How Do We Move Past Designer as Hero Dynamics? Dr. Christina N. Harrington Discusses the Power of Co-Design by Allison Fonder

The common thread between Jury Captains for our Core77 Design Awards is they are all experts in their field with fascinating stories as to how they got there. That's why we love getting to know them better in interviews we share with our audience. In 2022, we're proud to have a number of judges out there actively changing the industry as we know it. This includes the Jury Captain of our Health & Wellness category, Dr. Christina N. Harrington, who is currently an Assistant Professor in the HCI Institute, School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Christina N. Harrington believes any truly effective design solution begins with thoughtful research—so much so, she dedicates her life's work to improving design research methodologies. With a personal focus on health equity and speculative futuring, Harrington's driving motivation for the work is not only to assure historically excluded populations are accounted for in design research and product development, but also to create opportunities for people in these communities to actively participate in shaping their own worlds. During our chat, Harrington rightfully deems one of the side effects of our traditional design methodologies as a sort of "design narcissism," and emphasizes it's causing a significant roadblock when it comes to creating genuinely equitable design solutions.

Dr. Christina N. Harrington, PhD, Assistant Professor, HCI Institute, School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University

We recently had the chance to speak with Dr. Harrington, where she clarified how we tackle this issue of design narcissism through the critical examination of design research, explained how to implement the philosophies of co-design into one's own design practice, and addressed challenges in the health and wellness space designers need to focus on in this current era.

I'd love to hear a little about what led you to the work that you're doing now. What got you into design in the first place?

I was an undergrad in electrical engineering and had friends who were in mechanical engineering taking this class with Mitzi Vernon, a [big name] in design and professor of Industrial Design who is well-known for design research methods. One day I was bored, so I went to class with them and fell in love with her class.

I decided to get a minor in Industrial Design at Virginia Tech. I used [ID] to build out my senior thesis, and decided I wanted to go back to grad school because I wanted to do work where I could engage with people and find out how and why people use the product. Also, what were the workarounds of people who buy something out of the store, but have different needs? I only applied to one graduate school, because at that time, I really just wanted to focus on universal design.

"My [past] engagement with design from an educational standpoint, and from a research standpoint, design was kind of considered to be this apolitical thing, where race, class, and gender have nothing to do with design, right? It was always kind of that mentality, when, in fact, it couldn't be further from the truth."

At that time, the extent of my knowledge of how to make products more usable was universal design, which speaks to my limited knowledge of the field at the time, but also how much the field has evolved over the years. So I spent three years getting a Master's at NC State in the Industrial Design program and fell in love with design research.

I was working with Sharon Joines at that time and decided I wanted to do a PhD. I went to Georgia Tech and started to focus more on doing research with older adults, mainly because there are so many people at Georgia Tech who are looking at aging, and design for aging. So I fell into that wave, and it wasn't until I got to my postdoc that I realized, even when we talk about universal design, or Design for All, or design for disability, what is oftentimes left out is users who are marginalized along race and socioeconomic status. I think in all of those instances, my engagement with design from an educational standpoint, and from a research standpoint, it was considered to be this apolitical thing, where race, class, and gender have nothing to do with design, right? It was always kind of that mentality, when, in fact, it couldn't be further from the truth.

For my postdoc at Northwestern, the Inclusive Technology Lab was when I really got to focus on the aspects of design I wanted to hone in on, and think about the inclusivity of the methods themselves. Because to me, that's more of the starting point to say, how inclusive are the products and technology? But also, how inclusive is the methodology? How inclusive are the design research methods, design activities?

I spent two years during my postdoc doing community-based, participatory fieldwork with Black elders on the south side of Chicago, focusing on just that. How can we think about design, the design workshop itself, as a catalyst for equity in design? And then that kind of led me to what I'm focusing on now, as a faculty member, on being able to define my own research.

And what are you focusing on within your research now?

