustainability being so trendy these days, sustainable development becomes a trite oxymoron. As so much of sustainability focuses on a theoretical level, there is also an imminent need to focus on the everyday activities we all perform and encounter. These have the potential to bring about the most impact. Food systems, therefore, are one of the ways in which themes like nutrition, food security, food waste, etc. can be addressed.
As many food systems are ubiquitous and highly organised sectors, there are multiple stakeholders affected throughout these complex systems. Farmers, ranchers, restaurateurs, supply chain managers, and eaters around the world all need more effective ways to communicate that can bridge geographic and linguistic boundaries and differences. The Lex Icons™ initiative, a global collaboration between hundreds of designers and agrifood system experts, has resulted in a repository of standardised and universal icons that can help make food systems more transparent.
Lex Icons™ are meant for everyone. They are clean and simple compositions, effectively communicating themes and terms that every shareholder can understand. This visual language aims to be accessible and inclusive of cultures, ages, and places. Each icon is intricately designed and reviewed, with a set of guidelines that ensures seamless collaboration between design volunteers. The hexagonal container is used to unify the family of icons, with a linear stroke style clean, and scalable compositions. Through a series of virtual design iterations, creating new Lex Icons™ was a dynamic exercise. Every phase was exciting and as a designer, the evolution of each icon proved to be an immense learning opportunity. One could never imagine how the initial sketch could transform into a well-rounded piece at the end of the expert reviews. A key takeaway was to pare down the elements of the icon until they can’t be subtracted further, while paying attention to how individual icons fit into the overall Lex Icons™ family.
Lex Icons™ aims to standardize visualizations of complex concepts and principles, to present with greater food literacy. As we welcome the next Lex Icons™ phase, there are still many new icons to add and we’ve been helping several NGOs adopt them for their work. They are also being incorporated into a new Ecological Benefits Marketplace.
Both good and bad information being shared upward, downward, and laterally in a way that allows all to see the why behind the words.
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Douglas Gayeton, co-founder of The Lexicon, has always been aware that a picture is not worth a thousand words, but instead invites a thousand questions. This is why he created information artworks, a unique style of photographic storytelling that combines a collage of photographs with the words of the protagonists of a story to convey its complexity to viewers.
Designer
CAMERON WARD DESIGN
The cliche goes that a picture is worth a thousand words. A well-worn phrase to be sure, but there is some merit to the kernel of truth hidden within. Pictures, images, icons, symbols, and beyond are all highly effective means of communicating where words fail. The earliest forms of communication in fact were drawings. Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphics, the Japanese used kanji, and the modern world in general would much prefer communicating in gifs, memes, and emoji. The Lex Icons™ Collection of iconographic images communicating complex concepts and principles about the global food system is incredibly useful for just such a purpose. The Lex Icons™ Collection is a useful means of communication due to its iconographic nature, its use of cultural inclusion in the development of the collection, and its use beyond by producers and consumers alike with disregard for the language barrier.
The Lex Icons™ Collection is a useful tool due to its visual system of icons. Icons are minimal, graphic, and easy to comprehend. Like an infographic, it is a means of taking complex ideas and converting them into easily digestible information. It is by far the most practical means of communicating complex concepts. By reducing paragraphs of explanation or description to symbols, these icons save the food producers time and effort in educating a consumer, and the consumer in turn can more easily and quickly decipher the value that a producer or product possesses. Furthermore, using a cohesive design system like the one found in the Lex Icons™ Collection, there becomes an established and agreed-upon system that can in turn develop into a visual shorthand, eliminating barriers and increasing flow through the global communicative web. Lastly, there is something to be said in defense of a system of aesthetically pleasing icons. Beautiful, whimsical, and engaging icons inspire visual curiosity, drawing people in and stoking an appetite for discovery.
