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In the Fall of 2014, I taught a Designmatters class through the Illustration department called Smart Image/Social Impact: Teaching Illustration and Design Responsibility for Social Change and Innovation. It was a class tailored to the illustrator with a focus on the development of critical thinking skills, experimentations with visual techniques and the understanding of ethical issues in design. The goal of this class was to prepare the Illustration student to enter the expanding field of Design for Social Innovation and to broaden their problem-solving skills beyond the visual. Smart Image/Social Impact was created as an introductory class for Illustrators interested in the Designmatters Concentration at Art Center. An Illustration student with this concentration takes, in addition to the traditional Illustration curriculum, real world, project-based classes that focus on "where Art and Design meets social change" (Designmatters, 2014).
There were seven students in the class: three men and four women. There were four projects but our favorite was the Cultural Sensitivity Project. The objective of this project was to work with a community outside of the comfort zone of the Art Center illustration environment.
The students had to illustrate how photosynthesis works using the cabbage as an example. This would be geared towards kids ages 11-12. Students kept in mind, that the prototypes would ideally be used by teachers and students at the Matenwa Community Learning Center. Matènwa is situated in the remote mountains of Lagonav, a Haitian island in the bay of Port Au Prince. The Art Center students had to imagine their prototypes handled outdoors in a garden, where students and teachers use the hands-on lessons in sciences and other subjects.
In order to prepare students to create work for a distant client, there were a couple of important classroom guests. We had an in class visit from Elizabeth Chin, PhD, Professor of the MFA Program in the Media Design Practices: Lab+Field, who has visited Matènwa many times. Elizabeth explained local culture, showed us videos of dancing and colorful Vodou flags. Another week, the students presented their research and prototypes to Chris Low, Executive Director of Friends of Matenwa, through Skype. Many of the projects were so much more than just printed images. Billy Frolov created a durable fabric flipbook, Riley Gish made a plush cabbage with teachable leaves, and Christopher Cha created a photosynthesis game similar to Sharks and Minnows. Chris Low had great advice for all the students. She especially liked John Clarke's prototype of creating an education mural. Chris Low encouraged the class to write a proposal to fly out to Haiti and run a one-week summer camp course at the school to create the education mural. Learning to write a proposal was an opportunity that arose from a good idea.
Classes like these help students become aware of the images they put out into the world. They also learn how projects can lead to bigger ideas, and how to write proposals to make big ideas happen.
"As part of an ongoing interview series on the Autodesk Foundation's new blog, ImpactDesignHub.org, Allan Chochinov, Editor at Large of Core77 discusses Impact Design with Mariana Amatullo…"
]]>Allan Chochinov, Editor of Core 77, interviews Designmatters Vice President, Mariana Amatullo for Impact Design Hub.
]]>The Idyllwild Town Crier
February, 2015
By Marshall Smith
Mariana Amatullo recently participated in the inaugural Art in Society panel discussion at Idyllwild Arts Academy with esteemed colleagues from the literary, visual and performing arts world.
]]>Mari has been a designer for over 11 years and has worked with such notables as the United Nations Population Fund, ArtWorks Projects, Women Deliver, Pepsi Co. and Design Continuum. She was also a 2008 Designmatters Fellow and has continued to support Designmatters for the past 7 years. Currently Mari is the Visual Design Lead for the UNICEF Innovation Unit.
It all began in 2008. Oh, wait. Actually, it began before then, even before I entered design school. I didn't start off as a designer. Before Art Center, I was a Youth Services Coordinator for underserved youth in Los Angeles, I was an Asian American Studies and Political Science major, an activist, a tutor, a recreational photographer. I thought I'd maybe turn into a social worker, an ethnic studies professor, a community organizer, perhaps some kind of civil rights attorney or maybe even a photojournalist or a combination of the sort. I was everywhere, but somehow hovering around something I couldn't pinpoint just yet, at that time in my life.
I spent my twenties around youth – youth who often came to me expressing a desire to explore art, design and making. They wanted to know how to get a job, how to improve their graffiti names, how to take photos, how to just be better creators. From time to time, I was able to hook these youth up with artists, find a grant or two to fund a project, organize a few events – basketball tournaments, movie nights and such, but I was young and needed to figure out my own trajectory. The youth's desires propelled my own and as much as I wanted to stay with them, figure them out, make sure they were safe and on pathways to success, I knew I needed to take a departure in order to become something more. I wasn't enough of a person, I didn't know enough to give more so I decided to go back to school, to art school.
Art and design were always an underlying part of me since I was very young and so was the idea of helping others. I've rarely ever been able to hold down a job that didn't have true meaning. If I wasn't spending my hours working towards some greater good, I writhed tortuously until I could find a way out of that job. I didn't know what I'd find at Art Center, but I knew by being there, I was one step closer to connecting art and design to social good.
In 2008, I was appointed a Designmatters Fellowship with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in New York. Those three months of my life cracked open a slew of new opportunities for me, opportunities that made sense to my very being and which clicked-together design and social good. I've managed major exhibitions, been part of design-centered research explorations and tried to merge a lot of design-thinking methodologies into more traditional spaces. It hasn't been smooth sailing – I've certainly struggled to find good work or fair work along the way – but a mix of patience, luck and gut has sort of popped me out of the rabbit hole into my current position as a Visual Design Lead for the UNICEF Innovation Unit.
The Visual Strategy team is small and built to be nimble. Who we are is always a work-in-progress. While we can shoot out a nice slide deck or report layout, that is not our purpose. We essentially try and take complex and nuanced ideas and simplify them in ways that are quickly communicable. We also work with our core team members to help add value to our partnerships, our Innovation Labs, our innovation projects, data research and operations. Through visuals and systems thinking, we do things like describe how we managed to implement U-Report in Liberia in a matter of weeks during the peak of the Ebola outbreak. We build talent pools to maximize design and development resources for the Country Offices. We manage global branding of major projects and products and strategize how to create and maintain consistency amidst all the cultural nuances and special requests. We practice agility with our communication methods – one minute we need to create work that speaks to the Executive Director or even the UN Secretary General, the next minute we are preparing to display work for private funders. We toggle between the print and digital world and we also practice designing with constraint – If the internet is slow in a country, how do we still disseminate information that is accessible? If Adobe Creative Suite is not practical, then how can we maximize Microsoft Office? If Google isn't accessible, then what's the next best way to share working documents? How do we grow and progress without letting too little or too many choices slow us down? How do we continue to create strong design work under the pressure of time? And, most importantly, how do we maintain the essential drive to do what we do – to help those whose lives depend on what we do? The most important thing for me as a team lead is that everyone understands that the work they do is working towards the goal of a more equitable society for children and their families. If that is not the underlying drive under a designers work, I'll be frank, I rather they not work here.
Socially conscious designers are necessary, not just for places like UNICEF, but for traditional practices and everyday spaces. In a world where we are dealing with inequity, environmental issues, hyper-production of wasteful and harmful things, we need designers who have a strong sense of compassion for people and nature, who know how to inject new ways of thinking into the world to effectively change it into a place that is less about consumerism and greed and more about sustainable opportunities and social equality. We have to know how to shift quickly between being a designer and an advocate. We have to know when visuals say it best or when words are better, when it's fine to wear a T-shirt and when perhaps a blazer is more fitting.
Becoming a designer is a never-ending process. You're always shifting in a way to grow with the world around you. Sure, we have to design for the world we have, but I think one of the best gifts of a designer is that they can design a better world. It's a big job but not a job to take for granted. We're part of a much larger operation and it's our duty not just to insert ourselves into spaces that are already there or already being built, but to also invent and carve out new spaces to exist in order to strengthen the waves of social impact.
To learn more about UNICEF Innovation Team and their work please visit unicefstories.org
Director/Editor – H.R. McDonald
]]>The Idyllwild Town Crier
February, 2015
By Bryan Asch
Mariana Amatullo will be participating in the first ever Art in Society panel discussion at Idyllwild Arts Academy February 13.
]]>Repost from Art Center's Dotted Line blog: Media Design Practices faculty member, Elizabeth Chin, illuminates her experiences doing field work in Uganda in Anthropology Now.
]]>Ashley is a graphic designer and illustrator infatuated with science, information, and technology. She's also a collector, an amateur comics historian; a free jazz, punk & synthwave lover, research vampire, urban explorer and pinball obsesso. To learn more about Ashley and her work, click here and here.
Over the course of the Fall 2014 term, I had the privilege of being one of the students who forged a connection between Art Center and Blair High School as a student mentor. Being a Designmatters Concentration student, it was a great opportunity for me to be thrust into a position where I could make a positive impact somewhere just down the street from Art Center's South Campus.
It began as a simple thought that my dear friend Cassie Zhang had early on in our Summer break. She wanted to learn about grant writing for artists. I was lucky enough to join the conversation and begin planning something that we would create as students, by way of us working with our ever-supportive instructor, Esther Pearl Watson. We were quickly introduced to Amy Shimshon-Santo who helped us identify the opportunity to hit the ground running by building a partnership with Blair High from the ground up. Before we knew it, Cassie and I had also met the members of Unity (The Next Level Brothers, D'Angelo & Martel McCornell, and Vanessa Shabahazedeh), and Blair's wonderful Art Teacher, Vilma Martinez. We even began recruiting our friends, including fellow Illustration major Tom Eichacker.
The seven of us held weekly meetings where we discussed how to approach teaching and what Ms. Martinez felt was missing from what was happening at Blair's Art Club. Together we planned a series of workshops that each of us would teach during our weekly visits. We each tried to identify our strengths and cultivate something that we could help embolden the Art Club students with. Each of us honed in on a concept or skill we thought we could teach over a week or more. Our ideas ranged from puppet shows about the role technology has in our lives, shooting a documentary about their lives, to giving students a crash course in typography and layout design. However, once we had our first few sessions, it became clear that what we had planned wasn't really the best approach. It was clear that rather than bringing something to the students that they may not want to learn about or participate in, that it would be better to respond to their needs directly.
This first lesson solidified the adage of user-oriented design and social impact at large. It reminded me of what I've been told before: creating a complex series of conceptual outcomes is great on paper, but if that's not what the people need then you should probably find a new solution. We decided to instead pare down the workshops to quick, bite-sized exercises that taught a simple concept. We also discovered that it was better to use the rest of the time focusing on helping the Art Club students create a great piece of work that they could be proud of. It quickly became a more enjoyable weekly experience for all of us involved. Each week we brought a different concept in during the first portion of class. We showed students how to create expressive typography, use cameras and film each other as directors, create editorial illustrations and how to not be too precious with their work.
Working with young artists yielded many surprises along the way. Some of them were laughable, like a table of young girls asking me if they could set their work on fire, to seeing firsthand how hard artists of all ages are on themselves. Each week I saw talented students second guess themselves, laboring over making the "perfect" drawing, when it was already great. It was the thinking that made it great…but they didn't even know it yet. It was surreal to have the tables turned on me and to find myself telling students that what they had was already wonderful. If anyone had said that to me at that age, I surely wouldn't have believed them. I saw myself in some of the students in that way. I never knew I could identify anything like that until that day.
As the end of the term reared its head, we envisioned a culmination event that would showcase the students' best work by creating a sort-of pop up opening in their honor. The last few weeks were a mad dash. Ms. Martinez worked tirelessly to get the students' work finished on time and in great shape, with us focusing on preparing the students' work for professional presentation. We supplemented their work with some of our own, including a short documentary by The Next Level Brothers, composed of the shots that Blair students took while participating in our film workshop. We were privileged to be visited by a number of our students, their parents and family, and have the opportunity to speak to them about how meaningful this partnership has been for all of us.
For me, it was amazing to see students feel proud of what they made and to see the next generation of great creative thinkers at work. The challenge of building this connection was certainly worth it, and I feel lucky to have been able to work with such bright and hilarious kids. We are working to continue building a connection between Art Center and Blair High School, through mentoring and giving students a sneak peek at what college can look like. No matter how we end up working together, I can't wait to see what the students will do next.
"For me, it was amazing to see students feel proud of what they made and to see the next generation of great creative thinkers at work."- Ashley Pinnick, Student, Illustration Department
On January 25, 2015, ground was broken on the Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial designed by Alumna Catherine Menard (Env '14).
]]>Garden in the Sea was commissioned by the NTBG and produced in partnership with the Acacia Foundation as part of a 2012 Designmatters Fellowship. The documentary follows a team of researchers and scientists working to stem the tide of extinction that plagues indigenous plant species in Hawaii.
The Wild and Scenic Film Festival showcases environmental and adventure films that illustrate the Earth's beauty, and the work communities are doing to protect the environment.
View the 2015 Wild & Scenic Film Festival Program here.
]]>VentureWell profiles Designmatters and the award winning Safe Agua Initiative.
]]>MIT Press, 2015
In this innovative studio, Art Center's commitment to global social and economic justice was inspired by and dovetails with the Nike Foundation's belief that adolescent girls can play a crucial role in solving the toughest problems facing the world. When a girl living in poverty has the chance to reach her full potential, she isn't the only one who escapes the circumstances she was born into. She brings her family, community and country with her. This is called the Girl Effect.
Too often the reality for a girl in poverty is a life of limited education, unending household responsibilities and unfulfilling income-generating work to help support her family. However, research has shown that shown that when an adolescent girl in poverty is able to stay in school, delay marriage and delay having children, not only do her life chances radically change, but the children she will later have are far more likely to be healthy and educated.
The 'Girl Effect' Studio represents a groundbreaking international challenge that builds on the pioneering efforts of the Girl Effect movement, created in 2008 by the Nike Foundation in partnership with the NoVo Foundation, United Nations Foundation and the Coalition for Adolescent Girls.
The Nike Foundation has played an important role in the international development community, where the plight of adolescent girls is receiving increasing attention as attested by the 2009 World Economic Forum and initiatives from the World Bank and the Clinton Global Initiative among others.
"The Girl Effect collaboration with Art Center and Nike Foundation offered our students a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in a kind of thinking and work that is not common in business school. Fundamentally, the project was about creating THINGS, real tangible products. This is a departure from our usual fare of business plans, financial models and marketing strategies, although clearly these all played important roles in the joint work. The Yale contribution of developing viable business models for getting the THINGS to their intended users (the Girls) pushed the students' thinking into new spheres where the imaginative and the tangible had to be wed. Our students greatly valued the opportunity to engage so deeply with such a creative group of design students, on a project of such pressing importance." – Tony Sheldon, Faculty, Yale School of Management
An estimated 250 million adolescent girls live in poverty worldwide. Many of these girls are responsible for labor-intensive household chores; their economic independence and human potential is often greatly constrained by complex and interrelated cultural and socio-economic factors such as limited access to education, child marriage and teen pregnancy.
