Hi, Emily,
You pose great questions! I especially like how you asked what the difference is between green graphic design and biomimetic graphic design. It really made me think and try to identify differences. I think a large part of graphic design is communicating to our target market and attracting them to interact with or observe our design. However, graphic designers, all too often, seem to only focus on attracting and communicating with viewers that they forget about how their piece fits in with the rest of the "ecosystem" and the other functions their piece should serve. Biomimicry can help a designer brainstorm more "green" ideas because it's a different way of viewing and valuing nature. The Life's Principles Butterfly developed by the Guild and Institute, helps design for life! Green graphics design strives to be "sustainable" but so many people are confused by what "sustainable" actually means that they get stuck in the same mode of thinking. Using the life's principles butterfly is a tangible way to start bringing biomimicry into graphics design. The following are a few examples:
EXAMPLE 1: Optimize rather than maximize
Ecofont - http://www.ecofont.eu/ecofont_en.html
EXAMPLE 2: Form fits function
SEED magazine does a nice job communicating visually to target markets: http://seedmagazine.com/
EXAMPLE 3: Foster cooperative relationships
A stock photography company allows a printing shop to give its clients access to their stock account. A client can use any photograph as long as they use their service for printing. The stock photography company receives more revenue, the printer receives more services, and the client receives complementary or reduced cost photographs.
EXAMPLE 4: Shape rather than material
Usually creating binder divider tabs die cut from larger pieces of paper creates lots of waste: Check out what this company has elegantly (like nature would do) done instead: http://www.celerydesign.com/our-work/print/stopwaste
Of course, I think it is best to become familiar with life's principles first, and then start integrating the biomimicry approach and graphic design or visual communications processes. But, this post is already long enough; I'll save that topic for later. I would also like to pose the question of "How is bringing biomimicry into graphics design different from bringing biomimicry into a discipline such as engineering or manufacturing?"

You mean like another level of not using paper at all? Like the long distance spread of knowledge within birds on how to open milk bottles! Shall we look for Telepathic? or just design means for people to communicate with each other without using so much energy and materials! Like leveraging the talking process and means, something like a personal voice channel or personal radio! mhh that's probably fb! but fb it still needs lots of energy/materials.

very thought-provoking points. in my own studies i've had to separate graphic design and Design. the former having to do with how we can communicate (green ideas being: electronically to use less paper, collaborating instead of working individually) and the latter reaching out to all design and manufacturing fields. but there's so much to be done in terms of just communicating ideas. i personally think that one of the most important roles we can have as graphic designers trying to impact people to live more sustainably is visualizing the problems so people understand we shouldn't continue down the road we've been on. i think there's a lot to be accomplished in terms of what this site is trying to do: explaining to people how exactly nature designs and how we can learn from those processes.

doesn't much of nature communicate through smell/chemicals? that's brand-new territory!

i think the line between graphic design and other forms of design are blurring. design is creative problem solving and that's limitless. communicating facts is important but visualizing solutions is much more powerful. but one is definitely a precursor to the other. i think what i meant by "visualizing problems" was the power of graphic design work like that found in "an inconvenient truth". that was design that aligned with al gore's message and forced people to wake up!

i'm drawn to biomimicry though because it is solution-based and can work within a market economy (i don't think this is the optimal system, but it's what we're stuck with for the moment!). i guess design and biomimicry are aligned in regards to their goals: 1. inform, 2. teach and 3. inspire, 4. create change!

I'll just add a couple more examples:

TED's most popular video. Hans Visualizes progress: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

Ben Fry visualizes the Genome: http://benfry.com/phd/
Before that he actually used organic metaphors for visualization: http://benfry.com/organic/

Logo by Sagmeister based on natural pattern of sunflower: http://www.seedmediagroup.com/about/logo/

Tufte talks about how Galileo used visualization to understand and convey his findings: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001dD

Perhaps biomimicry would be best applied to the tools we digital graphic artists and communicators use to do our art.

What creatures have to create, what mediums do they create with? How do they choose color, size, shape?

Anyone who's used modern graphics suites can tell you that, no matter how 'intuitive' the controls are, it always seems like you need an advanced degree to manage them all effectively. I can't count the number of times I've beaten my forehead against the desk because of some quirk in Illustrator, photoshop, flash, gimp, maya 3d, corel, ms paint... something that 'feels' like it should be simple to do becomes uncomfortably complicated.

How can biomimicry improve these tools?