December’s Spotlight of the Month: Cardboard Christmas Tree

For December, we caught up with friends Nick Ng and Dan Greene, creators of the Cardboard Christmas Tree. The Cardboard Christmas Tree is a 100% recylable, minimally packaged Christmas tree alternative — perfect for apartment dwellers, artsy types, greenies and everyone in between. We spoke to Dan and Nick in Chicago to learn more about recycled decorations, sustainable design and keeping things sexy in the Windy City.

How did the Cardboard Christmas Tree idea come up?
(Nick) I had the idea quite a number of years ago when I couldn’t find a tree that I liked for Christmas. From there the idea of a Cardboard Christmas Tree came to me as something that I would find appealing and also practical for a number of reasons. The idea got shelved somewhere in the back of my head shortly after that. I subsequently moved to the US with my family 4 years ago and met Dan through work. One day we happened to be talking about Christmas products and I mentioned the Cardboard Christmas Tree idea to him. He immediately got it and from there we decided to make a project of it.

(Dan) At the time, we both felt that we wanted to do something with our free time that could be a nice creative outlet – bringing the product to market also served as a great learning experience.

Is sustainability an important aspect of your design work?
(Nick) When we decided that we would do the Cardboard Christmas Tree we both sat down and set some ground rules for the kind of business/project we were going to do. A big part of that was maintaining a strong social and environmental responsibility. I think that the top three rules were something like:

a – Follow a sustainable design philosophy as best we could (I had recently read “Cradle to Cradle” by William McDonough)
b – Donate part proceeds to an environmental charity
c – Develop something that would inspire creativity

Do you have a Cardboard Christmas Tree in your home?
(Nick) Last year my family did, but this year my family has already left for Christmas in Australia… so unfortunately no tree this year at all.
(Dan) I do. It’s been left in its natural color, but has baubles, garland and some lights.

What is the coolest way to decorate a Cardboard Christmas Tree that you’ve seen?
(Nick) When we created the website we thought of a whole range of crazy ideas to show the decorating potential… I think (and this is being biased) that the orange shag disco tree we did for our website is one of the coolest.
(Dan) We also made a papier mache decorated tree which was great, but it took us days to decorate.
(Nick) We had other ideas like collecting the fall leaves and sticking them to it.

Your product is now available at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art store – how does that make you feel?
(Nick) Getting the tree into the MCA Chicago’s store was a big deal for us. We both agreed that that was one of our goals for the Cardboard Christmas Tree this year and it was amazing (that) we achieved it… It really made us feel like we had some artistic recognition and credibility.
(Dan) We really feel the design of the tree makes it a great piece of contemporary art, but also an open canvas that can be turned into your own work of art with some creative decorating. When we designed it we wanted to accentuate the “flatness” and rawness of the cardboard. We definitely did not want to disguise it in any way — that is why it’s only available in “natural”.

Is Chicago a green place to live and work?
(Nick) There are aspects of Chicago that make it a “green” place to work. I know that Mayor Daley is very big on environmental issues and we have quite a large number of green roofs here.
(Dan) The recycling could be better – I think just more accessible – but the city seems to be making an effort
(Nick) I would have to say that its people’s lifestyles that make a city green rather than the city itself.

Any other green Christmas tips?
(Nick) Reuse and recycle your wrapping. Buy local. Make, instead of buy a gift for someone. Don’t buy any gifts but donate to charity on someone’s behalf.
(Dan) One great idea I saw online was a woman was going to be using scraps of fabric to wrap presents instead of paper – I thought that was clever.

To learn more about Nick, Dan and the Cardboard Christmas Tree, checkout their website. To purchase one for your home, click here.