The 'Girl Effect' Studio challenged student teams to envision and develop an ecosystem of access to tools, products, and services, "an ecosystem of access to things," with integrated scalable and sustainable business models and strategies. Inspired by the Girl Effect – the unique potential of adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves and the world –,the focus of the studio was to create innovative, affordable and accessible physical assets that are currently not available to girls living in poverty. As part of their design research and conceptual development process, students explored many "A Day in the Life" scenarios and considered the current tools girls use daily for sewing, mending, cooking, cleaning, fetching water and firewood, as well as other tasks.
The teams were faced with the overall project goal of generating new time-saving tools and practices that could create potential income opportunities that girls could easily learn, acquire and leverage.
The 'Girl Effect' Studio builds on the Nike Foundation's vision of the power and potential of girls around the world and brings together Art Center's Designmatters and Product Design Departments, Yale School of Management (SOM) and fuseproject, an award-winning industrial design and branding firm based in San Francisco.
With its humanitarian and global themes, the studio appealed to a wide variety of Art Center students majoring in product, photography, advertising, environmental design, industrial design and illustration.
Art Center students were teamed with MBA students from Yale School of Management's Design and Innovation Club who offered concurrent strategic integration to the proposed design concepts during the ideation, development and making phases of the studio.
This unique and collaborative pairing informed the design students' understanding of the rationale behind developing viable business models; meanwhile it also allowed their business counterparts to gain a deeper understanding of the iterative ideation and prototyping design processes necessary to bringing new products and services to life.
Since the students were unable to perform hands-on fieldwork due to the studio's global scope, the Nike Foundation and fuseproject provided initial detailed research and framework, allowing students to explore verticals and cross them with human benefits to create advantageous global strategies and prototypes.
Overall, working long-distance with multiple teams through current technological avenues and leveraging pre-established research provided students with practical experience on the current state of design where designers interface daily with transdisciplinary teams to develop concepts and strategies from different geographies.
"The students' questions to the fuseproject team started with the obvious ones, but quickly evolved to more nuanced and detailed questions, and then expanded to understanding the girl's experience as a whole. What would it take to get the product to girls? What would make it functional AND appealing? What is the overall benefit, so it's not just the object for the object's sake? How does it fit into the bigger picture of unleashing the Girl Effect? We're so impressed with how far they took it and how broad their thinking was. They didn't settle for the obvious answers, which resulted in some seriously unique solutions. " – Andrea Small, fuseproject
Student teams on both coasts built their concepts relying on rigorous secondary, and sometimes primary research and expert guest informants. They grounded design ideation on existing everyday practices in order to propose social impact design solutions that are characterized by radical affordability, accessibility and scalability across diverse cultural contexts.
Initially, students needed to discover as much as possible about the reality of living in poverty without the benefit of first-hand knowledge, research trips or face to face inquiries with specific communities.
These constraints required research and data collection outside the classroom as well as utilizing the knowledge of instructors, numerous guest speakers, appropriate case studies, online resources and local proxies who could serve as research subjects. In many cases, students contacted current experts in the field for supplemental in-depth questions and advice.
A team from fuseproject presented their field experience with the Nike Foundation in Rwanda to the students and were available to answer questions, provide context and offer specific insights and feedback throughout the course.
Each team developed a Value Criteria of how their product would improve the lives of young girls, and that criteria guided their decisions, business model, product design and direction.
Beginning with one product concept, student teams investigated different elements (technology, manufacturing, use, distribution, etc.) to imagine the multiple ways the product could exist. From there, students built a case to suggest a product/solution that would best fit their Value Criteria, business model and ultimate customer.
For the first half of the curriculum instructors fashioned multiple assignments involving hands-on prototypes that gave students a richer understanding into an item's functionality, affordability, ergonomic design, and accessibility. These assignments spurred student thinking, refocusing their vision of how their typical tools/materials could be dramatically transformed into a new purpose and/or toolkit.
While students were given specific demographic regions (rural, peri-urban and urban) for their projects, the universality of the design was top priority.
Students charted the landscape and users' experience, including a step-by-step process of "How Can We Make This Better?"
Another challenge for this phase focused heavily on a business perspective, which presented another layer of research for student teams. Design students established regular contact with their Yale counterparts via Skype, email and other communications channels to craft a viable business plan for their product.
After receiving feedback on mid term presentations from faculty and studio partners, teams delved into diagramming systems and details of manufacture, financing, price points, potential distribution centers, sales, marketing and roll-out plans. These discoveries further fueled design updates and refinement, providing a richer sense of the overall process of what is takes to bring a conceptual model to fruition.
Throughout the entire process, student teams needed to fold in and consider the overall Girl Effect in their thinking in terms of messaging, design strategies, consumer/advocate/supporter roles and how their product/systems would complement and reinforce project ideals.
"As a current design student with a MBA, this studio gave me a platform to merge two skills sets into one application. I was able to wear both my hats in the project. I'm very interested in social entrepreneurship and design solutions that are realistic. If you were your own boss how would you make this work? What benefits would you gain from bringing in other partners and using other resources? This class is a catalyst for me to put into action what I am passionate about." – Mariana Somma, Student, Graduate Media Design Practices
Brittney Au, Daniel Bromberg, Connie Chuy, Emily Harris, Tiffany Morris
Young girls team up with older mentors to create soap bars using affordable tools that encourage cooperation, creativity and income-generation centered on basic hygiene needs.
To bypass the inherent dangers of soap making, this collective engages the youngest girls to gather ash and water (lye) from their home fires via a safely constructed lye collector. Lye is brought to the workshops where older girls continue the process using a molding board to form and create the finished bars of soap.
Distribution of the final soap product would start locally and spread. The collective would collaborate initially with one of the many agencies that currently offer adolescent-focused workshops, but the goal is to make the co-ops self-sustaining by passing down knowledge from older to younger girls.
Daniela Cardona, Marie Nguyen, Joan Kim, Joyce Lin
Preparing meals often monopolizes a young girl's waking day and limits her school attendance, social interactions and potential value in the community. Often a girl has only one large knife in her possession, likely passed down from older generations.
The multifaceted Bahu food prep tool streamlines the cutting, peeling, crushing and rolling process into one curved-shaped tool (with a built-in sharpener) that is ergonomically designed for a young girl's hands.
Bahu would be crafted from stainless steel and G10 plastic; it would first be marketed in the United States to jumpstart sales. This initial revenue would later subsidize the overseas costs, making the tool affordable. Mothers are the target buyer for the tool who would give it to their daughters as a special gift.
Kathy Tieu, Shiva Farrokhi, Diana Jones, Joan Kim, Joyce Lin
The Mosaic program encourages girls to continue their secondary education through a crafts collective where their creativity and artistry is valued along with their schooling.
Using a small hand-held loom, girls weave a square patch composed of local materials. Patches are delivered to schools for credit, enabling the girls to continue their education. Girls also receive a story card that reinforces the importance of education that also acts as a reward for finished patches.
Patches are combined to create various items that are ultimately sold at local markets and eventually through overseas fair-market trade associations.
NGOs would oversee the program to make sure that revenue collected from sales would finance the girls' education. Transparency is a must to overcome any child labor infringements.
Sohyun Kim, Tatijana Vasily, Mariko Iwai, Charlotte Wong, Ben Freedman
Menstrual cycles often results in girls missing school, infection, illness and isolation. With disposal pads too costly, the Flo kit presents an inexpensive system for cleaning, drying and carrying reusable menstrual pads so girls can feel confident and in control.
When away from home, a girl wears lightweight carrying pouch under her garments where new and used pads can be comfortably hidden. Back at home girls privately clean used pads with the affordable and small-sized washer/dryer unit. This hand-operated device uses opposing forces and small amounts of water to clean and spin dry; it could be created out of found objects or purchased as a final product.
Key potential business partners would be Tyvek for carrying pouches and Rubbermaid for producing the washing design and deliver through their distribution channels.
Ben Freedman, Lori Nishikawa, Carolina Rodriguez, Therese Swanepoel, Charlotte Wong
Since girls in poverty are the best voices to tell others what girls in poverty need, this affordable camera offers girls an outlet to express themselves and document their lives in a creative manner; the uploaded images are also valuable resources for social service and humanitarian organizations that need unadulterated research and direct insight to best plan and design effective programs.
Schools monitor the curriculum to teach girls how to assemble and critically use their cameras. Photos would be shared on a website that is accessed by donors, researchers and girls around the world, including those in Western schools.
Camera financing would come from private donors and U.S. government subsidies; roll-out would start with a target area and grow wider to universally connect girls in poverty with the outside world.
Annie Shin, Mariana Somma, Ong Wongnawa, Rebecca Blum, Laura Onelio
This beekeeping cooperative employs an environmentally responsible method of income generation to teach young girls the value of cooperation, friendship and mentorship. The collective brings together girls of all ages; girls transition to new responsibilities in caring for the hives as they get older.
The collective features a unique hive design that is attractive to girls and created out of easy-to-assemble injected molded plastic and local materials. The smaller-than-typical swarm catcher is portable, lightweight and is ergonomically designed for young girls.
Financed by charitable organizations and donations, the collectives will earn credits for sales and eventually pay back the start-up costs for the tools/materials making them self-sustaining. After short term markets have been saturated, the collectives could form partnerships with global distributors.
Andrea Cappelli, Kei Yumino, Thokozani Mabena, Mona Gabaizadeh, Ali Joseph, Eric Rucker, Kendrick Strauch
With a lack of knowledge, privacy and resources, young girls often avoid school during their menstruation cycle, which could lead to educational setbacks. Engaging girls before they start puberty, the Tombi kit would answer questions, alleviate fears and provide tools for girls to discreetly take care of themselves.
The kit's carrying container includes: a journal (with picture prompts, a calendar and blank pages), sustainable menstrual pads, and a smaller travel bag (with pouched area for used pads). The kit would be locally manufactured and assembled, featuring familiar cultural fabric.
Ambassadors would distribute the kit, provide educational sessions and be the source for refilling the kit. The business model calls for a small pilot project using crowdfunding sources in order to observe all facets from distribution to implementation.
"The designers were so resilient week after week, which was especially impressive when critiques led to their having to start over from scratch. Using more technologically dynamic (and in many ways, more casual) means to communicate took a little getting used to. No matter what the means, this experience confirmed that communication and collaboration ultimately comes down to people. Our meetings worked best when everyone involved was (physically and mentally) present and enthusiastic, when the whole team had a clear sense of what hurdles we had to tackle next, and when both coasts kept team decisions in mind when facing design or business-centric crossroads." - Joan Kim, Student, Yale School of Management
A local maker of sticky sole skateboard shoes, Vans has become a multi-generational lifestyle brand celebrating Southern California culture.
Vans was founded in 1966 by Paul Van Doren and three partners who established the Van Doren Rubber Company in Anaheim which manufactured and sold skateboard shoes directly to the public. On opening day, 12 customers purchased shoes which were created in the morning and ready for pick up that afternoon.
In the early 1970s, Vans shoes became a cultural phenomenon. Designers added new offerings, collaborating with skateboarders and BMX riders for styles, and created shoes for other sports including baseball, basketball, wrestling and even skydiving.
Positioning itself on the forefront of SoCal youth culture, Vans sponsored Vans Triple Crown sport competitions, opened up skate parks, kicked off the Vans Warped Tour, and even financed the production of Dogtown and Z-Boys, a critically acclaimed documentary on skateboarding.
A touchback to its heritage, Vans launched Vans Customs in 2004 for customers to create their own shoes online using hundreds of color and pattern combinations. In-store kiosks, however, failed to engage consumers in creating customized shoes and many were discontinued.
Vans sponsored this Designmatters project, bringing together for the first time two upper-term courses, Design for Sustainability and Product Design 6: Innovation Studio. Students enrolled in both courses and worked on different aspects of the Vans challenge in each studio. This unique blending of sustainable and product design offered students a deeper design thinking experience that paired product/system ideation with business/financial considerations.
The studios challenged students to envision the world of 2025 and how design can set the stage for a revolution-in-making; one that concurrently responds to the needs of multiple stakeholders while also considering the natural environment.
Student teams investigated how Vans, a company synonymous with Southern California attitude, could evolve its existing product model into a successful product service system model.
All design concepts/responses needed to grow organically from the heritage of Vans as an internationally-known brand. Vans consumers are passionately loyal to the company, which needed to be honored and leveraged when developing new products, services and experiences.
Sustainability also informed the design process at every step. Product life cycles were instrumental in determining the project concept parameters at all levels from initial design to manufacturing to end-of-life. Social and cultural sustainability needs were also addressed along with ethical considerations (keeping jobs local, labor needs, agricultural practices, etc.).
In addition to creating a sustainable item/service/experience, teams were instructed to capitalize on the burgeoning customization trend to make individual consumer-driven products economically feasible and procedurally attainable—reminiscent of the original Vans experience where consumers played an influential role in designing and creating their own pair of shoes.
Currently, Vans creates and sells 60 million pairs of shoes annually, with only 40,000 pairs customized. That number is expected to grow dramatically in the coming years. More than 100 hands, however, currently touch a shoe from beginning to end during the manufacturing process, which would be overwhelming for any customization addition.
To help Vans achieve customizations on a global scale, design teams would need to streamline current manufacturing strategies to be cost effective and less labor intensive while simultaneously fulfilling sustainability requirements.
Additionally, students were encouraged to incorporate future technology (digital interfaces, 3-D printing, etc.) into their design concepts.
"What impressed me the most was the ability of the students to stay connected to who we are as a brand without working within our walls. They showed a clear understanding of the culture and expectations of not only customers but also the people who make the company what it is." – Safir Bellali, Director of Design Innovation, Vans
This design and sustainability challenge directed students to create a Vans product, service or system, and chart out the timeframe for its rollout in the community and for consumers.