The nature of the Lex Icons™ visual system lends itself to an inclusive and unhindered means of cross-cultural communication. By using this system built upon iconic and pictorial design, there is a more inclusive system to disseminate vitally important information, oftentimes to the ones who need it the most. The Lex Icons™ Collection was developed in part by drawing upon a wide range of creative volunteers from around the world. Incorporating the work of artists, thinkers, and designers from broad and diverse backgrounds, the Lex Icons™ Collection is better positioned to minimize cultural misinterpretation. In turn, this collection of icons becomes instilled with cultural fluidity, being able to reach places and people that might otherwise have been inaccessible due to culturally ignorant design, word choice, or syntax. This cross-cultural sourcing also strengthens the Lex Icons™ Collection’s use of implicit description over explicit explanation. By removing early in the developmental stage any imagery with potentially negative connotations, there are fewer chances for consumers or producers to misunderstand or misconstrue.
Ultimately, the need for such a collection as that of Lex Icons™ is to eliminate any language barrier and reduce comprehension barriers. Frankly put, people who can’t read can understand images. For example, the Catholic Church used paintings, reliefs, and sculptures to educate and reinforce church teachings to its largely illiterate congregants in Medieval Europe. Imagery, an easily accessible form of communication, is much more powerful than words at evoking response and understanding. Therefore, by using the Lex Icons™ Collection, a dynamic system is created in which one can use singular icons to convey basic information or a collection of icons to further explain how something fits into the various food systems to which a food item, product, or person belongs. From a practical standpoint, icons such as these can be used alone or in conjunction with localized language to better explain complicated concepts related to food source, supply chain needs, consumer rights, or merely to sell a product.
The Lex Icons™ Collection is a practical and powerful tool for use in any manner by those connected to our global food systems. Its minimal, eye-catching iconography and culturally inspired development process makes it widely accessible, and easy to understand without the use of any specific language. All this makes the Lex Icons™ Collection a potent, equitable, and dynamic means of communication.
Agrifood systems represent the entire range of actors, activities, and the biophysical and socioeconomic environments involved in producing, processing, distributing, regulating, and consuming foods. Agrifood systems, which emphasize the importance of agriculture as the starting point of food systems, are by far the world’s largest economic system, measured in terms of employment and livelihoods as well as planetary impact. Worldwide, 1 billion people are directly employed in the agrifood systems; another 3.5 billion earn their livelihoods through them. Poverty and inequality are endemic in agrifood systems.
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Are you a designer interested in contributing? Please contact us.
Each Lex Icons™ designer owns their work, but they have granted a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, and worldwide right of usage for their work to lex-icons.org. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to the Lex Icons™ team here.
About
The Lex Icons™ Platform is produced by The Lexicon™, an international NGO that brings together food companies, government agencies, financial institutions, scientists, entrepreneurs, and food producers from across the globe to tackle some of the most complex challenges facing our food systems.
Team
The Lex Icons™ Platform was developed by Green Brown Blue, an invitation-only food systems solutions activator produced by The Lexicon with support from Food at Google. The activator model fosters unprecedented collaborations between leading food service companies, environmental NGOs, government agencies, and technical experts from across the globe.
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We have no idea who grows our food, what farming practices they use, the communities they support, or what processing it undergoes before reaching our plates.
As a result, we have no ability to make food purchases that align with our values as individuals, or our missions as companies.
To change that, we’ve asked experts to demystify the complexity of food purchasing so that you can better informed decisions about what you buy.
The Lexicon of Food’s community of experts share their insights and experiences on the complex journey food takes to reach our plates. Their work underscores the need for greater transparency and better informed decision-making in shaping a healthier and more sustainable food system for all.
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This online platform is years in the making, featuring the contributions of 1000+ companies and NGOs across a dzen domain areas. To introduce you to their work, we’ve assembled personalized experiences with insights from our community of international experts.
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Over half the world’s agricultural production comes from only three crops. Can we bring greater diversity to our plates?