My research now kind of falls into these two lanes. [If we're looking under] the umbrella of health and racial equity, the first lane is health equity, and thinking about everyday technologies that might support people managing their health and wellness and well-being in the home. Because oftentimes, for people who are marginalized or historically oppressed, based on their race, class, socioeconomic status, living environment, the US healthcare system is a whole other monster, right? There's racial bias when we talk about in-person healthcare experiences, there's access for folks in rural areas, there's the affordability of health insurance, and a lot of folks not even having health insurance. So one of the things we focus on, which started primarily as aging in place, has now just become: how can we all think about our health in the home? And a lot of that is access to health information.

The internet is ubiquitous now. There's virtually no pocket or sector of the world that is not integrated with the internet, whereas, 20 years ago, the internet was only for the privileged few. Now, for pretty much everything you touch and think about, there's a website, there's an app, there's a social media page. So how can we make these things more accessible and more intuitive in terms of sharing health information?

And then the second arm of my research falls under looking at Afrofuturism and speculative design as a way to, again, think about the inclusivity of design methods, and who gets to think about innovation and futuring. When we're talking about imagination and creativity and ingenuity, who have we put at the forefront as leaders of that, and who have we always thought of as needing our guidance as designers? A lot of that work is thinking about how design can be its own tool for self-advocacy and ownership of our own futures. So instead of design agencies saying, "Oh, we're going to go in and create this thing for this community, because they need us as designers," we now think of these communities being able to do that on their own.

Where do you feel traditional design processes have failed, and how would you like to see them reimagined in order to implement more of what you're talking about?

I think, first and foremost…it makes it seem as though our jobs as designers is obsolete, but I think traditional design methods and processes have failed, and thinking that we are the experts at all.

"I've worked for big tech companies where I've heard things like, 'Well, people don't know what [they] want until you tell them.' And that's that design narcissism that a lot of us have, when in reality, people know what they need, because they live this experience every day. We're just dropping in that skatepark for a couple of weeks. They've been doing this for decades."

When I was in graduate school, I used to joke that designers, particularly industrial designers, are temporary experts, right? If I'm doing a design project where I'm trying to design this new skateboard, I do a couple interviews, I might go to a skatepark for a couple of weeks. But now, all of a sudden, I am this expert in skating. When in reality there are people [who, for] their whole lives, they've been skating, they've been perfecting this craft—designers are the experts of the skill of sketching or rendering. I would even push back on the thought that we're the experts of brainstorming, because people do that every day. But I think traditional design methods and processes have failed us, and because that is how most of us get taught design, we carry that in how we deal with clients and communities– especially for folks who are doing design work that sits more along the margin of design activism or inclusive design. And that kind of positions us to think we're always helping, as opposed to [thinking that] we always have the opportunity to learn, because people are the experts of their own lived experience. And if you've ever noticed, I've worked for big tech companies where I've heard things like, "Well, people don't know what [they] want until you tell them." And that's that design narcissism that a lot of us have, when in reality, people know what they need, because they live this experience every day. We're just dropping in that skatepark for a couple of weeks. They've been doing this for decades.

So I think there's something there we have to start to negotiate or reason with. How do we own what we've learned as designers without the design narcissism? How do we change the way we think about centering marginalized voices? Because I think, even now, as much progress that has been made in folks wanting design to be more inclusive, we still have folks who think they need to speak for users or groups and communities who are typically neglected in design, instead of making way or providing a platform for them to advocate for themselves, speak for themselves, and design for themselves…it's almost like a sense of gatekeeping, I think.

I'm curious to hear a little bit more about the speculative projects, and why you were so interested [in them]. I know that you were really cemented in that technology and health equity space, and now you're exploring this new zone. Why is this so important [to focus on right now]?

All these topics seem like they're distant, but they're really one and the same. Because in doing a lot of the health equity work from a community-based, participatory research standpoint, one of the things we realized was, even in doing those workshops, we oftentimes had to be reflexive and check ourselves about the design method we're using. And to also think about these concepts of research abandonment with design projects.

