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Volume 01 I Issue 02 I September 2020 howdesignlive.com
The Power of Design.
Read Now
Get to know five more HOWies before the event through their amazing work.
From The Show Director
Discover how a design agency launched a sister studio to help hit Command+Z on the climate crisis.
Table of Contents
Explore a key tenet of Project Inkblot’s Design for Diversity framework in this exclusive digital session.
In Great Company
Undo, Undo, Undo
“The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions”
At the
of
Visualizing a Movement
HDL takes a look
Cey Adams.
brilliant
output
Let’s be real: In times of crisis, inspiration can be hard to come by.
Get to know the work of five HOWies before the show with these awesome projects.
Distortion and opinion in the massive, mind-bending maps of former HDL keynote Paula Scher.
The Unexpected Cartographer
b
R
I
L
A
N
T
U
O
P
legendary
design
maestro
The
Dazzling
Design of
Zipeng Zhu is a designer like no other—and his bright, beautiful work is carrying us through quarantine in style.
Read the Feature
Zipeng zhu
DESIGN of
ZIPENG
ZHU
From the Show Director: The Power of Design
COVER
IN GREAT COMPANY
We’ve been on the hunt for silver linings where we can find them. So when we had to postpone until Oct. 26–29 in Atlanta, we found ourselves with an opportunity to take on a backburner project that we’ve long been daydreaming about: a .
Brilliant by your fellow creatives.
Ultimately, in these digital pages we hope you find inspiration. Motivation. Creativity. And a reminder that there’s a community out there that has your back, no matter what. I'd like to give a special shout out to Creative Director, , the creative force behind HOW Design, Redefined, and freelance journalist and author , the editorial genius and HOW brand veteran. This publication has been a dream of mine for years, but these two definitely brought it to life! Stay tuned for more. We can’t wait to catch up in person in October.
HOW Design
HOW Design Live e-zine
projects
Debbie Millman Lisa Congdon
and .
Cey Adams
The Dazzling Design of Zipeng Zhu
Discover how a design agency launched a sister studio to help hit Command+Z on the clmate crisis.
Continue Reading
A wide-ranging exploration of creativity, voice and creative action between
A feature about the legendary , who will soon be speaking to you himself from the keynote stage in Atlanta.
In the midst of the pandemic, as we’ve worked to reformat and navigate our event’s place in the world at this moment, I’ve been thinking a lot about the sheer power of design. In quarantine, it might seem like design would be an afterthought—but that’s anything but the case. Because as we’ve been isolating at home, we’ve seen what design is capable of.
In this installment, you’ll find:
Amy Conover HOW Design Live Show Director
Live
Lisa Congdon
© Emerald X, LLC
Stay tuned for more. We can’t wait to catch up in person in October.
Let’s be real: In times of crisis, inspiration can be hard to come by. Motivation can be hard to come by. Creativity can be hard to come by.
Moreover, isolation can be hard to manage—and if there’s one thing we want you to take away from this publication, it’s this: You are not alone. We’re feeling what you’re feeling. And when we say “we’re all going to get through this together,” it’s not just marketing speak in times of crisis. We know what our community is made of, we’ve seen what they’re capable of, and we’ve seen how they band together. And we’d wager that any HOWie would have your back at this moment should you need them, and they will rally like never before after this passes.
HOW DESIGN LIVE
We’ve seen
HOW:
When people say “we’ll get through this,” it may sometimes sound hollow, but it’s true. I believe that now more than ever—because it’s design that will help us do it. And this issue of celebrates that power in its many forms.
HOW Design: Redefined
Through technology, design has allowed us to continue working, to connect with our loved ones and see their faces and feel their presence.
connect with our
loved ones
Art has helped
powerful movements.
Uplifting posters and street art projecting hope can mean everything when we need it most.
projecting
hope
Designers have their communities and banded together to raise funds for vital causes.
rallied their communities and banded together
Innovative design on the front lines is helping essential workers combat COVID more safely.
COVID
helping essential workers combat
Data viz has helped us understand the numbers and how we’re persevering, and how we will continue to do so.
understand the numbers
Well-crafted wayfinding and safety messages are
essential to our new era.