In the US, four companies control nearly 85% of the beef we consume. Can we develop more regionally-based markets?
How can we develop alternatives to single-use plastics that are more sustainable and environmentally friendly?
Could changing the way we grow our food provide benefits for people and the planet, and even respond to climate change?
Can we meet the growing global demand for protein while reducing our reliance on traditional animal agriculture?
It’s not only important what we eat but what our food comes in. Can we develop tools that identify toxic materials used in food packaging?
Explore The Lexicon’s collection of immersive storytelling experiences featuring insights from our community of international experts.
The Great Protein Shift
Our experts use an engaging interactive approach to break down the technologies used to create these novel proteins.
Ten Principles for Regenerative Agriculture
What is regenerative agriculture? We’ve developed a framework to explain the principles, practices, ecological benefits and language of regenerative agriculture, then connected them to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Food-related chronic diseases are the biggest burden on healthcare systems. What would happen if we treated food as medicine?
How can we responsibly manage our ocean fisheries so there’s enough seafood for everyone now and for generations to come?
Mobilizing agronomists, farmers, NGOs, chefs, and food companies in defense of biodiversity in nature, agriculture, and on our plates.
Can governments develop guidelines that shift consumer diets, promote balanced nutrition and reduce the risk of chronic disease?
Will sustainably raising shellfish, finfish, shrimp and algae meet the growing demand for seafood while reducing pressure on wild fisheries?
How can a universal visual language to describe our food systems bridge cultural barriers and increase consumer literacy?
What if making the right food choices could be an effective tool for addressing a range of global challenges?
Let’s start with climate change. While it presents our planet with existential challenges, biodiversity loss, desertification, and water scarcity should be of equal concern—they’re all connected.
Instead of seeking singular solutions, we must develop a holistic approach, one that channel our collective energies and achieve positive impacts where they matter most.
To maximize our collective impact, EBF can help consumers focus on six equally important ecological benefits: air, water, soil, biodiversity, equity, and carbon.
We’ve gathered domain experts from over 1,000 companies and organizations working at the intersection of food, agriculture, conservation, and climate change.
The Lexicon™ is a California-based nonprofit founded in 2009 with a focus on positive solutions for a more sustainable planet.
For the past five years, it has developed an “activator for good ideas” with support from Food at Google. This model gathers domain experts from over 1,000 companies and organizations working at the intersection of food, agriculture, conservation, and climate change.
Together, the community has reached consensus on strategies that respond to challenges across multiple domain areas, including biodiversity, regenerative agriculture, food packaging, aquaculture, and the missing middle in supply chains for meat.
Lexicon of Food is the first public release of that work.
Over half the world’s agricultural production comes from only three crops. Can we bring greater diversity to our plates?
In the US, four companies control nearly 85% of the beef we consume. Can we develop more regionally-based markets?
How can we develop alternatives to single-use plastics that are more sustainable and environmentally friendly?
Could changing the way we grow our food provide benefits for people and the planet, and even respond to climate change?
Can we meet the growing global demand for protein while reducing our reliance on traditional animal agriculture?
It’s not only important what we eat but what our food comes in. Can we develop tools that identify toxic materials used in food packaging?
Explore The Lexicon’s collection of immersive storytelling experiences featuring insights from our community of international experts.
The Great Protein Shift
Our experts use an engaging interactive approach to break down the technologies used to create these novel proteins.
Ten Principles for Regenerative Agriculture
What is regenerative agriculture? We’ve developed a framework to explain the principles, practices, ecological benefits and language of regenerative agriculture, then connected them to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Food-related chronic diseases are the biggest burden on healthcare systems. What would happen if we treated food as medicine?
How can we responsibly manage our ocean fisheries so there’s enough seafood for everyone now and for generations to come?
Mobilizing agronomists, farmers, NGOs, chefs, and food companies in defense of biodiversity in nature, agriculture, and on our plates.