Oftentimes we pick up these projects like a client; there's a start and an end with that design scope that we teach students about. Typically, we have this project we're responsible for and focus on, and then once we're done, we move on to the next client. From the many years of me doing this community-based work, one of the things I found is that you start to see that when you go into the community to start the next project, people are really apprehensive of engaging with you, because they're like, "You guys come in and do these projects, and then you leave," especially when we think about academic research. They're like, "We never see what happens with our data. We don't even get offered copies of the research articles that are written. We don't know the narrative or the interpretation." And so because of that design narcissism, we come in, and we're like, "Well, we know exactly what we need to do for these design workshops." And we call that co-design because, in our minds, people are actively, collaboratively designing with us.

I think there are different degrees to that participation, so one of the things we started examining in some of the projects I was doing is, what happens if you let people lead co-design efforts, and define [for] themselves what it means to start a design project? It's potentially intimidating. We were getting feedback that blue sky ideation or "how might we" [prompts] don't fit certain populations, but designers aren't listening to that. So we set out to do projects with Black youth and Black young adults in the Southside of Chicago, to better understand the ways that we can transcend design methods and processes in co-design in a way that [resonates], is relevant, and [where] folks felt like, "This is something that I can do," even when the research team is done with the finding or that client-designer relationship.

Dr. Harrington conducts a speculative workshop with community members and organizers

We developed a speculative design toolkit that walks people through the process, and we did this collaboratively with community organizers and folks who are doing design outside of the academic or industry organizations. The toolkit walks people through what it means to "future". What does it mean to think about how technology might impact our community? What we might want to see in the future of technology? How might we think through some of the challenges that our communities are experiencing, or some of the things that we want to uphold, whether it be preserving culture or heritage or documenting things, creating murals?

So we created this toolkit in hopes for it to be used in the types of community design work that I, and other researchers and students, and even some industry practitioners have been doing, to be a more equitable lens to not just co-design, but speculative design, and we entrenched it in the framework of Afrofuturism. Because one of the things we were hearing from some of the Black communities that we work with doing these different design workshops was, "I don't see myself reflected in these methods"– these methods where, even though they're defined by groups like IDEO, if you look at their origin, when they designed a lot of these methods, there were not a lot of Black or Hispanic faces to be seen. So how can I feel like these methods could ever be inclusive if we had no say in how these methods are interpreted?

Well, I love the idea of the design process being viewed as something that's more fluid than it is now, because I think that's a really important thing to be evaluating. With the toolkit you're creating, where do you see this being applicable? What communities can use it?

We've done a lot of research on the toolkit in order to make sure it's sound, that it covers all of the bases that we want it to, and a lot of what we've heard is this is something that will be used by design collectives, research, agencies, and smaller design groups. Community organizations that are thinking about how to organize communities, and when I say communities, either geographic communities or people that are defined with a particular identity, that want to think of more creative ways [to live.]

To build this toolkit, we've done some interview studies, and we've done maybe three different design workshop projects in different cities. And each city has been a different thing. In one city, they were thinking about community safety. How do we think through community safety? And so the toolkit we've developed is called "Building Utopia". We built five card decks within this toolkit—one of them is a liberation deck that helps people to identify the community values they want to uphold when we're thinking about what the solution will look like.

And so I got to sit in to see how this group in a city in the Midwest will use a toolkit, and in that space there were several people with various roles in the community who organize with various organizations all thinking about community safety. They're asking, how do we engage with our local police, such that we don't feel like they come into our neighborhoods without ever engaging with us, but that we also feel safe? And so these organizers got to walk through naming values by, like, "moments when I feel safe," or "what does my community value," or "how do we think about the future of our community, and what we might need?" and then walk through the design process in a way that translates to the relevance of how they're thinking about these things. In a way that's grounded in these tenets of Afrofuturism. So these are the types of organizations that have used the toolkit, and have already alluded to, "Hey, we've had some city agencies that reached out saying, 'We would love to use this in our processes.'" Because you're starting to see local governments use design thinking in their own processes, but want to do so in a more equitable manner.

