Project History

Having been a vegetarian since high school, I've been asked countless times why I don't eat meat. Since it is not generally productive either from a persuasive or social standpoint to seem like you're preaching, the answer to this question is usually awkward or brief to the point of being inaccurate. So it dawned on me one day that it would be nice to have a small, succinct document on-hand that would outline the bounty of reasons for people to stop eating meat, which would avoid the aforementioned awkwardness and brevity. Thus the Veg*n Foundations Card project was born.

Another issue that I wanted to address with this effort is the propagandist tone of a lot of the popular veg*n literature. Some of the veggie books I've read seem to pile facts on top of one another in a manner that makes the overall argument seem improbable or exaggerated. I therefore decided that it was important for the facts contained in the card to be indisputable, and preferably backed up by non-vegetarian-organization sources wherever possible (such as the USDA or EPA).

The Card

Current cover design click to enlarge

When folded in half, the current design for the card is 4.25" x 3.6", exactly one sixth of the size of a standard piece of paper, which allows anyone to create them at home with an inkjet printer and some card stock (I may switch this at some point to 1/8 of a page so that four cards can be printed per sheet). Each "page" contains one of four sections: introduction, health, ecology and ethics. The block of facts contained in each section is designed in a manner that has the first line set in a large font size, with the subsequent lines getting increasingly smaller as the block goes down. This

Card design preview click to enlarge

arrangement has the advantages of enticing the recipient to actually read the content (because the initial text is large enough to make doing so quick and easy) and, as the text becomes small, to squeeze a large amount of text into a small space (it also has the disadvantage of being very tedious to lay out, but that's my problem). The colored numbers that appear before each fact will coincide with an index of references published on this site, which will serve as a "home base" for the project. A downloadable/printable PDF of the card will be freely available once it's completed.

Project Status

Unfortunately, this project is currently on my back-burner - I just have too much going on right now to devote to it the time needed to make it a reality. While the design I've chosen is fairly tedious, the research required to write and back up the card's content is by far the most time-consuming aspect of its development. If you or anyone you know might be interested in helping out in this respect, please don't hestitate to contact me.