Blake McEldowney

Head of Design, Mormedi Blake has over 25 years of international experience delivering compelling products and services across the physical and digital realms. He began his career as a product designer, studying at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. After six years of working at the innovative appliance manufacturer Fisher & Paykel, Blake headed to New York City to spend five years at the renowned studio Smart Design. He was instrumental in setting up and running Smart Design’s European office in Barcelona for another six years. After a seven-year stint running his own agency, Zinc, Blake has joined forces with Mormedi to oversee the company’s creative and technical direction. With a passion for solving complex, systematic problems, Blake has worked across categories with big brands (Samsung, Unilever, Nestle, HP) and start-ups looking to innovate and grow.

Activities for Blake

Speaker | Sustainability Deep Dive | 2020

The Power of Design to Create a Better Future 

Originally a discipline focused on aesthetics and functionality, design has evolved toward a strategic focus with a business vision. It has grown in its scope from product design to experience/service design to organizational design and design for the society and even the planet. Design is unique in the sense that it is a highly integrative discipline, situated right in the middle of humanities, sciences, and business. Designers thrive when being confronted with complex problems and are characterized by an “always learning” attitude. This has given us the confidence to take on new challenges and grow with them.

We think that the beginning of this new decade and the disruptive events that have occurred at a global level calls for a reflection on how design can and should contribute to a better future for people, businesses, and the planet.

In the first part of this presentation, we will take our audience on a journey, looking at how design has assumed an ethical responsibility in the past. In the second part of the presentation, we will share our thoughts on how we think design can and should contribute to shaping a better future.