It's great that you have that background in accessibility, because it's nice to imagine creating a framework that can be implemented by people with different levels of understanding of design, and it doesn't feel as intimidating to incorporate it into their practice or process.

[I'm interested in hearing more about your] research within the health and wellness space, especially now, given everything that's happened since the pandemic. What do you feel are some challenges within that space that need immediate attention?

Information Access is a big one. I think we saw firsthand at the onset of the pandemic that we have a problem with access to information, especially in certain pockets of the US population. When testing started rolling out, when different updates about the virus started coming out, you would see that some places knew about this—for example, I'm able to watch CNN or get these tweets to my phone or whatever. And then with other populations, it's just so delayed. I think that's definitely something that we still need to work on– even the language being more inclusive.

"Wearables and these apps that constantly emerge, collecting my personal health data, and showing it back to me to let me know if I'm doing the right things or not— does that chart or that graph really have meaning to this person? Does thinking about health in this way have meaning to this person?"

One of the reasons I still anchor a lot of my projects in the health and wellness space is that the inclusivity of the language still presents this barrier. I don't just mean the language of the terms or the dialect, but I think the health language in general, of how we use certain metrics, how we display data and information, as-is it doesn't really have meaning to some people. We talked about these wearables and these apps that constantly emerge, collecting my personal health data, and showing it back to me to let me know if I'm doing the right things or not– does that chart or that graph really have meaning to this person? Does thinking about health in this way have meaning to this person? We had a lot of conversations with Black elders who are like, "A wearable is just off the table for me, because I don't really care how many steps I take. I want to know: is my blood pressure in an okay zone? I want to know that I walked further today than I did yesterday. So an app that's just going to tell me 'Hey, you walked 10,000 steps' doesn't mean anything [to me]." And so I think that there's still that disconnect of how we talk about health, and how health is shared and discussed.

Since you'll be judging the Health & Wellness category, I'm curious what you're hoping to see in those entries. What is going to stand out the most to you?

I think one of the things I'm always really interested in, in terms of design projects addressing health and wellness, is how well have we thought outside of the box in terms of what it means to design health tools? There is kind of this age-old [rule for how things in the medical setting are designed, for example] it's white, it's pale blue, it looks like something that belongs in the hospital or healthcare settings. But how well can we think about health tools that are not stigmatizing, or are societally accepting? So I think that's something I'll definitely be looking for.

Thinking of entering to win one your projects into the 2022 Core77 Design Awards Health & Wellness category? Get your entry in today—Regular Deadline ends March 8th.

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An Example of Smart, Humble ID: Can You Guess What This Object Does? by Rain Noe

At your average nuts-and-bolts industrial design firm, any of us might be tasked with designing something like this:

Can you guess what it is, and what it does? The only hint I'll provide is that it comes from Japan.

Answer:

While there's nothing particularly Japanese about it, it is common in Japan for stores to put signs like these out front with some sort of ballast.

I imagine that once filled, this object is never emptied by the storeowner, and is stored just inside the front door at closing time. My guess is that the object is designed to use water as the ballast simply to reduce its shipping costs.

I like quiet, intelligent and unsung designs like these. The designer is Ryosuke Fukusada.

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Regenerative Designer Lauryn Menard On How to Build an Impact-Focused Studio Practice by Allison Fonder

The common thread between Jury Captains for our Core77 Design Awards is they are all experts in their field with fascinating stories as to how they got there. That's why we love getting to know them better in interviews we share with our audience. In 2022, we're proud to have a number of judges out there actively changing the industry as we know it, including the Jury Captain of our very first Sustainability Prize, PROWL Studio Founder Lauryn Menard.

