Tag Archives: eco-friendly design

There’s a new type of credit card in the design world called Live Checking.  It’s a credit card that actually keeps a running tally of how much credit you have used which will help people manage spiraling debt problems.  This is a huge problem right now during the recession.  People are often spending far and beyond their means.  There is sometimes nothing left for the essentials simply because they’ve lost track of their spending.  This card would prevent that problem entirely!

The eco-friendly part of the design itself is the solar panel on the right hand side of the card.  This panel collects the power necessary to keep the card powered up when needed.  It’s also environmentally friendly, in my opinion, because it can really help people cut down on the amount of waste they are steadily consuming.  Perhaps people will think twice about buying disposable products or cheap junk that they don’t need because they know how much they’ve already spent and how much they owe on this card.

Another really cool part of this card that is powered by the solar panel is the immediate and visually unmistakable signal that is given to the credit card user by the light emitted from the sides of the card.  If the light is blue, you are still within your credit limit.  If the light is red, you are over your limit.  I also think it’s cool that the colors used for the edges are not green and red.  Green signals “go” and that is not what consumers should be doing when using their cards.

This design is by Jin-young Yoon, Wook-sun Oh, Young-ho Lee & Jun-kyo Lee and can be seen in action on YouTube.

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