Working in teams, students focused on the environmental and social/cultural consequences of their product/service life cycle. They delved into the footwear arena, analyzing products and processes, creating customer/user profiles and presented best practices and product designs that focused on customer interaction that could evolve as a viable business model and successful sustainable brand strategy in the decades to come.
At the beginning of the term, presentations by the Vans leadership team provided initial organizational background and deliverables that Vans deemed beneficial for their long-term planning and strategies.
Vans provided students an "Open Door" policy to Vans representatives. Students were also given opportunities to examine shoe material samples, and were encouraged to visit and tour Vans Southland-based retail stores.
These early Vans contacts often ricocheted student thinking and propelled further investigations into information and resources outside of Vans as students connected to professional leaders in new technology, ecofriendly materials and sustainable practices.
To immerse themselves into the world and workings of Vans, students were assigned to present a case study on specific Vans products, revealing the analytical process behind every detailed step of the product life cycle. Profiles of typical Vans multigenerational consumers of today (and potentially tomorrow) were also part of researching the current dynamic Vans landscape.
Designing for consumer-driven customizations was an important theme throughout the studio. Like the original Vans customer experience in the 1960s, this studio asked how consumers of the near future could be "co-creators" for specific products and experiences, requiring students to come up with inventive concepts to answer those questions.
The Life Cycle to Design (L2D) methodology directed all steps of the design process, guiding students to analyze their entire life cycle process from raw materials, extraction, manufacturing, packaging, transportation, retail, use and end-of-life. This rigorous and complicated template, depicting the environmental and social/cultural consequences, was vital in creating and refining their projects, especially in light of new customizations, sustainability and financial business models.
Teams constantly referred back to their original life cycle study to gauge specific chart improvements on their overall design; this sharpened students' claims from merely stating that a certain element made the product/system "environmentally friendly" to producing factual data on how individual life cycle improvements were really a sustainable choice.
To accommodate the proposed mass customizations integral to their life cycle, student teams designed tangible strategies (often incorporating new technologies) to update and restructure current manufacturing systems to reduce labor costs, increase product value and satisfy sustainability goals.
Students' passion for the Vans brand and excitement to build on its success was evident in the wide variety of directions that teams explored, investigated and ultimately presented at the studio final held at the Vans California headquarters in Cypress. Along with fellow students and faculty, Vans employees from all levels were welcomed in the audience and provided feedback, asked questions and commented on the student's final presentations.
"We teach students that they have to be able to back up their design decisions by giving them the tools that can help them determine true sustainability. A lot of designers working today will call something 'eco-friendly,' 'environmentally friendly' or sustainable, but they haven't done the life cycle. They will call something sustainable just because it's made out of bamboo, but in some cases that bamboo fiber may not be the most sustainable choice. Our students know the process of research to back up any claim they make about sustainability." – Heidrun Mumper-Drumm, Director of Sustainability Initiatives, Art Center
Renee Mascarinas and Maryann Mochi Chi
Vans on the Move uses burgeoning technology to bring the Vans brand directly to the people through mobile custom units, shoe customizations and an annual pilgrimage event.
Six green-powered mobile customization units tour the country allowing customers to create their own shoes, choosing either pre-sets or their own designs. Each mobile unit is dedicated to one aspect of shoe manufacturing and custom treatments. Customers are alerted via an App when the next unit is scheduled to arrive. Overhead, solar-powered blimp drones are inventory warehouses for the mobile units; small drones deliver materials to units as well as finished shoes to customers.
Debuting in 2025, the SoCal Vans pilgrimage event celebrates with food trucks, music, sports and access to all mobile custom units in one place so customers can create their pair of shoes in one day – just like the first Vans customers did.
Jeremey D'Ambrosio, Justin Deandrade and Ian Dowling
This proprietary manufacturing and customization system envisions a durable, recyclable shoe of the future, an innovative process for individual personalization, and a take back program that benefits Vans, the consumer and the environment.
Pellet-sized biodegradable materials currently produced by Plus Foam, a Vans subcontractor for insoles, are leveraged for shoe construction. Through the Thermofoaming process, shoe components are joined together thermally, minimizing the manufacturing process to just a singular assembly, thus greatly eliminating petroleum-based materials and off-gassing glues.
Digital sampling via 3D imagery allows creative customizations for Supply on Demand "direct to material printing" that can be employed at all Vans international manufacturing locations.
Well-worn and damaged shoes are sent back to Vans in pre-paid envelopes for customer credit. Vans reprocesses old shoes in future manufacturing, thereby closing more of the supply loop.
Shane Li
Reimagining the way footwear will be designed and constructed in 2025, Frame presents sustainable alternatives in materials and manufacturing methods that result in a product that utilizes less materials/energy overall but still delivers a solidly constructed, deeply personalized shoe.
Frame involves an innovative robotic automation process that uses no glue, exchanges much of the petroleum based materials with recyclable components and expands the lifespan of the shoe with sustainable elements.
Frame's redesign is threefold. The Skeleton is a streamlined support piece composed of strong recyclable thermoplastic rubber. The Skin employs a fully robotic hydroentanglement process that leverages water jet power to fuse the spunlaced seamless upper to the support structure. The Nail is a protocell coating that can be reapplied when damaged or worn; it's also customizable for thickness, patterns, texture and color.
Yu-Ting Chen, Carolina Rodriguez, Susan Zhang
Off the Grid is an interactive customer-centric Vans skating park of the future that taps into power generated by Generation Z skaters.
This retooled Van skate park takes advantage of the piezoelectric effect (kinetic energy from applied stress and collected vibrations into electric energy); skaters going over obstacles create renewable energy that will fuel the park's power needs and reduce carbon emissions. Integral to the concept is a redesigned Vans shoe with built-in RFID tag, which records skate use, energy created and other stats.
Rolled-out first as a traveling skate park to generate customer excitement, Off the Grid will debut in 2025 with permanent parks where technology-driven youth use updated DNA shoes with embedded RFiD to earn energy credits, "turn" on lighted obstacles and share photos/info via social media platforms.
Daniel Bromberg and Erick Ikeda
Drawing on the growing global reach of Vans, which currently has manufacturing plants in seven countries, Hubba hyper-regionalization empowers world cultures to celebrate their heritage by engaging in the design, creation, transportation, distribution and sale of unique one-off products not originally intended for mass market production.
Keeping as much of the supply chain as local as possible reinforces a cultural respect dynamic, produces less carbon footprints and is reminiscent of Vans heritage as trend innovator.
Hubba will be piloted in Brasil where locality will be embraced: local artists for designs, local materials in manufacturing, existing transportation methods (bikes, mopeds, etc.) for distribution, and sales and merchandising opportunities/experiences where crowds typically gather.
Once many Hubbas have been established, Vans will curate a new line of global products that eventually would be desired by customers all over the world.
"I did a lot of sewing and hand-making in this class to find an appreciation for what technology can do for manufacturing. Experiencing what would take so long to do with my two hands showed me the human limits and how technology moves us forward." - Erick Ikeda, Student, Product Design
Devin Procter and Tina Tsung
Viewing climate adaption through the lens of local manufacturing, Explore considers footwear customizations as a solution to the practical challenge of producing a Southern California-styled shoe for diverse global markets.
The seven current Vans manufacturing plants around the world would produce shoes best suited for their specific climate conditions (dry/wet, hot/cold, humidity, etc.). Climate adaptions are "hidden" inside design: cold climates use thick materials to trap heat inside; monsoonal climates feature mesh insoles for water drainage, etc.
Each global manufacturing plant would tackle customized climate needs, thus shipping, distribution impacts would be minimized. Retail stores could buy old shoes, replacing and/or reselling pairs. Online customers around the world could purchase used shoes from an exotic location for added value.
Adding design concepts: aging shoes would contain a printed pattern that would slowly appear underneath the top material layer. Eyelets would employ sewed threaded patterns and colors instead of metal and glue materials.
"The student projects hit all parts of the spectrum and were very forward-thinking, that's exactly what we wanted. Some of what the students presented could very well happen in the next five and even ten years out. Some we are actually thinking about right now –and they didn't even know that." – Ryan Biggs, Innovation Design Engineer, Vans
The Calientamigos system allows impoverished families living without hot running water to heat and pressurize water for bathing, cooking and cleaning.
The Venture Well Open Minds Conference is an intensive two-day conference for practitioners of technology entrepreneurship in higher education.
The Girl Effect
Beaverton, OR
Spring 2015
Office of Country and Subregional Coordination
Washington, D.C.
Spring 2015
Adriana Crespo (Illustration) has been awarded the Designmatters Fellowship with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) at headquarters in Washington DC. PAHO is the Americas arm of the World Health Organization (WHO). Adriana will be engaged in the development of a flagship initiative of PAHO's Executive Director: the development of a brand identity for the Office of Country and SubRegional Coordination. Adriana looks forward to her Fellowship experience:
"I couldn't be more excited to join the team of an international organizations whose efforts improve the lives of millions of people in the Americas. Art Center and Designmatters have prepared me well in understanding and visually communicating the mission and vision of collaborative efforts that strive to have a larger and meaningful impact. I can't wait to collaborate with PAHO and contribute my design skills to further their values and goals in promoting health and well being in underserved communities."
Mariana Somma (Graduate Industrial Design) has accepted the Designmatters Fellowship with The Nike Foundation in Oregon to join Tom de Blasis' strategic design team. Mariana will continue and expand upon the work started in the Fall 2014 Girl Effect Studio, co-hosted by Designmatters and Product Design, which explored tools and systems for girls living in poverty around the globe. Mariana is excited to be continuing the research and work of the past term:
"This year's TDS class with the Nike Foundation was a great introduction to learning about the challenges young girls face in poverty around the world. My goal, in the continued work with The Girl Effect Project, is to explore creative solutions for empowerment, confidence and skill building for girls to rise out of poverty and support their families and communities. I am thrilled to work with an organization that is dedicated to bringing innovation and tangible opportunities to girls globally, and I look forward to seeing this work provide a lasting social impact."
]]>Currently Gala works as a multidisciplinary art director. Her recent projects have included social awareness campaigns, urban interventions and curricula development for topics as varied as immigration, sustainability and mindful education.
"I wish I had known about this field when I was younger!"
For years graduate students have complained to me that they wished they had learned about social impact design when they were younger. My current exhibit AWARE AND AWAKE: creatively transforming behaviors and the world! at the Children's Museum of the Arts in New York is my response to their request. Awake and Aware is an interactive exhibit created to promote and encourage mindful change-making through creativity and the arts. This visual curriculum presents a layered process that guides and supports children through an exploration of interdependence and problem solving, empowering them to become agents of change in their communities. Children can engage in this system over a period of weeks or months investigating the many themes and pursuing the projects and prompts included within the mandala. The curriculum can be adapted for any age group. We have been offering workshops for families and children at the museum since September and we will continue working with children in public and private schools in the New Year.
Over the last twelve years my social engagement practice and my mindfulness practice have become inseparable. As an educator who teaches both social impact design and mindfulness, I have become committed to creating curricula that offers these traditions as inextricably connected parts of a whole. There are many successful models and toolkits to use when working on impact projects but often the students and those involved question their personal role and connection to the work and the process. This is where the mindfulness piece comes in. Mindfulness tools help us gather our attention to focus on a specific thing, emotion, topic or situation. This capacity to focus gives us an ability to understand our motives and intentions more clearly. For those of us who did not grow up in an environment that taught us these skills, it can still be challenging to focus, to be present and to stay connected.
This frustration expressed by my graduate students at Pratt Institute made me curious about what they were really longing for and how early we might be able to introduce the ideas, concepts, tools and methods taught in this field to younger students, even children. Over the last fews years, these questions have driven my work. I have researched and explored the many toolkits and methodologies used in the cross sections of design thinking, education, arts, transformational activism and mindfulness looking for a way to address this request and present the desired information to a younger generation of potential change makers. My focus is on these potential change makers, students in K-12, because as we well know, the world will be theirs soon. In order to set them up for optimum success, we have to teach them the necessary skills and tools while exposing them to the 21st century challenges they will soon be confronting. If they are able to cultivate mindfulness, develop synergistic thinking and problem solving skills while experiencing their potential to transform their communities we will be helping to prepare a generation of children with voice, agency and vision.
Why should we start with K-12 education? We have probably all felt overwhelmed and impotent, if not sad and frightened, about the state of the world at some recent point. As the parent of an eight year old, I have to think of ways to answer my daughter's questions about unfairness and injustice on a regular basis. Her questions keep me honest and on my toes. I do not want to teach her a sense of futility or that someone else will solve her problems. I want her to know how to think about the problems we face critically, understand how the parts can easily be seen as a system that needs to be redesigned and then give her the skills to go to work creating new better, more sustainable and humane answers to our most intractable problems. This may not happen overnight, but this way she will have the opportunity to grow her toolkit and mature into her role as a 21st century change maker.
Reasons to teach mindfulness to children are many and very powerfully stated by The American Mindfulness Research Associates in the quote below.
"Young children's capacity to self-regulate attention and emotion contributes to their scholastic success and predicts their academic attainment. There is a need for programs that enhance children's self-regulation skills, and mindfulness-based interventions that promote sustained attention, self-monitoring, and cognitive flexibility…"- The American Mindfulness Research Association
The truth is that most of us could use some help regulating our attention and emotions at all ages.
If you have questions, comments or are interested in learning more about the visual curriculum and/or collaborating with us please don't hesitate to contact me at email@example.com
Awake and Aware was created by Gala Narezo and Chantal Fischzang of mindful+ an initiative that links mindfulness to all endeavors through art and education.
Calientamigos designed by Della Tosin, Tianyi Sun, Kevin Chang with Mariana Somma was awarded the Highest Spark! Award and BaldeMovil designed by Kristina Jesena and Shingo Mamiya was awarded a Silver Spark Award.
To learn more about both projects checkout the Safe Agua Colombia Project page.
Click here for the complete list of winners.
]]>The "Where's Daryl? Educational Toolkit" Poster/One sheet Presented at the APHA Public Health Expo.
Sage Publications, 2012
]]>Basic Books, 2013
]]>Oxford University Press, 2006
]]>Mariana Amatullo contributes to Christian Bason's latest publication Design for Policy with a paper entitled "The Branchekode.dk project: Designing with Purpose and Across Emergent Organizational Culture." The paper is a case study on MindLab's innovative projects and part of Mariana's Doctoral research.