When asked how she would define the ultimate mission of her newfound studio PROWL, designer Lauryn Menard responded without pause: "to have as many clients who give a shit as possible." As the leader of a consultancy for a variety of companies with an overarching focus on regenerative design solutions, Menard believes it's crucial to start building organizations with uncompromised standards. "I want PROWL to be a change leader within the design field that can help brands actually get through the weeds of what they want to be in the future. I want to help navigate brands towards this more optimistic future. And what that might mean is allowing them to start not only eliminating materials or practices that are no longer healthy or have never been, but to also adopt strategies or materials that we know will create this more optimistic future and bring those into the limelight," Menard says.

PROWL founder Lauryn Menard outside of her studio

We recently chatted with Menard to ask some questions about how designers go about creating a value-driven design business, the real ways designers can have a sustainable impact, and her evaluation criteria for a truly sustainable product.

Tell me a little bit about your story—what led you to where you are now with starting PROWL?

I grew up in the Adirondack Mountains and spent all my time outside catching frogs at the pond and peeling bark off of trees. I didn't really recognize that as a formative time until I was much older, but I knew I really wanted to create. And so when I was an adolescent, and I was constantly drawing, there was this recognition that, "Oh, Lauryn is creative." I found my way into fashion eventually through magazines.

I got to fashion school and was like, "well, this is not really working." I actually had one professor pull me aside one day and say, "I just want to be honest with you. You're a designer, but this fashion thing isn't for you." I was so angry at the time, but turns out she was right. But from there I had the opportunity to study at this school called RPI, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, under this man named Burt Swersey in a program called Design Innovation in Society, and that was the second school I attended. And that was the one piece of my life that I think about every single day.

In that program, we studied problem finding. We would look for problems in society and nature and human behavior, and use design to work towards solutions to those issues. And Burt, who was a genius and passed away a few years ago, he would always say these words: "Don't do bullshit, don't do nonsense." And I took that to heart, maybe a little bit too dramatically and a little bit too literally at times, but I felt like what I was doing at that moment was bullshit.

So I moved to the West Coast after an internship with Dwell Magazine, wanted to go into furniture, and from there on out, like every career I've ever had, I was just questioning what I'm doing, questioning what the industry is doing and wanting more out of everything.

Through my career—I've gone through furniture, footwear, some portions of architectural strategy—and through the thread of all of these things I've really dug deep into the future of these industries. And also digging deep into the materiality of these industries. It took me about a decade to be able to see that common thread between all of those and once I landed on that, I recognized that's my special sauce. And luckily, in this moment of materiality, and this material Renaissance we're in, I saw this as a time to leverage that and have a larger impact by being a consultant, rather than being inside an organization. That change from the inside is very meaningful, but it tends to be a slower burn. But PROWL is always the outsider coming in with a different perspective. I feel like you can make more radical changes, but you can also make faster changes. So that's why it felt like this was the perfect time to do that.

Your mentor emphasizing to "not do bullshit" brings to mind sustainability, because right now there is, frankly, a lot of bullshit going on. Is there anything within the industry at large that needs to be re-evaluated or investigated?

In the world of design right now, I'm going to call bullshit on the obsession over the petri dish. We're in a moment where designers are learning they can be inventors of materials, that anyone can be an inventor of material, using things available in their kitchens that are being wasted in their trash. And this is an incredible moment to be in for materials because there's been this buildup of momentum for the past 10 years. People like Neri Oxman and Suzanne Lee started making kombucha leather and working with worms to make silk and they're all really interesting ideas, and they're pushing us toward the right direction.