A single piece of good design, no matter how small, no matter how large, can inspire us to carry on — as we aspire to create the next one.
inspire us .to carry on
Prototypes for a safer workplace and a safer world will carry us forward into the future.
safer workplace
safer world
FROM THE Show Director
EXIST LOUDLY
Get to know the work of five more HOWies before the event through their amazing work.
If you’ve ever been to HOW Design Live or any other major conference for creatives, you’ve probably found yourself at home afterward with a healthy stack of business cards and your web browser of choice, putting a design to each face and name.
So this year we decided to mix things up: What if you could start to get to know the work of your fellow attendees before the show even starts?
We put out a call for attendees and speakers to submit their design work, and were absolutely floored by all the amazing responses we received. Here are five projects by your future fellow conference-goers that show the range of our community, not to mention the sheer talent within it. In every issue of HOW Design, Redefined, we’ll feature more. Stay tuned. (And if you’d like to submit your work for consideration, click here!)
Oscar Aldana Interactive Designer, Hambly & Woolley Toronto
“I have been thinking a lot about these three word: and . The last month has been a bit crazy for everyone as we adjust to new routines. For this poster series, I decided to experiment with geometry to depict the idea of isolation and to emphasize these words as a reminder for myself.”
home, patience
distance
Justin Ahrens Principal, Rule29 Creative
“Wheels4Water has imagined and executed new ways in which anyone can make a tangible difference in the fight against the global water crisis using only bicycles, a passionate community, storytelling, and heart for doing good. The platform we have created allows people to learn, share, donate and participate in the experience. We use content from statistics to make it personal. We use videos we shoot on the ride and in countries we serve to activate, educate and motivate our community. … Due to previous years of experience and insight from partners such as Lifewater International, Wheels4Water was able to surpass its goal and change the lives of tens of thousands of Africans.
Erin Agnoli Designer, DesignScout
“Voted Chicago’s best pizzeria, Nonna’s needed a top-notch brand identity to match its decade of pizza-making perfection. Nonna’s was ready for a brand evolution, including an updated name, identity rebrand and across-the-brand collateral. ... Our winning approach was a modern-day nod to nostalgic Italian Americana. … Our team has also had a hand in delivering new brand creative, including pizza boxes, apparel, menu systems, interior and exterior art pack elements, signage, neon designs and social media.”
(Naming and brand strategy by Total Dish.)
Dave Narcizo Owner/Designer, Lakuna Design
“[This is the] visual branding for a new Neapolitan pizza and handcrafted gelato truck in Newport, RI. The name A Mano translates in chef Simone Ferrara’s native Italian to ‘by hand.’ In the spirit of this, all initial sketches were performed with pencil, pen and paper. The results were fine-tuned digitally and a comprehensive suite of identity styles was added. The palette is taken from the Bisazza-tiled pizza oven, which is displayed prominently through this unique container truck’s glass front.”
Melissa Pierce Art Director, Brunet-García
“The commemorative Commedia dell’Arte spirit box set is a collaboration between STAGE Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to improving compensation for theater actors and staff, and Manifest Distillery. Our agency developed the theme and concept behind the box set, with each unique liquor manifested as an archetype from Commedia dell’Arte, a renaissance theater style known for use of allegory, metaphor and social commentary through masked characters. We collaborated with five diverse artists (Elena Ohlander, Searing Limb, Hiromi Moneyhun, Chris Clark and Cody William Wicker) to personify our illustrative interpretations of each archetype while retaining their signature style. The front of the bottles were printed with a mask and the back with the face of the character, so when viewed head-on, each character appears to be wearing the mask.”
HDL takes a look at the brilliant output of legendary design maestro Cey Adams.
Let ’s be real: In times of crisis, inspiration can be hard to come by.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken up the business world—and HOW Design Live keynote speaker Stephen Gates is here with a compass to help us navigate the new era of leadership
Q&A: Debbie Millman, Lisa Congdon
before
A Mano
Feature
THE UNEXPECTED CARTOGRAPHER
We’re always boasting about how awesome our attendees and speakers are—and how awesome their work is. So for the first issue of HOW Design: Redefined , we tried an experiment: We asked them to send in their work for possible inclusion in our new magazine, as a way for everyone to get to know each other through their design before the show. Reader: They delivered. The quantity and caliber of the material utterly blew us away, and had us quickly creating a Dropbox folder to bank it all, as we drew up plans to feature more in every issue going forward. Here we do exactly that with five more projects we love from the wildly talented HOW DESIGN LIVE community. Collectively, they’re helping us to keep calm and carry on. Want to share your work? We’d love to see it. Find out how to submit it .
here
Ping Hsu
PXSTUDIO
“To present the beauty of Korean characters and sensational Korean culture, I used both Hangeul characters and English type to design the poster for the Brand Design Association of Korea (BDAK) and National Hangeul Museum at Seoul, where they held a typography exhibition in the summer of 2019.”