This past summer, I was fortunate enough to be part of an incredible team of creative people with backgrounds in business design, interaction design, industrial design, engineering and writing, to mention a few. This multidisciplinary group of people make up IDEO.org, a non-profit born from design consultancy (IDEO). IDEO.org saw the power and success of design thinking and human-centered design, and decided to apply these methodologies to solve pressing issues of poverty around the world.
Being a Designmatters Concentration student, I couldn't have asked for a better opportunity to start exercising my design skills in the social impact field. My title of "graphic design intern" only partially describes all the tasks and challenges I was asked to take on.
On my first day, I joined the Efina Project, with Minnie Bredouw (former IDEO.org fellow and Interaction Designer at IDEO) and Ravi Prakash (former IDEO.org fellow and former Systems Engineer at NASA'S Jet Propulsion Lab). They had just returned from their second field research trip in Nigeria the day before but were ready to hold a debrief session with me about their progress, proposed strategies, and the possible challenges around the project. After being involved in multiple ideation sessions with our team of five now, and many feedback meetings with our partners from Nigeria, we created a visual communication campaign to educate rural communities in Nigeria about affordable healthcare options that would not only benefit them and their families but would work as a community healthcare support system. All the thinking and iteration involved in creating a long term business strategy, designing a user experience, producing a training manual, posters, brochures, and tons of other collateral, taught me how far human-centered design can go, through listening and attending to the needs of the people we were designing for.
Every project I took part of was more challenging than the previous one. They all required different skills and some required skills I had to learn on the spot. Being a fast-paced growing community of global thinkers, at IDEO.org everyone is working hard and passionately. This became all the motivation I needed to keep myself learning and wanting to contribute to such a beautiful mission, a mission that has reached thousands of people around the world who are now learning, teaching and practicing human-centered design to improve the quality of life in their communities.
Cristobal Barros, Chilean Coordinator at the (US DOI ITAP) recently updated the Designmatters Dept. on developments with the CITES Project. Campaign elements designed by Art Center students were shared with 20 decision makers in Chile from the three branches of government (Judiciary, Legislature and Executive) as well as the CITES Secretariat in Geneva and DOI-ITAP headquarters in Washington. In March of 2015, meetings will commence to discuss the details of possible project implementation. In the meantime, design elements from the campaign will be featured in a CITES traveling exhibition that will visit Valparaiso and Santiago, Chile.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES ) is an international agreement between governments to regulate the legal trade in wildlife in a sustainable manner, helping to ensure the protection of wild animals and plants. Signed by 80 countries in 1973, it regulates trade in approximately 35,600 species worldwide. Chile ratified CITES in 1975 and, today, more than 320 plants and animals native to Chile are listed under CITES Appendices, including the puma, Andean condor, ñandú and hammerhead shark.
Although these achievements are significant, Chile is currently classified under Category 2 by the CITES Standing Committee, meaning that its legislation does not meet all of the requirements for the full implementation of the Convention. Passing the pending legislation would bring Chile up to Category 1 status..
Sophisticated rings of criminals are involved in smuggling endangered species worldwide, similar to drug smuggling. With appropriate regulation, sanctions, investigations, and prosecutions, Chilean authorities will be able to tackle this organized crime.
4 years ago, a bill was introduced in the Chilean Congress to bring Chilean regulations up to Category 1 status. Since then, little advancement has taken place, likely due to lack of awareness of the negative impacts of wildlife trafficking and misinformation on the illegal endangered species trade.
Cristobal Barros, currently the Coordinator for the US DOI ITAP in Chile, advised on Designmatters' Safe Agua Chile project in 2009. Recalling the outstanding work of the students on that project, he contacted Designmatters and the Advertising Department in 2014 to pose a special challenge to a new group of students: create a dynamic public awareness campaign about illegal trafficking of endangered species in Chile.
"The project goal was to influence decision makers to help stop illegal animal trafficking in Chile. But, we knew that targeting the politicians wouldn't work. They pay attention to what they believe are the top concerns of their constituents. From that insight, we knew that we needed target the people of Chile with our campaign, and create a public outcry to protect wildlife."
- Sef Chang, Advertising Student
Faculty Dennis Lee and John Battle led a team of 9 students on this independent study project over a seven-week period in June and July 2014. Over these 7 weeks, students researched Chile and its environment, cities, and cultures, focusing specifically on the cities of Santiago and Valparaiso. Students pitched a wide range of creative ideas for the campaign, utilizing clever visuals, interactive elements and surprising outdoor stunts to grab the attention of both the general public and the media. Partners from the US DOI provided thoughtful feedback in the early stages, and the students focused to fully develop the most well-received ideas.
Students presented three final campaigns to partners from US DOI, each utilizing guerilla tactics to engage different sectors of the public and encourage them to pressure politicians to enact CITES legislation.
"I think that the strongest aspect of the final work was the scale and magnitude of our proposed piece. For an awareness campaign like CITES Chile, engaging as many people as possible in an interesting and memorable way was absolutely crucial to its success." – Abe Chuang, Advertising Student
This campaign starts at schools in Santiago, where every student is asked to help fold two origami endangered animals. One is for each child to take home to spread the message to his or her family and friends. The other pieces are gathered and taken to Valparaiso, where they are placed on the steps of the National Congress Building to create a haunting image expressing both the scale of illegal trafficking, as well as popular support for government action on the issue.
The Art Center students designed the original origami figures and folding instructions for Chilean endangered species the Andean condor, Chilean parrot, vicuna, puma and hammerhead shark. This project has multiple levels of engagement, from children to adults to legislators, culminating in a stunt engineered to grab the attention of the media.
Students discovered in their research that Chile has one of the highest mobile penetration rates in Latin America, and an exceptional growth rate for smartphones. To take advantage of number of Chileans with mobile phones, the students created a campaign based on emojis, sending unexpected, illustrated text messages that tell stories about how endangered species are being threatened everyday by government inaction.
Recipients of the texts see hundreds of emojis of Andean condors, Chilean parrots, vicunas, pumas, ñandús or hammerhead sharks, scrolling down to a find a message that reads "Every year, hundreds of animals are illegally trafficked out of Chile. You can help keep them home by signing the digital petition and by sharing this message with your friends". Recipients then click on an embedded link that takes them to a digital petition asking their representatives to act quickly on CITES conservation efforts.
In this campaign, the students started with the question "What happens when animals no longer feel safe in their own homes?" The answer they came up with: "They start hiding in human cities in desperate attempts to stay alive." This campaign is an installment of life-sized vinyl animal stickers in unexpected places throughout the Santiago Metro and Valparaiso buses to surprise and intrigue the over 2 million people who use public transportation each day in these cities. Signage invites the pubic to take and share photos on social media with the hashtag #CITESparaChile and directs them to a website with a digital petition to sign to capture public awareness and support.
"We are incredibly grateful to the Art Center students for the amazing campaign they developed. When I first saw the presentation, I hooked from the very first slide and blown away by the creativity, the imagination. I thought 'they've nailed it!' Their work has benefited our project and, I truly believe, the people of Chile by raising public awareness of wildlife trafficking and the need for effective regulations. My selfish hope is that through this opportunity to work on a government-related project, these incredibly talented students consider public service. That would benefit us all!" – Christina Kish, Project Manager, U.S. Department of the Interior's International Technical Assistance program
After the independent study project concluded, US DOI ITAP collaborated with the Chilean based communication strategy agency Extend to develop further copy and messaging to the campaign proposals that would further contextualize the work for Chilean audiences. The campaign concepts were presented to representatives from Chile's CITES Committee, the US Embassy in Chile and US DOI in August 2014. The proposal was received enthusiastically by all of the representatives.
At the time of this writing, a streamlined communication and roll out plan for the campaign materials is being developed by CODEFF, a Chilean NGO dedicated preserve the environmental heritage of Chile, including the protection of wildlife, through education, citizen participation, advocacy and research. Look for updates on plans for implementation in 2015!
Harvard Business Review Press, 2014
]]>Design Indaba, 2014
]]>Focus on Public-Private Partnerships: Solving Sanitation on a Global Scale
October 31, 2014 (11:30 AM- 12:30 PM)
Century City, CA
Hyatt Regency
" I was overwhelmed with a sense of history."
- Nelson Mandela, The Long Walk to Freedom, 1994.
In an often-quoted passage to the conclusion of his autobiography, Mandela speaks of this sentiment as he reflects back to the momentous day of his presidential inauguration in 1994. Behind him were the beginnings of the successful restructuring of the South African system that repealed apartheid. Ahead of him, the complex transition to a nonracial democracy had commenced.
Mandela's statement encapsulates how it felt to visit South Africa. Last September, I traveled to Cape Town and Johannesburg for the first time, on the occasion of our Cumulus Association board meeting, which coincided with World Design Capital 2014, and the first Cumulus conference in the region, "Design with the Other 90%: Changing the World by Design," (a title inspired by the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum eponymous exhibition series). Long in the making, the conference was co-hosted by the Greenside Design Center and the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) of the University of Johannesburg. With the participation of a distinguished group of practitioners, academics and doctoral students from the region, the international event focused on notions of respect, responsibility and sustainability, and sought to catalyze discussions about the role of art and design in "sustainable social advancement, particularly in the context of the African continent." From my local colleagues' presentations I was left to ponder a number of debatable strands that seem gradually more relevant to the realm of social design, and to the diversity of reflective educational models many of us in this space of practice and scholarship strive for. For example, some of the papers and case studies that were shared touched upon post-colonial representations of visual culture; others reflected on the challenges of designing in resource-constrained and volatile socio-political environments across a multitude of stakeholders; many surfaced the frequent naiveté and unintended consequences of well-meaning design for development interventions; and others still addressed the limits of users' participation and agency within many of the co-design methods routinely championed by designers. In addition to the weighty criticality of many of these topics, and perhaps because of a meaningful sense of place I somehow could not shake off, these conversations took on a fresh sense of vibrancy and urgency for me. "WHERE IT'S AT"—the bold title of a recent Design Indaba publication which I was gifted by that team only a few days earlier in their offices in Cape Town—kept resonating as a proclamation infused with confidence and contradiction….
After two decades of democracy, the South Africa I encountered has become a very different place politically, racially and socio-economically than when Mandela was inaugurated. By all accounts, the promise of the "rainbow nation" stands strong, and despite ongoing undercurrents of systemic violence and crime, unsettling allegations of corruption in its political leadership, and profound economic disparities, the two urban centers of South Africa that I visited show many physical signs of the "Africa rising" renaissance that we read about increasingly in the western press. In sprawling cities like Johannesburg, some of these changes are, in no small part, driven by policy and urban re-design initiatives that are meant to not only create economic renewal, but also pro-actively reverse the still visible remnants of the "spatial apartheid"—a meticulously designed geography of racism that reminds us of the disturbing complicity of wrongful design in enacting human right violations. Today, one of the most ambitious civic projects in Johannesburg, the "Corridors of Freedom" plan, envisions "re-stitching our city to create a new future," and with this very aspiration positions design back as a fundamental affirmation of human dignity. Notably, the plan calls for the design of people-centered arteries for mobility and transport with, for example, new cycling and bus lanes and pedestrian walkways strategically laid onto a web of social infrastructure and mixed land use that is meant to usher in a new era of access and opportunity. It is an exciting vision, and one that seems to be already manifesting in discreet projects underway in central downtown areas of the city.
Back to my being overcome with a sense of history during my all too brief and sheltered wanderings outside the conference venues. That surge of emotion came on at once, and unexpectedly, during a casual conversation with the driver of a local taxi, after the conference ended, as we drove with a colleague to the outskirts of the city and the site of the Apartheid Museum. The familiar question and exchange that often initiates many of the ephemeral conversations of travel journeys—"Where do you come from?"—prompted the driver, a father of four in his 50s, to tell us about moving away to safety in the mid-1970s from one of the townships of Soweto where he had grown up, in order to attend an English speaking school in the countryside. Suddenly, Sam Nzima's iconic photograph of the dying 13-year-old schoolboy Henry Pieterson was no longer simply a famous museum artifact that has come to symbolize the tragic events of the Soweto uprising around the world. It was much more than a photograph, which I had just contemplated in stunned silence a couple of days earlier during my visit in Soweto. Now, it was an image brought alive by, and transformed into the hopeful outcome of this individual to whom I was talking, who had lived that moment in history as a middle school student, and had emerged alive.
The American philosopher Richard McKeon reminds us that "human freedom is one instance to move: it is self-determination as opposed to restraint or coercion."* This is a truth that resonates with new meaning for me after this visit to South Africa.
* Richard McKeon, Philosophic Semantics and Philosophic Inquiry, from Freedom and History and Other Essays, edited by Zahava K. McKeon, 1990
Team Calientamigos member, Mariana Somma's featured contribution to the OpenIDEO platflorm.
]]>Gower Inc., 2014
]]>Mariana Amatullo contributes to this publication with a paper entitled "The Branchekode.dk project: Designing with Purpose and Across Emergent Organizational Culture."
March 20-21, 2015
Washington D.C.
Marriott Marquis
Master Class: Visual Arts Department
Mariana Amatullo
February 12 & 13, 2015
Idyllwild, CA
Idyllwild Arts Academy
December 2, 2014
Washington, DC
Enrique V. Iglesias Conference Center
November 15-19, 2014
New Orleans, LA
Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center
About the Coaniquem Project: In Spring 2013, Art Center Students applied their multi-departmental skills to create a global campaign with a twofold focus: to develop positive burn prevention messages, and to increase awareness and support for children burn victims.
]]>MDP Field Track Graduate Student, Tina L. Zeng shares some of her experiences working with the UNICEF Innovation Lab.
One year ago, 150 educators, students, practitioners, and thought leaders from across sectors arrived here at Art Center in Pasadena for the LEAP Symposium. The first symposium of its kind, the goal of LEAP was to jumpstart a conversation about career pathways for designers in social innovation. As the Manager of the LEAP Symposium, I worked closely with Mariana Amatullo and the other members of the "Brain Trust," along with the facilitation team, to plan the program over the summer and to execute the event over three exciting and energetic days. This was my first introduction to the world of design, and I was inspired and intrigued by the free flow of conversation, the openness, the endless ideas generated, and the prolific use of post-its to find the connections between these ideas. (Side note: when ordering supplies for LEAP, I ordered more post-its than I thought 150 people could ever use. At the end of the event, there were only a few sad sticky notes left).