However, What I'm seeing happen is designers getting stuck in these petri dishes. There's this competition almost where it's like, who can create the coolest looking sample of material? And then it blows up on the internet. But then you think, cool, what are we going to do with these materials? What are we going to make with them? Do any of them make sense because there's no one tracking it. For example, say we're using a starch-based plastic instead of petroleum. That's fantastic. However, has anyone looked at why it's better? Or has anyone looked at what the end of that life looks like? Because if you have all these biomaterials living out in the world, and we're at the end of their life, how do we know that that's not going to cause a problem? We really need to make sure that we're not creating the next plastic problem—just because it can break down doesn't mean it can't cause problems.

On an optimistic note, I'd like to see designers using their strengths of form and manufacturing and things like that, and collaborating with people who are experts in designing on the material or molecular level. I think that's where we're going to see a lot of really interesting things happening. And pushing the limits of the product world in general.

As someone striving in this space, how does one create a successful studio or practice founded on value-driven and uncompromising standards? Do you have tips for other people and things you adhere to that help you in your practice?

I can tell you why I did it, because I had a lot of my mentors who I trust very, very deeply tell me not to. When I sent them my pitch, they said, "You've got to rein it back in a little bit. You can't be so outward with your voice and your stance on things." And to me, the people who I've engaged with are going to know if they're on board with our way of thinking much faster. So what's been interesting is the feedback we get from clients, which is that they already know if they're aligned or not by the time they access our website or see our pitch deck. So it kind of breaks down this weird first date, and it kind of gets you to the second date a little bit faster. I've really enjoyed that because I can say, yeah, this is what we stand for.

And even if clients don't know anything about regenerative design or they don't even know where to start, we can help educate them on what steps to take. So it's been a really interesting journey. I think when you are mission-driven, you also have to be willing to educate, and you have to be a little bit more willing to have people not respond to you because it can be a little bit too much for some people.

But to get back to the "why"—I read this book called The Future We Choose by, it's by [Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac] who hosts the podcast Outrage + Optimism, and also wrote the original Paris Agreement. But it really changed the way I thought because I have always thought about myself as an environmental activist. Back when I was in school, my second major was sustainability studies at RPI, and I've always been really actively trying to improve and lessen my impact, I've been an advocate of alternative energy, but I have struggled with what the designers seat at the table looks like when it comes to these mission-driven initiatives. But one of the points they make in that book is, all of the environmental problems are extremely overwhelming, and you're gonna end up with massive amounts of what they call "future fatigue" if you don't choose where you want to have an impact. If you combine what you're good at, and what you're passionate about, then you can start to point at where you can have the most effect. And I knew that I'm extremely passionate about materials and that I have a design background. So if I combine those two things, and I point at that target, then I'm going to be able to have much more of an impact than if I were to just say, "we're a design studio and we work on sustainability initiatives." I think it's been really useful and helpful. So I'd say if someone wants to go about a mission-driven studio, I would give them that same advice, which is to find that target and be more pointed in your communication.

What would a holistic definition of sustainability be? What does that look like for a company, or a product, to incorporate truly sustainable initiatives?

You mentioned the word holistic—it's kind of an integral part of this whole design process. And that's actually how we teach it in Bio Design at CCA is. Say, for example, you get a product brief from a company and your main goal is to create that product but make it environmentally friendly. If I saw a product, and I read that it was environmentally friendly, in order for me to think that it was a success in doing so is if it considers its context, if the materials that it's made of makes sense for the context and for where this thing lives, for its function. And if the product can prove that it's either making humans healthier, or the earth healthier in some way, shape, or form.

But it's a slippery slope when you talk about human health, because, for example, like we'll talk about inhalers for asthma—that is a medical product, but it's made out of plastic. So that physically makes humans healthier, but it's made out of this material where nothing can be done with it. But there is a way to be able to design something to solve problems that are both healthy for humans and healthy for the environment. And if you find that there might not be, then to question, does the product need to exist? Because not every problem needs to be solved with a product. Maybe it's an organizational design. Maybe it's a community service, maybe it's something else. I think we should get to a point where we question, why the hell do we need this thing? And sometimes choosing to not make the thing is the right decision.

