Designing change with Emily Pilloton

March 11, 2010 at 10:11 am
Filed under Pro bono, SEGD Conf + Expo, Social Issues

Emily Pilloton

At just 28, Emily Pilloton is changing design and changing the world.

The architect, industrial designer, and writer walked away from commercial design to start Project H, a nonprofit focused on product design to empower the socially overlooked. Project H has created water transportation devices for a community in South Africa, math learning playgrounds for schools in Uganda, the Dominican Republic, and North Carolina, and social programs in Austin and Los Angeles. Project H design teams are currently working in eight cities, as well as administering long-term educational programs in North Carolina’s poorest county.

She’ll join other change makers—including Stefan Sagmeister, Phil Freelon, Jason Bruges, and Richard The—at the 2010 SEGD Conference + Expo in Washington, D.C.  There, she’ll be a part of the conversation about Designing Change/Changing Design.

Pilloton is also the author of Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People. Her promotional tour for the book is a 75-day, 6,300-mile lecture series and mobile exhibit staged in the vintage 27-ft. Airstream she calls home.

The Design Revolution Road Show is visiting 35 schools during a 75-day mobile book and lecture tour.

Pilloton took a few minutes to chat with SEGD yesterday.

Q: You’ve been written up everywhere and even appeared on The Colbert Report. What do you think all the fuss is about?

A: I’m glad there’s a lot of attention being paid to design that empowers people. I hope it inspires designers to realize they can actually do what they do and also help solve some of the world’s problems. But the hype also bothers me. It indicates there’s a lot of talking but not a lot of actual work going on. We hope to transform all the hype into real work.

Q. So why aren’t more designers social activists?

A: A lot of designers go into design because it’s a great way to solve problems. Then they graduate and all of a sudden they have all these student loans, and they go to work in corporate environments, and suddenly it’s all about making money. The original ideas get lost. So many designers are looking for ways to use their design skills to make a difference. We hope Project H inspires them to realize they can actually do it.

Q: How do your projects get funded?

A: Our design teams are volunteers who are doing their own full-time jobs and also working 20 to 25 hours per week on our projects.

We’re funded almost entirely by individual donations that average about $50. We’ve had two small grants, but for the most part it’s crowdsourcing. We figure if we have 35,000 Twitter followers, we’re going to ask them for $5 each and that’s our budget for the whole year.

Q: What would you like to change about design?

A: Don’t just sit around and talk about this stuff. Do it. You can only go to so many conferences and debate this before you just buckle down. It’s okay if you have no idea how to do it and it’s okay if you have a failure or two along the way.

Also, design activism should start in your own back yard. We need to nurture the bottom of our own pyramid, not fly worlds away and presume we know how to solve their problems. We can all see huge needs in our own communities, in places where we’re invested. That’s where the best work happens.

–P.M.K.

Children at a school in the Dominican Republic play on Project H's math-focused learning landscape. "We wanted to create an experience, not a product," says Pilloton. Any school can use Project H's system for creating a learning landscape. It only takes 25 bus tires and someone to teach children the games.

Braille in decline

February 27, 2010 at 10:38 am
Filed under Accessibility, Graphic Design, Regulatory information, Social Issues, Symbols, Wayfinding

“A report released last year by the National Federation of the Blind, an advocacy group with 50,000 members, said that less than 10 percent of the 1.3 million legally blind Americans read Braille. Whereas roughly half of all blind children learned Braille in the 1950s, today that number is as low as 1 in 10, according to the report…Braille literacy has been waning for some time, even among the most intellectually capable, and the report has inspired a fervent movement to change the way blind people read.” — A.M.

Follies

February 6, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Filed under Architecture, Public Art, Social Issues

“In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration. The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-49 led to the building of several follies. The society of the day held that reward without labour was misguided. However, to hire the needy for work on useful projects would deprive existing workers of their jobs. Thus, construction projects termed “famine follies” came to be built. These include: roads in the middle of nowhere, between two seemingly random points; screen and estate walls; piers in the middle of bogs; etc.”Conolly’s folly in Ireland is…”built within Castletown Estate (containing Castletown House), which contains two follies, both commissioned by Katherine Conolly, the philanthropic widow of Speaker William Conolly to provide employment for hundreds of the poor of Celbridge when the famine of 1740-41 was at its worst. The Obelisk was built in 1740 after a particularly severe winter. As a folly, it could be seen from the back of Castletown some 2.5 miles (4 km) away.” — A.M.

