Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People
By Emily Pilloton
By Emily Pilloton. Foreword by Allan Chochinov.
In January of 2008, with a thousand dollars, a laptop and an outsized conviction that design can change the world, rising San Francisco-based product designer and activist Emily Pilloton launched Project H Design, a radical non-profit that supports, inspires and delivers life-improving humanitarian product design. "We need to go beyond 'going green' and to enlist a new generation of design activists," she wrote in an influential manifesto. "We need big hearts, bigger business sense and the bravery to take action now." Featuring more than 100 contemporary design products and systems--safer baby bottles, a high-tech waterless washing machine, low-cost prosthetics for landmine victims, Braille-based Lego-style building blocks for blind children, wheelchairs for rugged conditions, sugarcane charcoal, universal composting systems, DIY soccer balls--that are as fascinating as they are revolutionary, this exceptionally smart, friendly and well-designed volume makes the case for design as a tool to solve some of the world's biggest social problems in beautiful, sustainable and engaging ways--for global citizens in the developing world and in more developed economies alike. Particularly at a time when the weight of climate change, global poverty and population growth are impossible to ignore, Pilloton challenges designers to be changemakers instead of "stuff creators." Urgent and optimistic, a compendium and a call to action, Design Revolution is easily the most exciting design publication to come out this year. Emily Pilloton is the founder and Executive Director of Project H Design, a global industrial design nonprofit with eight chapters around the world. Trained in architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and product design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Pilloton started Project H in 2008 to provide a conduit and catalyst for need-based product design that empowers individuals, communities and economies. Current Project H initiatives include water transport and filtration systems in South Africa and India; an educational math playground built for elementary schools in Uganda and North Carolina; a homeless-run design coop in Los Angeles; and design concepts for foster care education and therapy in Austin, Texas. Allan Chochinov is Editor in Chief of Core77.com, and writes and lectures widely on the impact of design on contemporary culture.
I, _____________________________________ ,
as an individual engaged within a greater design
community, promise to try, to the best of my ability,
to commit and adhere to the following principles
within my work and life as a designer:
To go beyond doing no harm:
I will engage only in design activities
that improve life, both environmental
and human. I will recognize that
design that does not improve life is a
form of apathy and that “doing
no harm” is not enough. I will engage
only in design processes that are
respectful, generative, catalytic,
and productive.
To listen, learn, and understand:
I recognize that every client, partner,
or stranger is someone to learn from. I
will listen before assuming. I will seek
to understand the historical, geographical,
social, cultural, and economic
context and precedents before
beginning the design process.
To measure, share, and teach:
I will measure results quantitatively
and qualitatively. I will, as appropriate,
make my best practices,
successes, tools, and failures available
to colleagues for communitybased
learning.
To empower, heal, and catalyze:
I will use design as a tool to empower
people, to make life better, to
bring health and improve life, and to
enable users to help themselves.
I will seek out systemic solutions over
quick fixes.
To be optimistic but critical:
I will employ perpetual optimism as a
design and business strategy but will
apply the same critical evaluation toward
social and humanitarian design
work that I would any other product.
Just because it’s “for the greater
good” doesn’t make it good design.
To think big and have no fear:
I will take calculated risks and not
be afraid to use design as a tool for
change. I will explore new models
for how design can have the greatest
impact for the greatest number.
To serve the underserved:
I will look first to demographics
underserved by design and propose
viable solutions for such groups as
the homeless, the sick, the ailing,
the young and old, the handicapped,
poor, and incapacitated.
To not reinvent the wheel:
When something works well, I will
not assume I can or should start from
scratch. I will use what it is available
to me and look to local resources,
skill sets, and materials.
To not do what I don’t know:
I will acknowledge the limits of my
expertise and will not hesitate to say
“no” or to pass projects to another
designer who may do a better job.
To always put the user first:
I will always place need over consumption
and the human being over
the market. I will consider human
value, experience, and consequence
above all else.
To do good business
with good people:
I will be honorable in business and
partnerships. I will build distribution
into my design, and employ businesses
that maximize social impact. I will
align myself and work with individuals
and groups who have the same
values as I do.
To own up and repair:
I will take responsibility for any failures
or mistakes I may make and take
measures to repair and understand
my errors.
To be part of a greater whole:
I will remember that I am a part of a
system and a community of designers,
users, clients, and global citizens.
I will recognize that my individual
decisions affect this greater group,
and that I have a responsibility to
contribute productively.
Insert personal addenda here:
signed:
date:
e-mail address:
Please mail copy to:
Project H Design
PO Box 12021
San Rafael, CA 94912
Partners Matt Miller and Design Revolution author Emily Pilloton seek to affect change through design. When they bring their innovative curriculum to struggling Bertie County, NC, they not only teach practical problem-solving and construction skills to their high school students, but offer hope for business rebirth in the form of a final project that will benefit the entire community. Will they succeed, or will budget setbacks and a resistant school board quash their forward-thinking vision? continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 8 x 8 in. / 304 pgs / 250 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $34.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $45.95 ISBN: 9781933045955 PUBLISHER: Metropolis Books AVAILABLE: 10/31/2009 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WRLD Export via T&H
Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People By Emily Pilloton
Published by Metropolis Books. By Emily Pilloton. Foreword by Allan Chochinov.
In January of 2008, with a thousand dollars, a laptop and an outsized conviction that design can change the world, rising San Francisco-based product designer and activist Emily Pilloton launched Project H Design, a radical non-profit that supports, inspires and delivers life-improving humanitarian product design. "We need to go beyond 'going green' and to enlist a new generation of design activists," she wrote in an influential manifesto. "We need big hearts, bigger business sense and the bravery to take action now."
Featuring more than 100 contemporary design products and systems--safer baby bottles, a high-tech waterless washing machine, low-cost prosthetics for landmine victims, Braille-based Lego-style building blocks for blind children, wheelchairs for rugged conditions, sugarcane charcoal, universal composting systems, DIY soccer balls--that are as fascinating as they are revolutionary, this exceptionally smart, friendly and well-designed volume makes the case for design as a tool to solve some of the world's biggest social problems in beautiful, sustainable and engaging ways--for global citizens in the developing world and in more developed economies alike. Particularly at a time when the weight of climate change, global poverty and population growth are impossible to ignore, Pilloton challenges designers to be changemakers instead of "stuff creators." Urgent and optimistic, a compendium and a call to action, Design Revolution is easily the most exciting design publication to come out this year.
Emily Pilloton is the founder and Executive Director of Project H Design, a global industrial design nonprofit with eight chapters around the world. Trained in architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and product design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Pilloton started Project H in 2008 to provide a conduit and catalyst for need-based product design that empowers individuals, communities and economies. Current Project H initiatives include water transport and filtration systems in South Africa and India; an educational math playground built for elementary schools in Uganda and North Carolina; a homeless-run design coop in Los Angeles; and design concepts for foster care education and therapy in Austin, Texas.
Allan Chochinov is Editor in Chief of Core77.com, and writes and lectures widely on the impact of design on contemporary culture.