Being an environmental activist is also about trying to inform consumers as much as they can about these products. There are so many enraging facts out there, like how plastic food storage can leach chemicals into our foods. And just because something is BPA-free doesn't mean it's not equally as harmful. So there's an aspect of not only changing the products, but giving people information that makes them passionate about fighting against it.

Yes, exactly. Education is everything. And it doesn't always have to be on a label to scare you away from it. That's the government solution, like prop 65 in California. Their solution to products that have cancer-causing chemicals in them is to slap a sticker on it when you make a product. You put the sticker on it so that you can dodge a potential lawsuit. Well, since we know that and we know how to label that chemical, why not redesign the things that have it in it? It's just backwards to me. We all have to make a living and I understand how we got here, but it's just we have to slow down and actually ask ourselves, question everything. It's a bit of an idealistic way of thinking and working, but I think our design timelines can be extended—we're just always trying to rush to this quarterly release or whatever.

You've told me you prefer the term "regenerative" to "sustainable"—what does regenerative design mean to you, why does it feel important to rephrase the term sustainable design? Why does the language matter?

I like to use this analogy or metaphor about a group of friends and an event. The way I think about sustainability is, you're trying to reach a status of equilibrium essentially. So if you're trying to reach that, say, you want to have a party, and you want people to show up at 6:30. And you know if you tell them to show up at 6:30, then they're all going to show up at seven or 7:30 or eight or nine, no one shows up when you expect them to. So if our expectation that we're setting is sustainability, which literally means to maintain itself, then I cannot imagine us ever reaching that or beyond that, which is where we need to be.

So why I propose replacing the word sustainable with regenerative is because regenerative is a much more aspirational goal. Regenerative means it's a feedback loop. It's improving the Earth. It's improving human health. It's healing from the harm we've caused. And with sustainability, I also question, what are we trying to maintain? The Earth cannot handle what we're trying to maintain anymore. You know, we're one tiny little species that's been on the planet for something like 1% of the lifetime of the planet and we are creating soon-to-be mass extinction. We've been able to cause this massive problem, which means that we are capable of undoing it. But we can only do that if we're shooting for regeneration.

What is one of your biggest wishes about what practices ought to change in the design industry within the next few years? What are you hoping to see transform in that traditional practice and process?

The design process needs to be rethought, I think. As designers we are trained like we're in the army, to have a process. We are given a brief, we jump face-first into research and concepts immediately. We go straight into form. And then sometimes you consider materiality in the exploration and you just go into tunnel vision. In tunnel vision, it's like iteration, iteration, iteration, and then you put the product out and I am wanting to kind of mess that up. I'm also trying to untrain myself, which has been really hard because I speak to clients who I want to start considering the end of a product's life while conceptualizing it. It changes the process completely because you're working both backwards and forwards at the same time. And then you're meeting in the middle, which is really interesting, but it takes time. So there has to be room for mistakes, and there has to be room for failure.

It's not going to work at a commercial level immediately. But I do want the design process to change—I want it to be taught differently in schools. And when thinking about the end of life, I think bio design will actually become the new industrial design. Because the way we teach it [at CCA] is exactly how industrial design should be taught. But maybe we shouldn't also be using the word industrial anymore, because yes, it's mass-manufactured, but what if it's mass bio-fabricated? What if it's mass-grown? Also, what if it's not mass anything? What if everything becomes more localized? I would love for someone to actually recreate the way that product design is executed. And maybe it doesn't need to have rules but it definitely needs to be shaken up for sure. So that's my big hope and dream.

Okay, my last question—what are your tips for fighting against the inclination of climate doom?

Ooh, yeah. The future fatigue is real. And although, as a stubborn optimist myself, you can just say, "be more optimistic, let's put a smile on and just do what you can," many people have to actually go to therapy for environmental depression. There are psychologists that have expertise in this side of depression; there's proof that it changes the chemistry in humans' brains to think about it.