(Design) help for Haiti

February 3, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Filed under Communication, Social Issues, Technology

“As much as I love design and interactive media, reading the newspaper every day is a sobering reminder of the fact that this is generally not a life-saving profession. It is greatly inspiring, then, to see how new media has been put to incredible use in helping the ailing Haiti. Here are some fascinating examples,” shares SEGDster Tali Krakowsky. — A.M.

Refuse Probes Project

December 5, 2009 at 9:23 am
Filed under Exhibit Design, Green Related, Placemaking, Politics, Public Art, Social Issues

“At this year’s Shenzhen Hong Kong Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (SZHKB), LOT-EK  will be presenting their Refuse Probes Project. It is a physical and social device that visually questions the relationship between the artificial/manmade and the natural. The concept looks to the local waste of shenzhen’s manufacturing landscape. Using this refuse LOT-EK has produced vertical units, stacks which are a visual representation aspects of packing, shipping transformation and the movement and trade of goods within the area. They are cut and extracted out of the ground to reveal the layers of refuse accumulated under the top soil of the land.” — A.M.

The art of (hopeful) politics

November 18, 2009 at 11:46 am
Filed under Social Issues, Uncategorized

Not to get too political here, but we thought you’d enjoy a new (just-in-time-for-the-holidays?) design book that focuses on Obama poster art. When Aaron-Perry Zucker first put out a call for Obama posters, he intended to post them on DesignforObama.org. But when director Spike Lee got involved, submitting recreations of posters for his movie Do the Right Thing, the project got bigger. With an essay by Stephen Heller on the politics of hope (and design), the book includes 200 posters and was out just in time for the one-year anniversary of Obama’s victory. — P.M.K.

Why so many plugs?

October 29, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Filed under Social Issues

Many SEGDsters are constantly on the move from one country to another.  So check out this article

• The Secret Life of Bees

explaining why you have to carry a squillion converter plugs as you circumnavigate the globe.  The bad news is that it’s not going to get better any time soon.  The good news is that it’s a really interesting story. — A.M.

Why not world peace?

September 15, 2009 at 11:57 am
Filed under Social Issues

Designers are often called on to solve the big problems of the world. So why not tackle world peace? Architects, designers, artists, engineers, and multidisciplinary teams are invited to reimagine and rebuild the Peace Pentagon, since 1969 the home of many social justice and peace organizations in New York City.  – P.M.K.

Masked and Anonymous

Billboard cemetery

August 28, 2009 at 9:10 am
Filed under Social Issues

Late last year the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, passed “Clean City” laws banning all forms of outdoor advertising. The laws even affect retail stores by limiting the size of their signs based on the store’s frontage. The Brazilian Association of Advertisers calls the laws “ineffective and fascist,” but others support the advertising-free ideals behind them. Now the city is faced with a new aesthetic challenge: the skeletons of billboard structures left behind after the advertisements were removed.  –P.M.K.

• Man-Thing psp

“See, that’s what I like about y’all. You don’t have a clue what you’re doing, but you do it anyway.”

August 4, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Filed under Social Issues

Johnny Parker, author of the quote above, is a member of Project M: Think Wrong Suicide Blonde trailer

Arabian Adventure trailer

The Defiant Ones hd

Hollywoodland release House of Fury psp .  As they say, “Sure, we may not be known in the in circles. We may not fill the pages of design annuals. And we may never see our names in lights. But, we do know how to save the rain forest with a waterproof book. We do know how to build a park with a postcard. And we know how to bring water to a community with a few pages of newsprint. 

We are part of a design movement. We believe that ability equals responsibility. And we are not the only ones. So, we built a lab where designers like you can make a difference. We are building the tools that will build the future. And this is where you come in. ” (Thanks to Sarah Speare for the lead!) — A.M.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs movie

• Blonde Ambition ipod

Lost in Space film