Lisa Cain
Lisa Cain Design
“Hire Autism is a program created by the Organization for Autism Re5earc.. , dedicated to helping individuals with autism find meaningful employment opportunities across the United States. The user-friendly guides support job seekers through various aspects of the job search process, from career exploration to providing helpful tools and advice. As a designer and an autism mom, I am so honored to play a small part in creating this program and making a positive difference in people’s lives.”
Organization for Autism Research
Shantell Martin
Shantell Martin Inc.
“This is a special edition of [my book] n s.. Each cover is hand-drawn.”
Lines
Branden Bopp
Simple Strat
“360 at Jordan West is an apartment property in West Des Moines, Iowa, owned and operated by CIP. The logo was designed to cater to youthful and trendy young professionals who want to live in a neighborhood with endless entertainment options. The property is located in an area of town that connects the city to the suburbs, which inspired the design of the 360 icon—three numbers connected as a single shape.”
Ricardo Gomez
Paper Tube Co.
“Our custom tube sample kit introduces itself to the user one tube at a time!”
It’s rare that a designer bursts onto the scene like lightning in a bottle, captivating viewers with cutting-edge work that is matched only in its sheer sense of energy and personality by the designer himself. But that's Dieline Conference at HOW Design Live Speaker Zipeng Zhu. On his website, he sums up his background this way: “Before he ate cheese and spoke English, he was eating rice and speaking Mandarin and Cantonese in China.”
AGILE IS THE NEW SMART Every company will use words like design, innovation or collaboration when what they really want more of is creativity. But creativity needs certain conditions to be successful in a corporate structure, and those are rarely met because of how the company approaches its work, often killing the hope of any real creativity or innovation before any work even begins. At many companies, they assemble their best people to work on a roadmap of the projects and journeys they’re going to focus on, rolling it out and then diligently spending the rest of the year following that roadmap. The problem is that time has shown us that the only thing we can count on with that approach is that shortly, that roadmap will be torn up and rethought as new priorities are added thanks to the dynamic nature of business. Instead of continuing to work like this, we need to embrace a simple idea: Agile is the new smart. I don’t mean to start using agile methodologies but rather that we need to evolve the very nature of how we work to be more agile and responsive to problems as they arise. We are used to working this way as we brainstorm an idea, prototype it, evolve it and repeat the cycle.
Yet so many companies have been crippled by the COVID-19 crisis because of their inability to adopt this simple approach to deal with these sudden challenges. Here again, this was an issue long before the pandemic, but we were able to keep it under control because of the slow pace of business, and as a result, those companies were only slowly becoming irrelevant and starting to struggle. Instead of creating endless contingency plans for how we will go back to “normal,” we must accept that rapid change is the new normal. This again is where we come in because we need to understand that one of the biggest things we need to champion is a new mindset that can make all the difference. It is a mindset that we use all the time when we are creative because there is no set answer when we start the process and we are open to the possibilities and respond to the insights we find along the way. How companies and teams respond to this new normal where agility will determine success is going to make all the difference. But that agility will also require one simple but incredibly elusive thing: trust.
undo, undo, undo
Editor’s Note: We’ve added a medley of Gates’ work throughout this piece to show how his creativity and leadership have taken shape over the years.