But for young folks, I would say the advice I took for myself kind of goes full circle back to my journey here. And I can tell you I feel so much more empowered knowing that I am working towards this specific target, where it's combining both my passions and my skills, and knowing I know exactly what I'm working towards. I know where I'm trying to have my impact, and having that will help fuel you. I just want everyone to be able to wake up in the morning feeling like, "I know that I'm having an impact. And that impact is actually positive." And just looking inward, understanding what fuels your fire, because you might actually really surprise yourself. Sometimes you think you know what you're passionate about, but then you really take some time and look inward and recognize that maybe you don't want to actually be in design. Maybe you want to be working on a farm all day! So if those passions and those skills don't even involve design, I'd say follow it, because why the hell not? And don't do bullshit, as Burt would say.

Thinking of entering to win the Sustainability Prize in the 2022 Core77 Design Awards? Submit today—Regular Deadline ends March 8th.

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Great Industrial Design Student Work: A Non-Electric Toaster by Rain Noe

I'm really impressed at the depth of research and thinking we've seen lately with ID student projects. Today we came across another great example, this one from France and called Fourche à pain.

"This project raises a current issue that concerns us all: the lifespan of our everyday objects," wrote Celine Deprez, as an Industrial Design student at France's ENSCI (French National Institute for Advanced Studies in Industrial Design). "I go in search of an object that represents this short lifespan while responding to a need that remains unchanged over time."

After doing research, Deprez settled on the toaster, finding it was a daily-use item with an average lifespan of just 3-5 years. "Three-quarters of the French have one, and in half of the cases if it breaks, it is thrown away," she found.

The obvious approach would be to design a toaster that is easily repairable. Deprez, however, dug deeper into research and went non-obvious. In the historical record she found examples of toasters going back more than 200 years, which obviously antedates electricity.

She then decided: "After a genealogy from the 1800s to today, I analyze how technical progress has interfered in the object. I take the side of robustness rather than repairability, by proposing a low-tech toaster that works thanks to the existing heat sources of the house (the stove)."

Deprez then undertook a series of studies for forms that could siphon the heat from a stovetop and transfer it to bread.

"After dozens of toasters designed, the most rudimentary and robust model is the one made of a single piece of aluminum foundry, with an enamel finish to make it food safe and easily cleanable. The enamel allows me a choice of color, red which is part of the food universe."

Deprez's project won the Low-Tech Prize in the Aluminnov design competition, sponsored by France's aluminum industry. Wrote the jury:

"Robust, practical and inexpensive, it is placed directly on the heat sources available in the kitchen. The body, made of enamelled aluminum casting, provides conductivity thermal and evenly distributes the heat over the whole object. Stainless steel handles are on each side, allowing it to be moved at any time and in complete safety. Functional and stylish, Fourche à pain is a relevant response to the planned obsolescence of household appliances. The jury particularly praised the elegance of the form and the designer's research work on warmth."

That was in 2020. Today Deprez, now graduated, has started a design consultancy together with fellow ENSCI grad Camille Chapuis. They're called Super Solide and you can check out their work here.

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Great Industrial Design Student Work: The 3D-Printed Mokit Connector by Rain Noe

Benjamin Unterluggauer and John Hayden are both Industrial Design students pursuing their Master's at Germany's Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design. Unterluggaeuer invented this object below, and refined it in collaboration with Hayden:

That's the Mokit, a 3D-printed connector that allows one to join dowels together. The two outside connectors go into the central hex nut, which is tightened with a small custom wrench.

The duo picture the connectors being used for pop-up or mobile vending applications:

They sell the connectors here.

I also wonder if they'd consider licensing the design to nonprofits in, say, developing nations that have access to a lot of bamboo. I imagine a 3D printer and plenty of spools could accomplish a lot in those situations!

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