Can governments develop guidelines that shift consumer diets, promote balanced nutrition and reduce the risk of chronic disease?
Will sustainably raising shellfish, finfish, shrimp and algae meet the growing demand for seafood while reducing pressure on wild fisheries?
How can a universal visual language to describe our food systems bridge cultural barriers and increase consumer literacy?
This game was designed to raise awareness about the impacts our food choices have on our own health, but also the environment, climate change and the cultures in which we live.
First, you can choose one of the four global regions and pick a character that you want to play.
Each region has distinct cultural, economic, historical, and agricultural capacities to feed itself, and each character faces different challenges, such as varied access to food, higher or lower family income, and food literacy.
As you take your character through their day, select the choices you think they might make given their situation.
At the end of the day you will get a report on the impact of your food choices on five areas: health, healthcare, climate, environment and culture. Take some time to read through them. Now go back and try again. Can you make improvements in all five areas? Did one area score higher, but another score lower?
FOOD CHOICES FOR A HEALTHY PLANET will help you better understand how all these regions and characters’ particularities can influence our food choices, and how our food choices can impact our personal health, national healthcare, environment, climate, and culture. Let’s Play!
The FOOD CHOICES FOR A HEALTHY PLANET game allows users to experience the dramatic connections between food and climate in a unique and engaging way. The venue and the game set-up provides attendees with a fun experience, with a potential to add a new layer of storytelling about this topic.
Starting the game: the pilot version of the game features four country/regions: Each reflects a different way people (and the national dietary guidelines) look at diets: Nordic Countries (sustainability), Brazil (local and whole foods instead of ultra-processed foods); Canada (plant-forward), and Indonesia (developing countries).
Personalizing the game: players begin by choosing a country and then a character who they help in making food choices over the course of one day. Later versions may allow for creating custom avatars.
Making tough food choices: This interactive game for all ages shows how the food choices we make impact our health and the environment, and even contribute to climate change.
What we eat matters: at the end of each game, players learn that every decision they make impacts not only their health, but a national healthcare system, the environment, climate and even culture.
We’d love to know more about you and why you think you will be a great fit for this position! Shoot us an email introducing you and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!
Providing best water quality conditions to ensure optimal living condition for growth, breeding and other physiological needs
Water quality is sourced from natural seawater with dependency on the tidal system. Water is treated to adjust pH and alkalinity before stocking.
Producers that own and manages the farm operating under small-scale farming model with limited input, investment which leads to low to medium production yield
All 1,149 of our farmers in both regencies are smallholder farmers who operate with low stocking density, traditional ponds, and no use of any other intensification technology.
Safe working conditions — cleanliness, lighting, equipment, paid overtime, hazard safety, etc. — happen when businesses conduct workplace safety audits and invest in the wellbeing of their employees
Company ensure implementation of safe working conditions by applying representative of workers to health and safety and conduct regular health and safety training. The practices are proven by ASIC standards’ implementation
Implementation of farming operations, management and trading that impact positively to community wellbeing and sustainable better way of living
The company works with local stakeholders and local governments to create support for farmers and the farming community in increasing resilience. Our farming community is empowered by local stakeholders continuously to maintain a long generation of farmers.
Freezing seafood rapidly when it is at peak freshness to ensure a higher quality and longer lasting product
Our harvests are immediately frozen with ice flakes in layers in cool boxes. Boxes are equipped with paper records and coding for traceability. We ensure that our harvests are processed with the utmost care at <-18 degrees Celsius.
Sourcing plant based ingredients, like soy, from producers that do not destroy forests to increase their growing area and produce fish feed ingredients
With adjacent locations to mangroves and coastal areas, our farmers and company are committed to no deforestation at any scale. Mangrove rehabilitation and replantation are conducted every year in collaboration with local authorities. Our farms are not established in protected habitats and have not resulted from deforestation activity since the beginning of our establishment.