possibilities in how we work and build our careers. Employees feeling like they’re not valued by their companies—a problem that has long simmered under the surface—has emerged as a crisis of trust. You can see it in trends like the gig economy, where people are rejecting full-time positions in favor of independent contractor and freelancer positions so they can take control of their careers. They want to do this because they no longer trust that these companies and their leaders have their best interests in mind. For those who remain in corporate life, we have also started to react to this crisis of trust by pushing our companies to create new ways of working, to be more collaborative and more creative. But we’ve found that all that corporate structure and those old ways of leading are short-circuiting the progress we want to create. We have started to get more involved and are challenging our leadership to also work in new ways, and as a result, the intimidation that used to impact the workers has migrated to the C-suite. This is happening because employees want a new style of leadership, where hierarchy and management skills alone are not enough. They want leaders who are creative, insightful, business-savvy, inspirational, trusting and, more than anything, human. The problem is, these are not skills that have been historically prioritized at most companies as they groomed leaders, so the leaders are unsure of what to do and often react by layering on more process. This is our opportunity to step up and help everyone understand how to work in new ways. The best way for us to overcome these problems is not with more processes or new tools but rather to remind everyone how to be creative. But that’s not as simple as having more brainstorms, buying more Post-It notes or creating more prototypes. Our work has often been stifled and minced by the thinking that sits around it, so that’s what we need to start to change.
- Stephen Gates
TRUST IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING Trust is the biggest—yet often the most misunderstood—thing that defines great teams, leaders and creative work. Leaders need to create trust not only in personal relationships but by pushing the power traditionally only held by them down through their companies by actually trusting their employees to make decisions. I’ve talked with numerous CEOs and their leadership teams, and the first question—which so clearly illustrates the problem—has consistently been, “How do I know my people are working if I can’t see them?” I always respond, “What type of company culture have you been building where there is so little trust and empowerment, and why do you take no responsibility for that problem?” That is understandably met with a lot of blank stares and uncomfortable looks as this new reality dawns on them that the old ways of working are crumbling, and they are unsure of what to do. We need to start by understanding that there are two types of trust: practical trust and emotional trust. Practical trust is the basic form where you trust people to do the basic things like show up on time, turn in work when it’s due, show up to meetings, etc. Emotional trust is where you trust people to do work that is good for them and the team by thinking about themselves and other people, sharing information or ideas that are not fully formed or could even be controversial. The problem is that most teams only recognize and promote practical trust behaviors, yet they expect the kind of results that you would get from teams with emotional trust behaviors.
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A tempest of hand-painted words swirls, tumbles and writhes across a 7-foot-tall canvas, forming a map of the United States. A far cry, perhaps, from Pentagram Partner Paula Scher’s sleek, ubiquitous identity designs, but cartographic paintings have been the tailside of her creative coin for nearly 20 years.
The design legend’s fascination with maps began in the 1950s, informed by her father Marvin Scher’s work as a civil engineer for the U.S. Geological Survey.
“He was obsessed with accuracy,” she recalls. “He was the one who told me how inaccurate maps were. He said the earth is curved, and photography is flat, so what you see isn’t really what’s there.” Specializing in photogrammetric engineering (the science of the camera and how it captures imagery), Scher’s father invented stereo templates, a measuring device that made camera lenses capable of correcting distortions that occur when aerial photography is enlarged. If not for that invention, precise mapping software such as Google Maps would not exist today.
In a playful perversion of this accuracy, Scher’s map paintings allude to distortion in the presentation of data on the web and in the media. Today, people look at charts, maps and infographics as if they are always completely accurate. That’s a mistake, she says, and a dangerous one.
She painted her first large-scale map in 1998 in her home, without considering that it would appear in a gallery or show.
“It was around the time I was designing the Citibank logo in 1998; we had become completely computerized, and I never touched anything as a designer anymore,” she says. “Everything was made on a computer. There were no art supplies anymore. I felt completely odd, like I didn’t make anything. Even though I made a lot of things, I felt like nothing was happening. I realized I missed working with my hands. So we have this big house, and I thought it would be interesting to see one of those maps I painted really big. I thought it would be better.”
She worked on her in-home map for nearly three years before, during a visit to her home, filmmaker and painter Jeff Scher (no relation) saw the painting and recommended Paula to his gallery. Scher starts the process of creating her maps with little planning—a look at several maps of a given region and any relevant data sets.
The words that appear in her map paintings describe the historical context in which she creates them as much as they comment on the geography and population of the region. None of the maps she has created are simple, but perhaps the most intricate of her recent paintings is “U.S. Counties and Zip Codes, 2016,” featuring a tangled background of postal codes and county names that extends into the oceans where Scher ran out of space.