Although it was my first time working with designers, I was familiar with social innovation. I graduated from USC Marshall School of Business in May of 2013, as a Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab Graduate Fellow. I took on the temporary assignment of organizing LEAP because the topic of career pathways in social innovation was especially appealing to me, as I was trying to figure out my next career steps as a newly minted MBA focused in social impact. Throughout the planning process and the event I heard the Brain Trust, facilitators, and attendees touch on issues that I was interested, although not necessarily surprised, to find were the same issues I grappled with trying to forge a career path in an emergent field.
I chose to attend USC Marshall over other schools in large part because of the BSEL, one of the most prominent programs in business for social impact I could find. This year I began mentoring, through the Forte Foundation, a group of women applying for their MBAs. As I helped them look at schools, I noticed a difference between 2009, when I first began researching schools, and today- it appears that far more MBA programs have social impact programs, or, perhaps more likely, more schools are promoting their social impact courses, programs and organizations as a selling point for prospective students in recognition of the growing demand.
There is also growth for programs for design for social impact, mostly at the graduate level. Here at Art Center, we have the great Media Design Practices: Field Track program. During LEAP, I was especially interested to hear educators discuss the skills designers might need to work in social innovation: Is it merely a matter of teaching them the typical design skills, and then teaching students how to apply those skills in specific contexts? Or does practicing as a social innovation designer require special skills that need to be addressed? One skill, or attribute, I heard mentioned over and over again was "empathy"- not necessarily a word I heard used a whole lot in business school, but a skill that is undoubtedly necessary to practice in situations where you are hoping to impact lives. I hope the simultaneous growth in design and business for social impact education programs will lead to new opportunities to dive into the intersection of business and design as applied to social impact, to strengthen curricula and the skill sets of all new graduates entering the field.
On the final day of LEAP, we held an "Innovation Fair," where groups shared their ideas for advancing design careers in social innovation, including skill sets, tools, and models- you can check out all of the proposal boards here. After the Innovation Fair, LEAP attendees shared their actionable commitments for forging career pathways in social innovations. Commitments ranged from hosting a design intern or fellow, to mentoring design students, to promoting the space through articles and blogs. LEAP is on track to become a biennial event- LEAP 2.0 will be hosted by MICA in late 2015- and it will be really exciting to track these ideas and commitments throughout the next iterations of LEAP, to see which "what ifs" become reality.
Last week I had coffee with my former career counselor at Marshall. She noted that students looking for a career in social impact have to be ready to hustle, even more than the typical graduate student: "You're looking for a job in a market that hasn't matured." There is definitely no typical path to landing a job in social impact at this point- finding a position takes a lot of determination, and bit of luck. One year after my temporary LEAP gig, I am fortunate enough to be working full time for the Designmatters team in the newly created position of Associate Director. I am thrilled that in my new job, I get to work in my chosen field while helping provide design students with the educational experiences they need to build impactful careers.
The LEAP Symposium was made possible in part by the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Surdna Foundation, along with our other generous supporters who are inspired by the intersection of design and social innovation.
Ronald McDonald House Charities
Romeoville, IL
Fall 2014
National Geographic article written by our friends at the (NTBG) National Tropical Botanical Garden. The piece features our joint project "Garden in the Sea," a short documentary film about the NTBG created by Designmatters Fellows and Art Center Alumni Olaolu Jegede, Jonathan Augustavo and Jorge Sandoval.
"Our story changes with each breakthrough and new dreams develop. My dream is to galvanize our community to be passionate and bold, to articulate and clarify what we're trying to accomplish, to become much more action oriented."
- Ann M. Palmer, President and CEO, Arthritis Foundation
What is thought of as "Arthritis," is actually over one hundred diseases. Though it means, "inflammation of the joint," many forms of arthritis attack the entire body. Striking one in five adults and 300,000 children, arthritis is the leading cause of disability in the United States. Every day, people with arthritis are in pain for which there is no cure.
Despite impacting more than 50 million Americans, arthritis is a misunderstood disease, and myths surround it. Myth: Arthritis is an old person's disease. Fact: Arthritis is a complex family of musculoskeletal and autoimmune disorders, diseases or conditions that affect people of all ages, races and genders. Two-thirds of the people with arthritis are under the age of 65, including 300,000 children. Myth: Arthritis is not a serious health problem. Fact: People with arthritis account for 44 million outpatient visits, and over 900,000 hospitalizations, yearly. The Arthritis Foundation's demographic is diverse and vertical, familiar and far reaching. By 2030, arthritis is expected to impact 67 million Americans.
Film director, and Art Center alumnus, Zach Snyder, and his wife, movie producer Deborah Snyder, fostered the connection between the Arthritis Foundation and Designmatters. With trust established, the organization determined a broad project scope.
"There needs to be an umbrella approach–one that lets the organization speak to the whole diverse arthritis population. It needs to be extremely broad, yet also be able to speak very specifically to one single person."
- Deborah Snyder, Arthritis patient and advocate
How does an established organization make itself relevant to its vastly diverse demographic: from the parents of a toddler crying when she walks, to a young adult incapacitated with pain, to aging baby boomers and the elderly? And how do you do it with one brand? Students addressed those questions in order to re-create the Arthritis Foundation's brand into a strong multi-platform communication strategy that commands attention and action. The students worked to leverage the client's trusted voice, using it as a source to larger things: a brand that represents all people with all forms of arthritis.
"The class took large concepts and led them not just to their logical conclusions but to the right conclusions, which let the class learn the importance of creating 'a different kind of right."
- Sean Adams, Faculty, Graphic Design
Week 1: Kick off: Presentations by the Arthritis Foundation's leadership allowed the class to dialogue with the organization's most senior members. The openness with which the organization shared their needs impelled the students to move forward to meet them. Strategies were developed to rebrand the organization, modernize its image, and shift it from an "old person's" disease to one that affects anyone, communicating its story by promoting their many accomplishments through multiple platforms.
Week 2: Panel Presentation: Assembled by the Arthritis Foundation, and comprised of doctors, advocates, parents, a juvenile, an adult with adult onset arthritis, the panel provided students with a deeper, more compassionate understanding of the disease.
A broad range of topics was discussed, including: arthritis affecting anyone and everyone, changing the perception of arthritis, issues of awareness, diagnosis, public policy and advocacy. The panelists candidly expressed their hopes and frustrations.
Weeks 3-6: The teams moved steadily forward in developing ideas that were bold and visuals that were compelling. Addressing a disease, strongly associated with pain, yet, tasked to not create a campaign whose central construct was: this is about pain was key.
JD Buckley, guest faculty at Art Center, brought her expertise in communicating across broad target demographics, and workshopped with the students to research, synthesize and build user profiles. This allowed students to utilize the rich content they received from the panel and presentation, in addition to their own research, and distill, frame and synthesize it.
Viewing their work via the lens of the client's questions: "Why the Arthritis Foundation?" "Why now?" and "How are we relevant to a broad demographic?" —the class engaged in research, data collection, and focused interviews. Storytelling was important, as the students searched for ways to tell a big story that was engaging, relevant and motivating.
"The client encouraged us to believe nothing was out of bounds, and that our craziest idea could also be the greatest idea, and that was inspiring."
- Yorel Porcile, Student
Week 7 Midterm Presentation: The class, divided into four groups, presented four strikingly different campaigns, each addressing a different target audience.
Group One: JA (Juvenile Arthritis). Reaching young adults from birth to sixteen meant opting for bold colors, and embracing social media. Research showed this target group was completely engaged in the things they love: social media and games; the students used them to spread their bold, and irreverent message. They took a strong stand, in a loud, vibrant voice. Three taglines were used: "We're bold not old." "If you can't see the disease does it still hurt?" "I don't look sick but you don't look stupid." To create awareness, the team produced posters; to create a "shock moment," they created a GIF—animated on screen. With twitter feeds, environmental posters, magazines and material applications, Group One's ideas would engage their audience in a process of discovery, knowing that when their target demographic was passionate about something, they would share it, ultimately allowing their well-targeted message to go viral.
Group Two: Trusted Advisors. Group Two's research showed that trusted advisors wanted a dynamic website that revealed shared experiences. Their campaign focused on two approaches: movement and happiness, and celebrated the body. Showing an empowered individual in lively and bold colors, they created a feeling of support and strength. Their research revealed that happiness overcomes pain, leading Group Two to develop a brand campaign called: LAF (Laugh), which they envisioned as a haven in tough times. Its central idea was two people cooperating to achieve one goal. Laughter was the common ground on which patients, and their trusted advisors, could connect.
Group Three: Young Adult. Group Three used handwritten typography to reach its large and broad audience, which research showed inspires action, and reinforces honesty and directness. To empower the passion of standing on one's own, they employed the first person voice: "I won't put my life on hold." "I won't take no for an answer." Color selections of green neon and blue-green captured the bright and youthful mood. Image choices addressed the desires arthritis patients have, but hold back from doing due to the disease. A metaphor brought this concept to life: a rusted bicycle that hadn't been used for a long time. Concepts were developed for a quantified self-app. It focused on people optimizing their life and tracking their progress by logging their personal habits and health. Moving forward. Group Three would strive to create a deeper connection with their target audience by attaching the strong voice and handwritten typography to a person instead of an empty environment.
"What brings us together is that we can all get this disease."
- Fatima Ghanavi, Student
Group Four: This campaign sought to create a movement around the idea of arthritis affecting everyone. Group Four's crisis campaign focused on urgency: arthritis needs to be dealt with now, because people are in pain now. Using quick, aggressive statements that were assertive, personal and proactive, they impelled the public to join the fight.
Group Four conceived of a video to be installed in crowded places and play in the background; it would be projected over everyone walking by, reinforcing the idea that every one can have arthritis. The visual campaign had three words: "Everyone. Anyone. Arthritis," which captured broad attention and intrigued people to know more. Moving forward, the group would tie it to faces and images, and expand the aesthetic. Midterm Summation: The assets of the campaign had to encompass one strategy through a consistent voice and message. There was a need to inject more of the message of the Arthritis Foundation, and the students were encouraged to first define the message, and then execute it boldly and relevantly.
Weeks 8-12: The class built an overarching look and feel that expressed the primary elements of the brand and its broad target demographics, in one cohesive message.
"The students produced an elaborate, modular branding system that will serve the Arthritis Foundation for decades to come."
- Dave Bullock, Faculty, Graphic Design, Interactive Design
To meet the twofold deliverable challenge of: stripping away as much as possible to get to the core of the issue, and creating a message that was bold, fresh and young, the class conceived of and produced a "toolbox" system of visual communications and design templates. The tools provided were: taglines, typography, color palette, and image treatment. All tools could be used independently, or in conjunction with each other on posters, website, social media, broadcast and more, affording the client a broad range of communication opportunities across the multiple platforms they had targeted.
Tool #1 Taglines:
Bold Not Old. The class created more iterations of the phrase, all were direct and attention grabbing, all were used the powerful voice of the person with arthritis. The handwritten font, which connected so strongly at the midterm, was maintained.
Everyone Anyone Arthritis. Seen as a call to action, this tagline with its palpable energy was designed to capture a younger, edgier demographic. Again, the handwritten font was used to connect with the viewer.
Tool #2 Typography:
The students chose an approachable and playful font to act as the best representation of "bold," the key mood the students felt essential to express in their design of the campaign.
Tool #3 Color Palette:
Finding the right palette to express boldness was crucial; ultimately, teal was selected. It is the color of water, which expressed movement, a concept necessary to relate in counterbalancing perception around the "limitations" of arthritis. Movement was what arthritis patients say they lost, thus movement was the word that connected with all segments of the arthritis demographic groups. With teal established as the primary color, other colors were selected to complement it.
Tool #4 Image Treatment:
Dynamic images that connected directly to both patients and viewers were chosen. Portraits of people who have arthritis, looking out with bold and direct stares, enabled the class to create the honest and straightforward connection the client expressed as one of their desired outcomes.
"This is a culture shift for us. We will now be recognizable as a national organization with one face for the whole country to relate to and connect with."
- Manny Loya, CEO, Pacific Region, Arthritis Foundation
Having presented the "tool kit," to the organization, the students demonstrated how the client could apply it across multiple platforms.
Campaign Posters:
Designed to promote action, the posters accomplished this by delivering bold messages via the point of view of their target audience. "I Won't Take No For Answer." The powerful, forthright statement was matched by strong, compelling imagery. The students conceived of matching imagery to the organization's diverse geographic regions. Through their use of bicycle and ocean imagery, they executed their concept for the organization's West Coast demographic. "Bold Not Old." The client's campaign goal to raise awareness by making visuals fun was achieved in this poster. With imagery of children swimming, action was promoted, and having the children look directly at the viewer, an immediate connection was made.
Interchangeable imagery, targeted to the organization's different regions, gave the client the ability to be relevant amongst their multiple target groups, a desired outcome expressed by the client early on.
Decisions led to optimal ways of distilling of information and establishing a clear hierarchy on the website. Thus allowing viewers to find, and then go directly, to what they needed. The website endeavored to create a strong call to action and a public resource repository for some of the organization's key activities, including research, advocacy and patient education. Using moving backgrounds, and emotion-laden videos, the website features three tiers of information that is active, exciting and thoughtful.
Carefully designed info graphics help make the website more lively, and the rich and important content more accessible. Expanded engagement was reached through multiple channels, among them: stories, slide shows, and a chance to connect with others via comments. Viewers would be drawn in to the website immediately through bold, motion graphics, and the clear hierarchy would direct them easily through a functional, dynamic and engaging website.
The microsite provided the client with a place to communicate its most important and current information. After supplying vital information, the microsite would link viewers back to the main website.
To capture the television viewer's attention with an engrossing and compelling campaign, the class developed three scenarios of real people with real passions. The first, juveniles at a playground, lets the viewer see what it is like to be a child with arthritis, who is in the age of exploration. In the second, adults cooking, the viewer sees what it's like to be a person with arthritis, with a passion for cooking. The final scenario depicts young adults surfing; the audience understands how the world looks to a person with arthritis who is passionate about surfing. The visuals are forceful, thus enabling the organization's message to command attention and reach the viewer.