Implement only natural feeds grown in water for aquatic animal’s feed without use of commercial feed
Our black tiger shrimps are not fed using commercial feed. The system is zero input and depends fully on natural feed grown in the pond. Our farmers use organic fertilizer and probiotics to enhance the water quality.
Enhance biodiversity through integration of nature conservation and food production without negative impact to surrounding ecosysytem
As our practices are natural, organic, and zero input, farms coexist with surrounding biodiversity which increases the volume of polyculture and mangrove coverage area. Farmers’ groups, along with the company, conduct regular benthic assessments, river cleaning, and mangrove planting.
THE TERM “MOONSHOT” IS OFTEN USED TO DESCRIBE an initiative that goes beyond the confines of the present by transforming our greatest aspirations into reality, but the story of a moonshot isn’t that of a single rocket. In fact, the Apollo program that put Neil Armstrong on the moon was actually preceded by the Gemini program, which in a two-year span rapidly put ten rockets into space. This “accelerated” process — with a new mission nearly every 2-3 months — allowed NASA to rapidly iterate, validate their findings and learn from their mistakes. Telemetry. Propulsion. Re-entry. Each mission helped NASA build and test a new piece of the puzzle.
The program also had its fair share of creative challenges, especially at the outset, as the urgency of the task at hand required that the roadmap for getting to the moon be written in parallel with the rapid pace of Gemini missions. Through it all, the NASA teams never lost sight of their ultimate goal, and the teams finally aligned on their shared responsibilities. Within three years of Gemini’s conclusion, a man did walk on the moon.
FACT is a food systems solutions activator that assesses the current food landscape, engages with key influencers, identifies trends, surveys innovative work and creates greater visibility for ideas and practices with the potential to shift key food and agricultural paradigms.
Each activator focuses on a single moonshot; instead of producing white papers, policy briefs or peer-reviewed articles, these teams design and implement blueprints for action. At the end of each activator, their work is released to the public and open-sourced.
As with any rapid iteration process, many of our activators re-assess their initial plans and pivot to address new challenges along the way. Still, one thing has remained constant: their conviction that by working together and pooling their knowledge and resources, they can create a multiplier effect to more rapidly activate change.
Co-Founder
THE LEXICON
Vice President
Global Workplace Programs
GOOGLE
Who can enter and how selections are made.
A Greener Blue is a global call to action that is open to individuals and teams from all over the world. Below is a non-exhaustive list of subjects the initiative targets.
To apply, prospective participants will need to fill out the form on the website, by filling out each part of it. Applications left incomplete or containing information that is not complete enough will receive a low score and have less chance of being admitted to the storytelling lab.
Nonprofit organizations, communities of fishers and fish farmers and companies that are seeking a closer partnership or special support can also apply by contacting hello@thelexicon.org and interacting with the members of our team.
Special attention will be given to the section of the form regarding the stories that the applicants want to tell and the reasons for participating. All proposals for stories regarding small-scale or artisanal fishers or aquaculturists, communities of artisanal fishers or aquaculturists, and workers in different steps of the seafood value chain will be considered.
Stories should show the important role that these figures play in building a more sustainable seafood system. To help with this narrative, the initiative has identified 10 principles that define a more sustainable seafood system. These can be viewed on the initiative’s website and they state:
Seafood is sustainable when:
Proposed stories should show one or more of these principles in practice.
Applications are open from the 28th of June to the 15th of August 2022. There will be 50 selected applicants who will be granted access to The Lexicon’s Total Storytelling Lab. These 50 applicants will be asked to accept and sign a learning agreement and acceptance of participation document with which they agree to respect The Lexicon’s code of conduct.
The first part of the lab will take place online between August the 22nd and August the 26th and focus on training participants on the foundation of storytelling, supporting them to create a production plan, and aligning all of them around a shared vision.
