As the developers of products and services used by billions of people around the world, industrial designers hold a crucial position: one that demands we look for ways in which our work can ignite social, cultural, and institutional change. By leveraging our resources, processes, and voice as designers, we can establish new ways of thinking and methodologies in our studios, companies, and corporate settings that, in turn, can help to ensure the ongoing health of our planet and its precious resources.
In this issue, we explore the complex intersection of earth-saving design practices and the value-driven role design plays in strategic decision-making and successful business outcomes. Now, as the once separate languages of design and sustainable business continue to converge, it is vital that we know how to enable a dialogue that helps our business counterparts succeed financially while delivering meaningful human-centered solutions to the marketplace without sacrifice.
The authors in our Summer issue provide insight into successful products and projects across a wide spectrum of industries and product categories. Whether turning ground-up Nike shoes into sound baffles or implementing circular strategies to address complex societal challenges, industrial design, when combined with sustainable practices, continues to prove itself with practical solutions and a demonstrated positive impact on people, profit, and our planet.
Exemplifying sustainable design leadership takes much more than a splashy marketing campaign or putting a recycling logo on the back of a package. Rather, it requires a comprehensive and persistent commitment to address every detail of how a business operates and produces its goods and services in order to truly make the type of lasting change our planet needs. Decades of poor decisions and consumer apathy have created a situation that needs to be addressed with more urgency than ever. Action must be taken today if we have any hope of creating paths forward to a more sustainable professional practice.
We hope this issue inspires you on your journey to design for positive impact—for today and the future.
Preview:
Guest contributors:
Acknowledging the Balance: The Merits of Practical Environmentalism in Sustainable Design by Katie Kuffel
Designing Better Climate Futures Together by Sebastian Gier
Designing with Sunlight by Beth Ferguson, IDSA
Breaking Barriers for Plastic Practicality by Gregory N. Polletta
Will Circularity Be Enough to Save Us from Environmental Collapse? by Sayeh Dastgheib-Beheshti, IDSA
CMF: The Glue That Binds by Courtney Der
Thinking Outside the Box for Sustainable Design in Africa by Mark Evans, PhD, FIDSA
Design’s Heroic Mission: How Maturing the Design Culture Leads Brands to Sustainable Outcomes by Jayson Simeon, IDSA
Using an Interdisciplinary Biodesign Charrette to Prepare Future Sustainability Leaders by Don Carr, IDSA, and Louise Manfredi, PhD, FRSA, IDSA
An Architectural System Inspired by a Shoe That Was Inspired by a Building by Michael DiTullo, IDSA
Featured content:
The Power of 10: Celebrating a Decade of New York Design Week by Stephan Clambaneva, IDSA
I Could Not Sketch, I Could Not Render by Stephen Hauser, FIDSA
What Is the Experience That Experience Designers Are Designing? by Stephen B. Wilcox, PhD, FIDSA
How a California Sunset Inspired the Lucid Design Language by Brian Paschke
In every issue:
From HQ by Chris Livaudais, IDSA
Beautility by Tucker Viemeister, FIDSA
ID Essay by Steven R. Umbach, FIDSA
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