Looking at what is important to the patient and to the people impacted by arthritis, the class transformed the magazine by focusing on three elements:
1. Clarity of information. Conceived of as the best source for the latest information on research, breakthroughs, and lifestyle information, the class expanded the magazine's reach and relevancy by gathering the patients' and trusted advisors viewpoints. The decision lets the magazine represent and articulate the human aspect of the disease.
2. The Cover. The class visually manifested its concept of standing out by being quieter through its approach to the cover. Fundamental to achieving this was a transfixing cover portrait, featuring eyes looking directly at us. This portrait would create the strong, bold portrait that would shine through and connect with the reader.
3. Versatility. Through a simple grid, the students created a clear system in which information could be transferred across different planes, easily. The grid system promoted the organization's facts through bold info graphics and a clear hierarchy.
Giving users the capacity to draw correlations between how they are living, and their pain was the central idea behind the app, with features including: my information, my meds, my friends, my fitness goals, and more. The app provides a forum for users in the arthritis community to communicate, an issue of importance to the target audience
Guerilla Campaign:
Developed as a call to action, the Everyone Anyone Arthritis campaign goal is to create a movement for its younger audience to join. The Guerilla Campaign's Toolkit for the movement is comprised of: posters, tee shirts, tote bags, cling stickers for bus stops, magazine covers, store fronts, and lets the target audience share its message with others, thereby creating awareness and heightening visibility.
Surveillance Feed:
Video installations in subways, airports and other densely traveled spaces, feature live feeds of people walking. By projecting the video over each person walking, the point that everyone, anyone can have arthritis is clearly conveyed.
Brand Extension/Special Events:
In a campaign called: MOVE, the class connected to its broad demographic base by asking, "What would you really love to do?" Their answers: cycling, running, swimming, all active words, would be shown on the microsite, expressed in exciting and inspiring imagery.
Rain Advertising:
On sidewalks in cities and high foot traffic areas, taglines appear: half as a 3-D stencil, the other half would be streaming.
A brand identity, created through what appeals to, and captures the attention of, the Arthritis Foundation's different target groups contains tee shirts, caps, boards for skate events, all serving to increase and reinforce the organization's visibility.
The organization came away with an entirely new set of visuals and dynamic ways to present themselves. The students produced a broad campaign that while highly customized, also speaks to the diverse members of the arthritis population. Summer 2014's campaign will, hopefully, serve as the springboard to a nationwide campaign framing the Arthritis Foundation as one organization unified in its powerful, relevant and personal message.
"This whole campaign is all about movement! The class has used an idea that is so challenging to people with arthritis, and turned it into something so strong and positive."
- Cynthia McDaniel, Senior VP, Consumer Health, Arthritis Foundation
Streaming live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/desis-network
To view the live webcast on September 29, click here.
]]>Thames & Hudson Inc., 2014
]]>The following 3 part post was written by Mariana Somma (GRAD ID), Stella Hernandez (Asst. Faculty) and Kevin Chang (PROD), on behalf of the entire Safe Agua Colombia Calientamigos™ Team.
I recently had the privilege of joining the Calientamigos™ Team, which began through the Designmatters Safe Agua Colombia project. Through very tenacious last-minute efforts, I flew to Bogota, Colombia with teammate Della Tosin, with efforts to take with us five new Calientamigos BOMBA™ heater prototypes to the families living the settlement of Altos del Pino (ADP), as well as check in on the first two rounds of prototypes left with the families over 6 months ago. The experience was incredible, and meeting the families of ADP is one I will never forget. It was amazing to see the families using the Calientamigos™ system to heat water for bathing, cooking, cleaning, and even washing their family pets! For example, a family of 10 uses the BOMBA™ heater on a daily basis to heat bath water, saving them hours of time heating on conventional stove, and with significant reduction in their gas bills.
Calientamigos™ has efforts to bring this product to market, with hopes to manufacture within Colombia, and distribute globally. We were able to meet with a local Incubator in Bogota, who expressed interest in partnering with Calientamigos™ to help the families in Colombia, and ultimately make a global impact. This continues to be an exciting process as we move forward in talks around a collaborative co-business development for the coming months.
Having the opportunity to go back to Colombia this year has been a very enriching experience. I am very happy to have traveled last week and visited again the community of Altos del Pino in Bogota (along with the "Calientamigos™" project team members: Mariana Somma and Della Tosin), and also to have participated in a design conference talking about the work Safe Agua and Designmatters have done in the recent years.
This Safe Agua project in Colombia has been specially close to my heart since I was able to work with a group of students and teachers in my country of origin and the city where I grew up. I still remember how the landscape of the city changed for me last year during our visit and how the areas of the outskirts of the city and the communities that live there changed completely my perspective of the city creating very meaningful ties.
Going back to the community and seeing the people we met last year and the smiles on their faces was a very special experience; even more powerful is to hear how the projects that the teams worked on are being tested and used and are already improving their lives. While the students were asking questions to the community about their experiences with the products and delivering more prototypes to other families, I was able to see and feel their happiness and their gratitude towards the team.
Two days later after the visit to the community, I was talking in front of an audience of designers at one of the most important universities in Bogota (Universidad Nacional de Colombia) explaining what Designmatters and Safe Agua are about and how we have been able to use design to make a real social impact. The presentation, including the videos and pictures from past Safe Agua projects, had a big and positive effect on the audience, who felt very much motivated by our work in communities so close to them. I was also able to conduct a workshop, where I shared with a smaller group of 20 students and faculty members the way we work and how the close understanding of the people in the communities allows us to create more meaningful products and experiences.
I want to pass along to all the Safe Agua teams the words of admiration that I heard at this conference because it is the work done by all the people involved in the last 6 years, that is making a difference, not only in communities like Altos del Pino but also inspiring designers and other professionals along the way. I feel proud and happy to have participated in the beginning of Safe Agua as a student and now more recently as an assistant instructor and to have been able to see the evolution of the projects and the way that Safe Agua work is echoing in places around the world. "Gracias" to all.
Hello from IDSA's "The Exchange" conference in Austin! A city where people will wait for HOURS in three digit heat for good barbecue.
The conference kicked off with an IDSA Gold winners' ceremony where I accepted our team's trophy. The next three days were full of engaging lectures and workshops from design studios around the world. Robert Brunner (founder of Ammunition) shared insights into being design driven. His talk focused on how good design needs to look beyond objects to focus on a holistic experience.
We also participated in "Exchange Pods" that comprised small groups of designers around specific topics. One pod called "What They Didn't Teach You in School," lead by a product designer at IBM, didn't reveal any secrets that Art Center students don't already know. The importance of time management, making time for life outside of work, and good communication skills aren't new concepts, but it's always good to be reminded. Afterwards, we picked the brains of fellow product buddies Erick Ikeda, Jacques Perrault, and Margaret Frye at the Altair booth about their experience designing running blades for Blake Leeper.
The Exchange in Austin was a great venue for connecting brilliant minds from around the world and creating dialog around our passion for design. Throughout the conference, we met amazing designers from companies you would never expect to be doing exciting things. The experience really opened our minds to the possibilities for where our careers can go after graduation.
The Safe Agua Initiative featured in this publication showcasing top designs from the Core77 Awards.
Thames & Hudson Inc., 2014
]]>"The collected sums will be small, but officials say the meters, painted bright orange, are also intended to raise awareness about homeless programs."
]]>Across Pasadena, fourteen repurposed parking meters will collect change for nonprofits that serve the homeless.
]]>"To battle homelessness, one city came up with a controversial alternative to giving spare change to panhandlers."
]]>"The suburb of Pasadena is the first city in Los Angeles county to set aside parking meters to collect donations for the homeless."
]]>"The city of Pasadena has installed two new parking meters, but not for the goal of milking us parking regulation-abiding citizens for more money. Instead, the two bright orange meters will be used to collect donations to help the homeless."
]]>"If giving money to panhandlers makes you queasy but refusing them makes you feel like Ebeneezer Scrooge, one California city thinks it has a solution for you."
]]>"The city of Pasadena is letting homeless people keep the change."
]]>"The Los Angeles suburb is turning 14 parking meters into repositories for donations made to nonprofits that serve the homeless…"
]]>Click here to download a copy of the report
The PSA series shows the important life events that Daryl, represented only by a cardboard cutout, is missing out on—playing basketball, taking a driver's permit test, spending time with his girlfriend—because he's in trouble with the law.
Original campaign concept, initial design and PSA series by Thomas Banuelos, Damon Casarez, Alex Cheng, and Rhombie Sandoval.
The short film details the innovative Designmatters-led anti-gun violence curricular program, Where's Daryl, and its pilot rollout in the Los Angeles Unified School District in spring 2013.
Written and Directed by Benjamin Weiss
Shot and Edited by H.R. McDonald
To learn more about the Es Tiempo Project click here.
Daily Sport Seoul USA
August, 2014
In this repost from Art Center's Dotted Line, the Real Change Movement campaign is currently being implemented throughout the City of Pasadena. Developed in the Fall 2013 Welcome Home studio class, students sought ways to harness the community's compassion into long-term design solutions to mitigate panhandling and address homelessness in Pasadena by designing a transmedia, public awareness campaign in conjunction with City of Pasadena leaders.
Art Center College of Design student work will gain valuable widespread exposure as the citywide Real Change Movement initiative rolls out with a comprehensive social innovation advertising and public relations campaign. Real Change is a strategic initiative aimed to activate support for tangible, self-sustaining low-cost housing solutions to end homelessness and mitigate panhandling in Pasadena.
The Real Change Movement is the first initiative of its kind within Los Angeles County, to help provide homes for the homeless with funds generated by the coin and credit card donations made through uniquely designed meters. The goal is to install 11 bright orange meters throughout the city at heavily trafficked locations such as the convention center, shopping malls and parking structures. Campaign elements include a website, brochures, power bill stuffers, bus shelters, bumper stickers, elevator door signage, print ads, video and radio public service announcements. For more information, visit realchangemovement.org.
The primary focus of the efforts by the city leadership is to provide "housing first" to individuals and find permanent solutions to prevent homelessness. A key message within the campaign emphasizes compassion for members of the community who are homeless. The target audiences include business owners, residents and visitors to the city.
The creative strategy and original designs for the project were created by Art Center students in a 14-week class led jointly by the Designmatters and Graphic Design departments. The Designmatters department at Art Center puts knowledge into action by providing students with opportunities to apply their art and design education to real-world challenges. Students who pursue a Designmatters Concentration connect their educational studies to design explorations centered on critical issues affecting people all over the world. These students are prepared to become future creative leaders with commitment, aspiration and know-how to influence change.
"We're pleased to see that the Real Change campaign is being implemented because it showcases the innovative thinking that can result from important partnerships like this one between local civic leaders and the design education community," says Mariana Amatullo, vice president and co-founder of Designmatters.
"Unlike a traditional campaign for a commercial brand that uses a really simple strategy based on existing desires, designing a social change campaign is much more difficult," says Graphic Design instructor, Guillaume Wolf, who mentored the students. "The challenge: How do we get our audience to pay attention to our message and take action (donate to a cause— a selfless act)—when their mindset is focused on something totally different (shopping—a hedonistic act). How do we get them to care and act?"
"Our team researched the human experience around giving and explored how to influence behavior and move people who may be solely concerned with shopping to consider giving," explains Wolf. "This principle is really the 'Big Idea' at the core of the campaign, to inspire the community to think about giving and how it leads to happiness in a more active way, and to view the act of giving as an uplifting, positive experience."
This approach to harness the power of the community is embodied by the tagline for the campaign: Homes for the homeless. Powered by change. "The implementation of the campaign is a powerful endorsement of the quality talent among our students as designers in the social innovation space," said Wolf.
Art Center is the only top-ranked art and design college that offers students such a robust social impact curriculum and the option to pursue specialized studies in the field through the Designmatters Concentration. Designmatters projects have tackled a diverse range of social issues including water poverty in South America, gun violence prevention, earthquake preparedness, low-income housing in India and health education campaigns for HIV-AIDS, cervical cancer and arthritis.
"This collaboration with our hometown is especially gratifying as we continue to expand our reach into the community with the growth of the South Campus and the recent acquisition of the Mullin Building at 1111 South Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena," said Amatullo.
Perhaps no one has been more gratified by the process and the results of this, um, meter-ioric success than the Art Center students who developed the idea. "As to the pride of seeing our work on the streets, I know I can speak for everyone who worked on the project and say there's nothing that feels better," says Advertising student, Elizabeth Levin. "It makes all the hard work worth it. This also gives us students a rare chance to test it out and see how the public responds."
Panel Speakers: Mariana Amatullo, John Sauer, James McHale
October 31, 2014 (11:30 AM- 12:30 PM)
Century City, CA
Hyatt Regency
September 28-30, 2014
Los Angeles, CA
Hosted by The Aspen Institute
September 22-24, 2014
Hosted by Greenside Design Center and University of Johannesburg
Department of Art, Design and Architecture
Johannesburg, South Africa
August 17-19, 2014
Hosted by the Winterhouse Institute and Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)
Baltimore, MD
Click here to read more.
I have had a lengthy engagement with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and our Designmatters partners Lucy Jones and Sue Perry over the last several years, having led DesignStorms at Art Center, attended workshops, and contributed to the development of the Arkstorm Summit in Sacramento. Most recently, I was asked to participate, as Designmatters faculty, in a USGS workshop in Denver titled, New Audiences, New Products for the National Seismic Hazard & Design Maps. I was joined by a LEAP colleague and Art Center Alumna, Elizabeth Pastor of Humantific. Elizabeth and I were included in order to bring an outside perspective and to share our experience in design thinking and creative problem solving.
The purpose of the workshop was to launch a multi-year effort to expand the accessibility of the National Seismic Hazard Maps in order to save lives and protect property. The morning of Day 1 began with quick introductions to get to know each other and to gain an understanding and appreciation of the varied and relevant skills that we brought to the workshop (as a group we represented 17 different disciplines). After the introductions, Elizabeth asked the workshop participants if they had ever heard of design thinking. No one (except for me) raised their hands. She gave a brief overview to start the work of Day 1. The next morning of Day 2, I gave a brief presentation on the USGS 2-Day Design Storm last year as an example of the design thinking process. I talked about divergent and convergent thinking, the generative and iterative process, and guidelines for getting at the new. I also tried to emphasize that design thinking isn't just for designers.