Based on their motivation, quality of the story, geography, and participation in the online Lab, a selected group of participants will be gifted a GoPro camera offered to the program by GoPro For A Change. Participants who are selected to receive the GoPro camera will need to sign an acceptance and usage agreement.
The second part of the Storytelling Lab will consist of a production period in which each participant will be supported in the production of their own story. This period goes from August 26th to October 13th. Each participant will have the opportunity to access special mentorship from an international network of storytellers and seafood experts who will help them build their story. The Lexicon also provides editors, animators, and graphic designers to support participants with more technical skills.
The final deadline to submit the stories is the 14th of October. Participants will be able to both submit complete edited stories, or footage accompanied by a storyboard to be assembled by The Lexicon’s team.
All applicants who will exhibit conduct and behavior that is contrary to The Lexicon’s code of conduct will be automatically disqualified. This includes applicants proposing stories that openly discriminate against a social or ethnic group, advocate for a political group, incite violence against any group, or incite to commit crimes of any kind.
All submissions must be the entrant’s original work. Submissions must not infringe upon the trademark, copyright, moral rights, intellectual rights, or rights of privacy of any entity or person.
Participants will retain the copyrights to their work while also granting access to The Lexicon and the other partners of the initiative to share their contributions as part of A Greener Blue Global Storytelling Initiative.
If a potential selected applicant cannot be reached by the team of the Initiative within three (3) working days, using the contact information provided at the time of entry, or if the communication is returned as undeliverable, that potential participant shall forfeit.
Selected applicants will be granted access to an advanced Storytelling Lab taught and facilitated by Douglas Gayeton, award-winning storyteller and information architect, co-founder of The Lexicon. In this course, participants will learn new techniques that will improve their storytelling skills and be able to better communicate their work with a global audience. This skill includes (but is not limited to) how to build a production plan for a documentary, how to find and interact with subjects, and how to shoot a short documentary.
Twenty of the participants will receive a GoPro Hero 11 Digital Video and Audio Cameras by September 15, 2022. Additional participants may receive GoPro Digital Video and Audio Cameras to be announced at a later date. The recipients will be selected by advisors to the program and will be based on selection criteria (see below) on proposals by Storytelling Lab participants. The selections will keep in accordance with Lab criteria concerning geography, active participation in the Storytelling Lab and commitment to the creation of a story for the Initiative, a GoPro Camera to use to complete the storytelling lab and document their story. These recipients will be asked to sign an acceptance letter with terms of use and condition to receive the camera.
The Lexicon provides video editors, graphic designers, and animators to support the participants to complete their stories.
The submitted stories will be showcased during international and local events, starting from the closing event of the International Year of Fisheries and Aquaculture 2022 in Rome, in January 2023. The authors of the stories will be credited and may be invited to join.
Storytelling lab participation:
Applicants that will be granted access to the storytelling Lab will be evaluated based on the entries they provided in the online form, and in particular:
Applications will be evaluated by a team of 4 judges from The Lexicon, GSSI and the team of IYAFA (Selection committee).
When selecting applications, the call promoters may request additional documentation or interviews both for the purpose of verifying compliance with eligibility requirements and to facilitate proposal evaluation.
Camera recipients:
Participants to the Storytelling Lab who will be given a GoPro camera will be selected based on:
The evaluation will be carried out by a team of 4 judges from The Lexicon, GSSI and the team of IYAFA (Selection committee).
Incidental expenses and all other costs and expenses which are not specifically listed in these Official Rules but which may be associated with the acceptance, receipt and use of the Storytelling Lab and the camera are solely the responsibility of the respective participants and are not covered by The Lexicon or any of the A Greener Blue partners.
All participants who receive a Camera are required to sign an agreement allowing GoPro for a Cause, The Lexicon and GSSI to utilize the films for A Greener Blue and their promotional purposes. All participants will be required to an agreement to upload their footage into the shared drive of The Lexicon and make the stories, films and images available for The Lexicon and the promoting partners of A Greener Blue.