“After I finished it, I looked at it and I decided I was probably really crazy, and I was annoyed at myself [while painting it],” Scher says. “All of my maps, if you take them down, are usually population maps. They’re about place names, and you see them become dense or more sparse, and that’s all about population.”
Scher’s cartography speaks to the importance of place in her life and work. The chaotic style of her paintings—as well as her design work—is influenced in part by her life in New York City.
“The loudness of my work as a graphic designer is a result of New York,” she says. “Things are packed in, they’re noisy, they’re irritating. And then on the other side, I think that the painting is all about being bombarded with media and how you see and hear things.”
New York City’s Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery showcased a new collection of Scher’s maps in an exhibition entitled “U.S.A.” It was the first release of 10 maps of the United States she painted between 2014 and 2016, taking an interpretive and chaotic look at various data sets including climate zones, zip codes and transportation flow—complete with cultural and political commentary. The pieces in the exhibition were, in Scher’s words, “all the same and all different.”
“I did it largely because [it was] an election year, and I’m fascinated by statistics and the way people vote and the way people think and why they think that way,” Scher says. “I began looking at the country and population centers and what’s near something else. Where’s the North, and where’s the South, and where do they meet, and what do people really think about when they’re in the middle? When you look at things like that, you gain a sensibility about why things exist and how they happen and why we are the way we are. It’s right there on the surface of the map.”
For those who remain in corporate life, we have also started to react to this crisis of trust by pushing our companies to create new ways of working, to be more collaborative and more creative. But we’ve found that all that corporate structure and those old ways of leading are short-circuiting the progress we want to create. We have started to get more involved and are challenging our leadership to also work in new ways, and as a result, the intimidation that used to impact the workers has migrated to the C-suite. This is happening because employees want a new style of leadership, where hierarchy and management skills alone are not enough. They want leaders who are creative, insightful, business-savvy, inspirational, trusting and, more than anything, human. The problem is, these are not skills that have been historically prioritized at most companies as they groomed leaders, so the leaders are unsure of what to do and often react by layering on more process.
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REVERSAL OF THE INTIMIDATED
TRUST IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING
Trust is the biggest—yet often the most misunderstood—thing that defines great teams, leaders and creative work. Leaders need to create trust not only in personal relationships but by pushing the power traditionally only held by them down through their companies by actually trusting their employees to make decisions.
Knowing that there are these organizational and environmental challenges gives us the foundation to understand how we can make more of an impact and step into more of a leadership role, no matter the title or seniority.
There is one final significant barrier that we all also need to overcome: realizing that leadership at any level requires a different set of skills than those we usually think about. In the early parts of your career, you have to be good at producing work, which is not the same set of skills you need to be a good leader. It is a hard transition because the early stages of your career are about executional skills, like coming up with creative solutions to problems and meeting deadlines. But when you want to become a leader, you find out that requires an arsenal of skills, from understanding psychology to having the political savvy to navigate complex corporate politics, and the personal confidence to trust other people.
- Paula Sher
The first problem is that many teams and companies do not help you develop any of those skills, so you have a growing sense of insecurity about how to approach any form of leadership. The second problem is we often think we need to develop skills alone or, worse, that we should
have had them all along. This is complicated by the fact that since there is no real leadership development, companies just throw people at leadership positions, assuming that past success will be an indication of future leadership. Time after time, you see that someone who was a fantastic designer suddenly struggles or fails as a new leader because they were unprepared for the challenges. In some cases, it becomes even worse because they treat leadership as an executional task, becoming a manager instead of a leader.
I’ve found that there is no perfect time or amount of experience that will make you feel comfortable stepping up to become a leader. That is even more true lately when it can be easy to let all this change, imposter syndrome and uncertainty win. But hidden in all of that is a silver lining because there has never been a time when we need leadership more, and people have been empowered to work in new ways. I’m reminded of a simple phrase that is the best advice I’ve ever gotten when it comes to leadership: “Leadership is your ability to become the most confident uncertain person.”
For creatives to get more respect, get a seat at the leadership table and create the type of impact we all know we can have, we need to step into being uncomfortable. We need to reawaken the creativity that has gone dormant in too many of the people we work with and nurture it into something that will change our companies. It will not be easy or simple, but it will be worth it, and I know you are the ones who can make it happen.