In between, there were technical presentations "About the Maps" followed by more social science presentations "About Humans" to give us the context for the workshop. By the first afternoon, I began to notice that there was an overlap in understanding and even somewhat in approach between the growing population of social scientists and the marketing and design professionals. Apparently in the past, the social scientists had often been the token "other" in the room. The consensus was loud and clear– "Know Thy Audience" and find out what is most important or what matters most to them. Then find a way to meet their needs and link earthquakes to that, to their everyday life. I participated on a panel with Lucy and others titled, Different Audiences Have Different Needs. My "aha" from that discussion, was that it isn't necessary for the scientists to communicate everything they know, or to make sure that we understand their terminology, or even basic earthquake facts.
I discovered a new resource at the workshop or perhaps even a movement, "Plain Language". Apparently, "It's the Law" is a 2010 Plain Writing Act instituted by the Federal Government. The way they communicate it at www.plainlanguage.gov is a discussion for another Design Storm, but the gist of it is wonderful and relevant to this workshop. How might we use language that people can understand? This notion, which I have heard in different circles of "meet people where they are at", reflects an overall shift and a different way of thinking about the science and communication. It is not dumbing down, but rather "smartening up"—clear, not simple.
My personal journey went from focusing on differences (and even some feelings of intimidation being surrounded by so many smart scientists) to focusing on the many commonalities (scientists also look for patterns and their process is often non-linear and messy too). The group, towards the end, began to cite design as a needed resource (albeit as a specific skill set, such as graphic design). In the afternoon of Day 2, I was in a small team with a social scientist (academic) and two USGS scientists. One of the scientists talked about how they were drawn to my proposal because it was open-ended while the others were much more specific and tied to agendas. I named my concept, "Build-A-Map", which I can't help but think helped in its initial appeal. I overheard other groups quickly talking about it as a reference point – either how it was similar or different.
Over the course of the two days, Elizabeth and I shared with each other the need to clarify before ideating as part of the creative problem solving methodology. I had just returned from the Creative Problem Institute Conference in Buffalo and one of Elizabeth's colleagues was also there giving a presentation. Sue had a vision for this workshop and lots of relevant data was shared. It is sometimes difficult to then take the next step and formulate the challenge or identify the real challenge to invite solution and stimulate new thinking. Elizabeth suggested to me that perhaps we should create a challenge map to help organize and prioritize. At the end of the product pitches and teamwork, the proposal that gained the most support was to define the audiences and needs first.
This workshop was a milestone for USGS and many of its participants. It was another important step in bringing a diverse group of people into the conversation and to experience the process together as its own deliverable. The wrap-up from the group ranged from, "we need to find out what people want vs. what we want them to know" to "we need outside perspectives" and "there is value in inter-disciplinary work".
How might national hazard science be used to make communities safer? How might we as a design community contribute? By being a part of the discussion and by engaging people across disciplines. By being both humble and bold as we continue to learn and expand our impact as catalysts for social change and innovation in order to change the world for the better.
The Designmatters Safe Agua project fostered my personal exploration into the area of community design co-creation. The experience began with an immersive 12-day research trip to outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia, in fall 2013, where I was among a small team embedded with families in the asentamiento of Altos del Pino. Our focus was designing for the all too common problem of extremely limited water supply. Because they are only provisionally connected to the official water grid, each household has access to a small hose of running water for just one hour every eight days. This highly restrictive schedule became the catalyst for our designs.
We began to develop a strategy to navigate many complex or socio-economic considerations. This strategy was inspired by design research methodologies from IDEO Method Cards and a workshop with Frog Design's David Sherwin about their Collective Action Toolkit. We categorized our research into macro and micro areas. The micro topics focused on creating a lifecycle analysis; understanding how people transport, store, use and re-use water. After gaining a functional understanding at a small scale, our focus changed to the macro topics. These included an understanding of daily life, values and aspirations, which guided our insights into the core dilemmas of the community. After spending two weeks hearing stories, I started to understand that we all share many of the same values of hard work, hope and reciprocity.
Upon returning to California, my partner and I aimed to create a system that would alleviate the social strain on the community associated with water availability. The solution needed to address specific problems with quantitative impacts. Our goal was to find a solution that was radically affordable and scalable to millions of people, while remaining economically and environmentally sustainable. From our research, we understood that the community wanted to create a social network of support, but there was nothing in place to facilitate its development. We developed a "cistern of the commons" to manage and filter donated water.
I returned to Colombia in spring 2014 as a representative of Art Center, conducting tests for 12 unique solutions/projects on behalf of my classmates. These projects ranged from a pop-up business to capturing and purifying rainwater. Our goal was to field-test the initial prototypes and gain critical feedback directly from the local stakeholders. To receive the greatest value from each project, I encouraged community members to become designers for the day, using their feedback to continually evolve each project. A co-creation feedback loop commenced between community members and myself, pushing each proposal well beyond anything that could have been achieved remotely, in California. This field-testing helped capture the true needs and aspirations of the families and confirmed the merits of each design.
]]>This June, Art Center Environmental Design student, Stefanie Dhillon, participated in the Design Futures Public Interest Design Student Leadership Forum at Tulane School of Architecture in New Orleans, supported by the Office of the Provost and Designmatters. Stefanie was also recently awarded a Muhammed Ali Center Peace Garden grant to support the Learning Garden in Altos Del Pino in Bogota, Colombia
So…what is public interest design? Public interest design focuses on a human-centered and participatory design practice that places emphasis on the "triple bottom line" that includes ecological, economic, and social issues and designing products, structures, and systems that address issues such as economic development and the preservation of the environment. It is mindful of the designer's role and responsibility in society and uses design to bring about social change. I knew this type of design was my intended career path; designing for the people, with the people to make the greatest possible positive impact.
Looking at the forum website, I was captivated by the yearbook they released on the first forum. There were so many amazing reviews from faculty members, students and forum leaders. Reading through some of the remarks from previous attendees, I was so impressed by the impact this forum made on them. All I could think of was YES. I need to attend this forum.
So what was the forum about? The Design Futures Student Forum is a symposium bringing together students and practitioners to explore the history, philosophies, and practices of public interest design. Over the 5-day period, participants were able to engage with leading public interest design practitioners through a series of workshops, presentations, and visits to New Orleans community projects.
At the forum, there were so many students, faculty and professionals from all over the country, all coming together to learn and contribute to the growing movement of public interest design. Over the course of 5 days, we participated in workshops and listened to speakers discuss public interest design, design and civil rights, models of public interest design with case studies, business models of public interest design, diversity and leadership, ways to fund and finance public interest design, standards and ethics, resource allies and partnerships for social justice, public interest design career pathways, human-centered design, making design civic and international public interest design.
We also participated in a field trip to Grow Dat Youth Farm. This was an incredible experience. We learned how the farm worked, how they funded and built their space, and most importantly, the impact they have had on youth and adults in the community. They provide job opportunities for high-school students and have a leadership program to develop life-skills through hands-on experience.
We also attended an Autodesk reception and keynote presentation by John Cary (founding executive director and curator of the newly-established Autodesk Foundation and founding editor of publicinterestdesign.org) at the new AIA space in New Orleans. The main objective: "Everyone deserves good design."
Some of the takeaways I have from the forum are about the process of human centered/public interest design. It starts with a deep understanding of needs, hopes and aspirations of potential users and the lives they live. It is about questioning the question– reframing the problem in real-time. It is about dignity and empathy, equity and equality. It is about disrupting the world view to gain new insights and shifting the public's perception. As designers we need to create mutually compatible relationships with communities and problem solve according to a community's values. We need to immerse ourselves in the different experiences and processes of those in the community to truly understand what is needed. As designers we need to remain accountable with measurable outcomes and find ways of making small moves to create big impacts. Designers must continually question the outcomes they seek for their project and empower communities to be an integral part of the design process.
My experience in this forum was empowering and those five days have proved to be invaluable. The forum solidified my career path in wanting to design for the greater good and I now have the knowledge and resources to make any public interest design project happen.
]]>Click here to read more.
]]>Dotted Line
June 2014
By Sylvia Sukop
Art Center's Dotted Line reposts Mariana Amatullo's Huffington Post article on the new culture of 'intrapreneurs.'
Today, in a world that faces so many fast-evolving and interrelated social, political and economic challenges, intrapreneurship is a concept we believe we understand well. In the organizational climate of some of our most successful companies–where the generation of new ideas is treated as a vital task to explore places of invention–intrapreneurs are championed for their aptitude to develop new ventures and exploit new opportunities that can create lasting value within their organizations, and beyond.
The First Movers Fellowship at the Aspen Institute's Business and Society Program spots and nurtures annual cohorts of remarkable intrapreneurs who are seeking to integrate social and business value in companies based in the U.S. and abroad. These are individuals acting as change agents, tackling complex problems that are hard to set boundaries around: exciting examples of fellowship ventures involve creating a new line of sustainable garments for Levi Strauss, imagining alternate futures for the beverage brands and businesses of PepsiCo, and designing consumer technologies that save money and the planet for ecobee, to name but a few.
Having accepted the invitation to attend this year's First Movers Summit, I had a privileged perch from which to witness the deep commitment of the Fellows during the Summit's two days of workshops. Settling into the Bauhaus-inspired campus of the Aspen Institute, I could not help but think it is fitting that we owe it to one of the 21st century giants of business and design, Steve Jobs, to have been one of the first prominent figures to embody the concept of intrapreneurship itself, bringing this generative skill set to the forefront of our media consciousness. Back in 1985, and long before the term entered our business lexicon, Jobs referred to the Macintosh team as "intrapreneurs" in a widely cited Newsweek interview where he associated the term with "a group of people going back to the garage, but in a large company."
This image, of course, conjures many of the characteristic traits we associate with contemporary entrepreneurial activity at large: vision, passion, risk-taking, ambiguity tolerance, charisma, flexibility, and so on. What it captures less of is perhaps the purpose-driven enthusiasm (as in the Greek etymology of the word) and reflective awareness–so palpable in my exchanges with several of the Fellows–that defines many of the individuals who gravitate towards these pursuits.
As a design educator and researcher keenly focused on design's emergent role as a strategic tool for social innovation in organizational practice, I am inspired by the uncharted territory of circumstantial situations that remind me of the capability we all have as human beings to be "free in action, responsible in society and wise in the pursuit of knowledge." (McKeon, "Love and Wisdom: The Teaching of Philosophy," 1964).
When I reflect on the skills that are critical for the success of disruptive social innovators, I go back to this trifecta that McKeon framed as part of a life-long journey of philosophical inquiry into the operative principles that govern our thoughts and actions. And thus, in order to both innovate and enhance our societal capacity to act, I would argue that exemplary social innovators are the ones who in many ways epitomize these three dimensions that McKeon underlined: 1) freedom in action, or the skill to pursue problem-discovery amid discontinuous change and organizational constraints; 2) responsibility in society, or the courage to embrace mindful stewardship; and 3) wisdom in the pursuit of knowledge, or the ability to learn from the pluralism of perspectives that shape our evolving understanding of the world around us.
Click here to meet the Aspen Institute's newest crop of social intrapreneurs – the 2014 Class of First Mover Fellows including 2001 Art Center alumnus Safir Bellali.
Click here to visit the HuffPost Aspen Institute page and see more posts in the series.
]]>Huffington Post
June 2014
By Mariana Amatullo
Huffington Post in collaboration with the Aspen Institute recently published Mariana Amatullo's essay, reflecting on this year's First Mover's Summit and the growing importance of social intrapreneurs as change-agents within organizations.
]]>Free Press, 2012
]]>Information Today, Inc., 2014
BIS Publishers, 2013
]]>Metropolis Books, 2011
]]>Wiley, 2013
]]>Morgan Kaufmann, 2011
]]>Fairchild Books, 2013
]]>For more information, visit the project page.
Written, Directed and edited by Benjamin Weiss
Cinematographers Matthew Plaxco, Griffin Yu, Ryan McDonald
"The status quo is not good enough – we need to challenge it"
- Sherry Hoffman, Faculty, Art Center College of Design
The SHE DesignStorm addressed the following three objectives:
Through its long-standing relationship with SHE, Designmatters invited SHE Founder and Chief Instigating Officer, Elizabeth Scharpf, to speak at the LEAP Symposium, to provide a visual testimonial and case study of their first initiative in Rwanda, SHE28. Elizabeth's presentation was a true inspiration to all.
Now, SHE is looking to scale up its current operations and to replicate its model in other countries. In order to do that, SHE needs to look to diverse sources of capital (outside of philanthropic) and leverage its assets, namely expertise, an authentic brand story, and agro-waste availability and technical processing (patent pending) to produce new U.S. consumer products.
"I really like how your decision-making and final products took into account that SHE constantly strives to provide an opportunity to make small changes and add dignity to everyday life."
- Elizabeth Scharpf, Founder, Chief Instigating Officer, SHE Enterprises
Prior to the kick-off of the DesignStorm, Art Center's design team received resource materials comprised of a SHE Brand Equity Pyramid that identified a range of SHE constituents, the go! Brand Equity Pyramid that identifies the target user constituencies, an identity campaign study and graphic guidelines for their current product, go! Pads, and a recent case study performed by Columbia Business School to identify potential new products.
The faculty and students met to review the materials together, and then to divide into 5 teams to begin to develop product and consumer scenarios based on the initial information. Their task was to do field research to identify potential new products for the SHE brand, comparable brands (with a mission of giving back and doing good), consumer and user scenarios, and potential uses for the banana fibers as well as other sustainable raw materials. Each team would need to be prepared to present their initial findings on Day 1, and conclude Day 3 with a presentation visually communicating their insights, product concepts and the value created through user scenarios.
Welcome, Introductions and Client Presentations
Following general introductions, a presentation was made by Connie Lewin outlined the current work being done by SHE in Rwanda and the organization's plan to expand their work to produce and distribute the go! pads to other developing countries. Elizabeth Scharpf joined the group from Ho Chi Minh City and discussed how SHE was formed to not just increase health education and productivity in the lives of women and girls, but most importantly, provide dignity to each and every one of them. Elizabeth shared that "dignity is what it comes down to at the end of the day."
Connie then discussed the potential to expand. In order to scale their operations, SHE wants to launch a relevant and compelling U.S. consumer product in line with the Vision and Mission of SHE Global, to further their outreach internationally. She emphasized that they wanted to make use of their patent pending technology in whatever products are designed. In order to expand, it will require alternate sources of capital and they are currently embarking on a capital campaign for that purpose.
Student Team Introductions and Presentations
The five student design teams then introduced themselves, and shared insights about the design brief, that were supported by the teams' 6-minute presentations. They shared their initial research on both consumer personas ("conscious consumers" ranging from teenagers to young professionals to new mothers) and possible products/product lines. Possible products included durable clothing, bike bags and backpacks, water filters, textiles and stuffing materials for home furnishings, personal care products, and baby accessories. The teams were then led through a series of "what if" questions to reexamine the brief and brand to assess the potential for alternative product development.
The groups came together after lunch to generate and capture blue-sky ideas and concepts and to develop a mindmap based on all of the observations and insights gained. The individual teams then spent the remainder of the session to begin creating themes that could be transformed into relevant and compelling stores for further product development.
On Day One, the teams framed the project, identified the consumer along with their wants, needs, brand priorities and attributes. During Day Two, the teams identified the best products that leverage the brand story of SHE and meet specific consumer needs. Teams were asked to take into account not just the brand but also the business perspective, and determine which audience will produce the greatest gains. Teams were encouraged to consider that products only have a life cycle of approximately 3-5 years in the marketplace. Systems let you introduce new products, so it is essential that there be a product category, not just an individual product, for example, a toothbrush now, and a personal care line in development.
Throughout the day, the teams work with faculty/client review and input as they worked to generate 2-4 product ideas that fit the targeted consumers they had identified. The concepts were developed using 2D sketching and mock-ups to test feasibility.
Day Three focused on producing prototypes of the products and preparing the final presentations. Teams were encouraged to show what makes the SHE brand special and to use it in the design – to make the final product 'MORE SHE' – using the keywords from the mindmapping session: tenacious, savvy, passionate, audacious, provocative.
Faculty continued individual reviews with the teams as they worked on their final prototypes and presentation plans and visuals.
"The most surprising and awesome thing I have come away with is the interpretation of the SHE brand and how you elevated/expanded it more than ever through points of universality I've never see before – from the urban go-getter to the pet owner. I am excited to see how the story narrative can be expanded in so many different ways. It has been great to witness the inner process you followed, the need to be decisive in such a short period of time. The faculty members were amazing and awesome."
- Connie Lewin, Director of Strategic Partnerships and Marketing, Global, SHE Enterprises
Team Hi-5: SHE-shirt
SHE-shirt provides an interactive opportunity for a diverse community to engage with the SHE brand and simultaneously develop and expand the meaning of SHE in an organic and authentic way, ultimately promoting the SHE brand and message while creating revenue to support future ventures.
A SHE-shirt lets you say what SHE means to you, or say it in your own words. It gives the customer a voice and a platform to tell the world what SHE means to them, creating an opportunity to inform and influence a brand and a mission they believe in. With a multitude of color variables, even he can say what SHE means to him.
Team Coconuts: boomerang
'boomerang' is about both the baby AND the mother, and serves more than one function. It is a bag made from the banana fiber that not only provides compartments for the various baby items, but functions as a fashionable, handbag for the new mom.
boomerang was developed to balance the dual needs of the new mother – a stylish bag for baby supplies that also acts as her "purse" for her own personal items. It is easy to carry, comfortable to use and provides needed functionality while demonstrating a strong sense of style for the new mother. It is designed for the woman on the go. The banana shaped logo was developed to reinforce the material that was being used and the connection with the SHE brand.
Team Awesome Sauce: SHE Home and SHE Hug
SHE Home and SHE Hug focus on creating textile products that capitalize on SHE's innovative technology. The idea was to produce a SHE brand of home textiles and stuffing materials that use both the SHE banana fluff and banana fiber. These textiles would be used to create two product lines:
"I really liked the message behind the SHE on the go products of "giving meaning to the little things and the overlooked moments." We need to do this more often."
- Elizabeth Scharpf, SHE Enterprises
Team Nomad: SHE on the go
SHE on the go focuses on dignifying the little moments of an urban commuter's daily journey by making this conscious choice accessible and affordable, giving meaning to the little things and the overlooked moments. Using the banana fiber, they created two bags (The Urban Oasis & The Double Dip) for individuals to do more than have a "grab and go" meal.
Team Be-Real: SHE is Real and SHE Tech Band
SHE Is Real and SHE Tech Band are for young women at an age when they are exploring who they are and establishing themselves as consumers. The products are interactive, playful and sassy. By providing wearable technology that connects women in a physical and emotional way, SHE communicates its brand message of strength and support while educating and promoting an authentic social interaction.
Crown Business, 2013
]]>Published by the Design Principles and Practices Journal Annual Review
Champaign, IL, May 2014
]]>Order article here
]]>Dotted Line
May 2014
By Benjamin Weiss
Art Center's Dotted Line repost of Art Center Film student Benjamin Weiss' recent blog write-up about his work with Homeboy Industries.
]]>Edited by Les Lloyd and Gabriel I. Barreneche
]]>Designmatters contributes to this publication with a Safe Agua case study written by Penny Herscovitch, Dan Gottlieb and Mariana Amatullo.
Medford Township NJ, March 2014
]]>Dotted Line
May 2014
By Anna Macaulay
Safe Agua Colombia students Carolina Rodriguez, Connie Bakshi and Rudy Rummel were recently selected as 2013-2014 Denhart Family Sustainability Scholarship recipients!
"For me, I think you captured the stories and it's always about stories. I feel you captured the true essence of what Homeboy is, and the effect it has had on the people there. [The project] was very uplifting."
- Fabian Debora, Substance Abuse Counselor/Artist, Homeboy Industries
Deeply concerned with the increasing gang violence that plagued Los Angeles in the 1980's (and escalated during the LA riots of the 90's), Father Greg Boyle set out to make a difference. Only equipped with a bicycle and his powerful heart sense of mission, he took it upon himself to change understand the lives of gang members and their families – offering them a chance to turn their life around. And while he faced insurmountable obstacles in the process, he persisted – and succeeded – in creating the incredible organization of Homeboy Industries. Most importantly, his unique methodology has transformed the lives of thousands.
Today, Homeboy Industries is the largest gang intervention and re-entry program in the world, celebrating a 25-year influence in Los Angeles as a major catalyst for reduced gang activity, and providing thousands of "second chances" for young men and women through its social enterprises. Homeboy has an astonishing success rate unmatched by any other organization in the country – 70% of participants in the organization turn their back on gang life, compared to a recidivism rate of 70% of other such programs.
In preparation for milestone anniversary and to compliment its fundraising activities, Homeboy partnered with Designmatters and the new INLAB (Insight Lab) at Art Center to elevate the brand and amplify its presence in the city.
"This film took the emotionality and very successfully turned it into a call for action. It defined the question of 'What do we need the public to do?' and answered it: Make a donation."
- Elisa Ruffino, Director, Designmatters
Presentations by Homeboy Industries' leadership team, including Father Boyle, as well as trainees, volunteers and donors provided initial background for both the organization and the "wish list" of deliverables that Homeboy felt could be beneficial to their 25th anniversary celebration. The primary storytelling tool was originally envisioned as an augmented reality exhibition commemorating the 25-year history of the organization and its accomplishments, which could be installed at Homeboy Headquarters.
Following a site visit to the Homeboy headquarters, the project expanded exponentially as students developed a passion for the Homeboy organization and its mission--and the needs of the organization became evident. It was immediately clear to the students that they could develop additional project solutions well beyond the original scope of work. The enthusiasm and dedication of the students and faculty became even more palpable once the development process began. The students began to develop a suite of designs ranging from merchandise to branding to graphic installation options that were then presented to the Homeboy leadership for review and selection. From that, the following were developed for final presentation and consideration.
"This project was only a brief moment of involvement for me, but represented a tremendous experience with them."
- Patrick Kim, Student, Art Center College of Design
Kevin Staves (GRPH), Julie Yeow (GRPH), Angela Chu (GRPH), Shoghak Kazandjian (GRPH)
The timeline, intended for Homeboy Industries lobby, is a visual compilation of historical events that occurred each year from 1985 to today in the life of Homeboy Industries, cross-referenced with significant cultural events in and around the City of Los Angeles. Shown linearly, people visiting the exhibit can access additional information in 3D using their mobile devices. All of the information can be continually updated. A companion book piece was also developed , which can be a "take home" for visitors or a promotional piece.
"I had the honor of working with Homeboy Industries for the Art Center Designmatters partnership. Homeboy Industries is an amazing nonprofit organization that has helped thousands of people directly and tens of thousands indirectly through their wide array of gang intervention services. The students were highly engaged throughout the whole process and the end result was an impressive collection of outstanding work that the client absolutely loved."
- Dave Bullock, Faculty, Art Center College of Design
Ben Weiss (FILM), Jean Kim (GRAD FILM), Matt Plaxco (FILM), Griffin Yu (FILM), Captions by Brandon Carrillo (GRPH)
This 6 minute film captures interviews with leaders, donors and community members of Homeboy Industries. It tells and shows how lives are transformed by the organization and—even more so--how working with Homeboy is a transformative experience for donors and volunteers who support the organization. This film is intended for use for donor outreach and premiered at Homeboy's 2014 Lo Maximo event; will be live on the Homeboy website, used for outreach and cultivation, and will also be shown at headquarters.
Patrick Kim (PHOT)
These photos captured the essence of Homeboy Industries through portraiture of Fr. Greg and the leadership team, the members of the HB community at work, and the behind-the-scenes of both the headquarters and various sustainable business enterprises of Homeboy Industries. From baking bread to tattoo removal, the photos tell the everyday stories of the people who are Homeboy. Using a large format camera and film, formal black and white portraits were taken of Fr. Greg, the Homeboy leadership staff, and many of the Homeboy trainees. Shooting this way lends itself to large reproduction up to 60x48" without losing any detail, so it will provide many future uses. Additionally, using the tripod builds slowness, echoing the slow process that is involved in the rebuilding of the trainees lives.
Working with Homeboy's existing identity system, an array of merchandise was developed that could be used either for sale in stores/online or as donor recognition gifts.
Angela Chu (GRPH), Karl Walker (IxD)
Concrete planters (in several shapes and sizes) represent the streets of LA and hardness of violence. These are filled with soil and plants, representing how the groundwork at Homeboy allows the members of the community to flourish. The pots were designed as donor recognition gifts that could live on a desktop or table to spark conversation and curiosity about Homeboy. They can be assembled in multiples to represent community building.
Kelly Weldon (IxD)
These bracelets were designed using a laser-cut Homeboy logo, finished in natural wood, silver and gold and can be made "in-house" at Homeboy. They would be awarded to trainees' to mark their progress through the program or could be used for donor gifts at various levels.
Brittney Au (GRPH)
T-shirts designs were developed using a newly-created bicycle "logo," which represents Fr. Greg's beginnings in the community, and the "25 Years of Hope" theme. Tote bags included Homeboy Industries and "Made in LA" messaging. Since packaging is a great opportunity to share how purchases help the organizations, coffee cup sleeves were created for the Homegirl Café and other venues to take the Homeboy mission "out into the world". They are inscribed with inspirational messages and Homeboy/Homegirl logos.
John Lee (GRPH)
Designs that reinterpreted the existing logo for a flat surface were created for Homeboy/Homegirl for a variety of apparel items for every age – from a golf shirt to youth street wear. Taking into account that Homeboy comes from a street culture, the designs were intended to be hip among youth. Additional t-shirt designs were created to create a specialty line called "The Homeboy Artist Series," featuring reproductions of artwork by existing Homeboy community members like fine artist Fabian Debora.
Julie Yeow (GRPH)
This iconic black and white illustrated image of Fr. Greg Boyle was designed for use in any number of promotional materials and/or merchandise, and is intended to provide a timeless continuity to Fr. Greg's iconic presence across all future Homeboy media and merchandising.
Brandon Carrillo (GRPH)
The planter, in the shape of the Homeboy Industries logo, is made of 25 layers of 1/8" plywood that commemorates 25 years of history and the amazing lives that "sprout" out of Homeboy Industries.
Several interactive designs were developed to make sharing the Homeboy experience mobile and to extend the reach.
Brandon Carrillo (GRPH)
Maps were designed in two formats –interactive, for use on a mobile device with augmented reality graphics, and a poster. Both formats illustrate events and changes that occurred with Homeboy along with those in the Los Angeles area. These maps work in tandem with the History of Hope timeline.
Carissa Atrianty (GRPH)
To take the history of Homeboy to a larger audience, an interactive version was created for use on an iPad (or other mobile device). An example was demonstrated using the creation and evolution of the Homeboy silkscreen and embroidery business. Examples of how to share the Homeboy history on cup sleeves were shown, using stories of fictional Homeboy community members over the years.
Patrick McCrory (IxD)
This map combines stories of the founding and growth of Homeboy and how it is ingrained with the Los Angeles culture and places that Homeboy has actually impacted throughout the Los Angeles community. With a timeline across the bottom, users can select a decade and the stories will appear in their respective location on the map.
Jeff Guo (IxD)
Experience what it is like to have tattoos removed – both the pain level endured and time it takes. Scores are based on the time each player uses to eliminate the tattoos.
This spring term I had the privilege of directing a short film as part of a Designmatters studio hosted by Graphic design, which was structured in partnership with Homeboy Industries, the country's most successful gang intervention program.
According to Homeboy's real and ongoing need for fundraising, we put together a video called Stand With Us. It brings together the insights of longtime donors of the organization with the stories of two former gang members, whose lives were transformed for the better at Homeboy.
Homeboy decided to screen Stand With Us last Saturday as an opener for the Lo Maximo Awards, their annual fundraiser at the JW Marriot at LA Live. It was a fabulous night with food and drink, glamorous people (some of whom were tattooed) and lots of hugs, laughs and even some tears. It was a special moment for me as I got to see an eclectic and undoubtedly grateful crowd cherish my work — and the fruits of a successful collaboration between my school and one of LA's finest institutions.
The evening's keynote speaker was Father Greg Boyle a.k.a. G-Dog, the famous bearded Jesuit priest, best-selling author and community organizer. With unremitting work and the sincere joviality of a 21st Century sage, Father Greg has impacted thousands of lives throughout Southern California during the past 25 years as the executive director and founder of Homeboy Industries.