Stephen Gates is Head Design Evangelist at InVision, host of The Crazy One podcast and an international keynote speaker. As a leader, he has 15+ years of experience creating multiple agency and client-side purpose-driven, idea-led, world-class teams with cultures that foster innovation and leadership.
Every company will use words like design, innovation or collaboration when what they really want more of is creativity. But creativity needs certain conditions to be successful in a corporate structure, and those are rarely met because of how the company approaches its work, often killing the hope of any real creativity or innovation before any work even begins.
design, innovation
collaboration
Our creative community needs leadership now more than ever.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken up the business world—and HOW Design Live keynote speaker Stephen Gates is here with a compass to help us navigate the new era of leadership.
The COVID-19
pandemic has shaken
up the business
world—and HOW
Design Live keynote
speaker Stephen Gates
is here with a compass
to help us navigate the
Zhu is originally from Shenzhen, where he attended the Shenzhen College of International Education. He then came to New York City to earn his BFA in graphic design at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and soon after nabbed a high-profile internship at Pentagram, and subsequently an equally high-profile job at Sagmeister & Walsh.
That’s my main driving force. Whether it’s a pun,
“You know that little idea that often pops into your head?
As for how, a glimpse at his work—which brims with life, animation, color and passion—provides a quick answer.
Today, he presides over his own Dazzle Studio, where he wants to “make every day a razzle-dazzle musical,” and does so with prolific output that radiates positivity, humor and style.
What fuels his ceaseless energy? “Food, love and sex,” he jokes. “You know that little idea that often pops into your head? That’s my main driving force. Whether it’s a pun, a one-liner, a simple joke, a new form or a fresh letter, these are all the things that keep me going every day. Honestly, this is also how I cope; making and creating are my therapy.”
Here’s a look at Zhu’s portfolio, from his work with major brands to his self-initiated projects, like his delightful messages of hope in times of COVID that are helping us persevere—the full magnitude of which can be found on his razzle-dazzle Instagra .
Zipeng
Zhu
HOW Design Live
Zipeng Zhu
a one-liner, a simple joke, a new form or a fresh letter,
these are all the things that keep me going every day.”
Instagram
Videos
Posters, Signage
“You know that little idea that
That’s my main driving
a one-liner, a simple joke,
keep me going every day.”
should be the
new standard; plastic-free shouldn't be a gimmick, it should be expected.
Planet-positive design
How do you approach projects differently for Undo-Undo-Undo? The biggest difference is obviously the material choices, and making sure that all the packaging that is there is super necessary. In terms of the front end, the work we create is exactly the same in process and quality of design; it’s just that the places it lives(plastic-free packaging) and who it’s for (planet-positive business) is more focused. That was kind of the point: We didn’t want the brands we work with to be covered with leaf icons or colored green. Planet-positive design should be the new standard; plastic-free shouldn’t be a gimmick, it should be expected. What power does design have to impact and change the world for the better? Design is absolutely key. We need the various figureheads, groups, protests, etc., to get the issue into people’s minds and keep the conversation going—but design is the “doing” part of the process of change.
What do you say to those who believe that design should not play any role in global issues or politics? I can’t even see how anyone could make that argument. Design is how we create new ecological materials, how we reduce our packaging footprint, how we push clients to use biodegradable materials despite the cost, how we brand our environmental movements and how we communicate with the world. You get the idea: Design is boots on the ground. We love your manifesto. Tell us about eco clichés and greenwashing—and how they hurt the overall cause. Eco clichés, like [putting green on every environmentally friendly product], stop progress of the cause because they suggest a brand or product is a gimmick, unique to the other brands for that reason. Greenwashing is different and more harmful—it [involves company posturing that] buys brands time/forgiveness in the minds of the consumer, when really on the other side they’re likely not committed to the cause, Shell being an obvious example.
Tell us about some of the projects you are working on so far. We have a couple of beauties at the minute. The first is Remastered Foods, which aims to remaster cult kitchen classics, starting with good old bacon. Their bacon is made from jackfruit and totally kicks ass. We’re a couple of months away from launch but it’s looking great; the brand has a cinematic feel of Plant Powered Action. We also have a wellness brand that aims to deliver premium vegan, plastic-free vitamins/supplements to the mass market and is also giving a little back to animals along the way. Plus a few more crackers in the pipeline. What are some steps that everyday designers—especially those who are not yet ready to start their own studio—can take to help make the world a better place? Good question. Number one on our manifesto is “Better is Better.” This sounds so flippant, but doing something is better than doing nothing. Whether it’s making cool-looking artwork communicating environmental issues or sharing the possible new plastic alternative you accidentally made on your starchy rice pan … just do something and tell everyone about it.
Tell us about No. 6 on your manifesto, “design to disappear.” Design to disappear relates to our aim to be a packaging design studio that wants to rid the world of packaging. The idea of packaging is to protect an item, make it communicate the brand experience and ultimately help it sell. However, we all know that plastic packaging has a huge “afterlife” lifespan, far outliving the shelflife of the thing it was designed to protect/sell. If packaging can fulfil its needs and then leave no trace afterwards, that’s our aim for every project. Your focus on “action not doom” is also refreshing. We take it that’s what prompted you to launch #Niceandpositive? Were you overwhelmed with the doom and gloom you were seeing around you? Yeah, exactly. “Action, not doom” was our starting point. We were really feeling eco-anxiety and felt whilst it is important that the world knows the facts [about the environmental crisis], it could also do with knowing all the great things creatives are doing to help improve our planet. “Eco design resources” are often a bit stale and flat. We wanted to show the exciting unexpected side of material and process innovation, hence #Niceandpositive.
Undo-Undo-Undo. It’s something we say (OK, yell) when we make a mistake in Illustrator—and it’s something the British studio Lyon&Lyon wants to help the world accomplish in the face of the environmental crisis. A packaging design studio that wants to rid the world of packaging? Exactly. Lyon&Lyon launched their sister shop Undo-Undo-Undo last year to bring a new take on packaging and branding to the industry. We caught up with the crew to find out more. Undo-Undo-Undo emerged from Lyon&Lyon. What prompted you to start it? On Earth Day 2019 we had a big discussion about the environment, both as a business and personally. We all felt as if we were suffering from eco-anxiety, especially as we had in part contributed to the problem. Our initial idea was to launch an Instagram account called Nice & Positive, which worked as a visual directory to celebrate all the [things] designers and makers are doing to counteract climate change. It soon developed into something much bigger. Why did you decide to launch Undo-Undo-Undo as its own entity, as opposed to just creating similar work at Lyon&Lyon? We thought it would be too risky to flip Lyon&Lyon into a planet-positive agency at the time; we felt it was cleaner to start a new brand and build it from the ground up. We don’t see Lyon&Lyon and Undo existing at the same time forever. It feels a little hypocritical to have one agency that doesn’t touch plastic and a sister agency that does. Plastic-free is our future, one way or another.
Hitting Command+Z on the Climate Crisis
THE DAZZLING DESIGN OF ZIPENG ZHU
THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INENTIONS
"THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS"
should
be there new standard; plastic-free shouldn't be a gimmick, it should be expected.
This past June, every industry, including design, took stock and looked within. Design has long had a diversity problem. And that’s why the field, like so many others, is lucky that Project Inkblot has been working since 2014 to help build a more inclusive world. Jahan Mantin and Boyuan Gao developed their signature Design for Diversity program to apply design thinking to product creation, services and content. “Our belief is that the future is present, and for our work and world to thrive, we must—and can—all be leaders in designing an equitable future,” they detail. “You have an incredible opportunity to be ahead of the curve by both preparing for, and creating, that future.” They view their work not as a simple quick fix that companies can apply, but rather as a wayfinding tool—“an opportunity to stop and think critically and thoughtfully as you move through your own process so you can mitigate unnecessary errors, and clear the path for excellent work.” Over the summer, the pair, set to speak at HOW Design Live, partnered with us to host a session dubbed “The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions: How to Untangle Your Intent From Your Impact and Mitigate Harm.” It was a wildly popular virtual event, and we’ve since been asked numerous times for a replay. We’re thrilled to present it here. Tune in as Mantin and Gao explore a key tenet of their Design for Diversity framework—one that can have a lasting impact not just on your work, but the world at large.
Click here to view this digital session
THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS
The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions
