Good Design has moved!

Yes it is official, Good Design has a new home! As I am sure regular readers will have noticed, things have been rather thin on the ground blog post wise over the last month or so. But let me assure you, it is not without good reason. Over the last couple of months (alongside the day job) I have been working away on a re-design and re-brand for Good Design and I am very pleased to announce it is finally here!

From now on Good Design will be continuing to handpick the best ethically focused design and creativity from www.good-design.org.uk. Apart from the new look, you will notice quite a few exciting new changes, the first being the ‘Good News Board’ on the home-page which will rotate the latest blog posts, events, talks, and books to make it much easier to stay informed with what’s happening on the site at a glance. The new site is also fully integrated with Pinterest and you will again at a glance be able to see what the latest inspirational images we’ve been looking at are. Like an image on Good Design? You can now hover your curser over it and you have the option to Pin it straight away! All these changes and more have been made to make your experience on the site as enjoyable and enriching as possible.

Good Design partners with Rapanui

I am also very pleased to announce that Good Design is now an eco-affiliate with fantastic up and coming eco-fashion brand Rapanui. Based on the Isle of Wight and founded in 2008 by brothers Rob & Mart Drake-Knight Rapanui has now grown into an award winning fashion brand that believes in using cool to do some good! Their organic, ethical and low carbon approach sets them apart from the pack but their real contribution to sustainability  comes from the traceability of their products, working towards improving transparency in the fashion industry. Using their trace mapping tool, you can find out exactly where the products come from and how they were made: from the seed being sewn, picked, spun and transported: quite literally traceability from seed to shop!

Look out for a full blog post on the Rapanui brand in the coming weeks. I hope you enjoy what the new site has to offer…

www.good-design.org.uk

Test Space: Sampler

Test Space is a Leeds based creative agency working as event producers, promoters, artists and curators. I had the pleasure of being invited to the opening party of their London showcase ‘Test Space: Sampler.‘ Their mission is to champion and promote local artistic talent in their home city by showcasing their work and brokering professional opportunities with businesses, venues, studios and other artists.

Test Space opened in association with First Thursdays, an extremely popular late night art event in East London, organised by the Whitechapel Gallery. The uber trendy location of The Flying Arts Egg Space in Vyner Street gave a fittingly cool setting for the work on display. And I have to say I was very impressed with the talent of the artists and illustrators the show had to offer. Despite the awful weather we have been having here in London recently, there was a healthy flow of people through the door and an energetic buzz in the room. A nice touch on the night was live art courtesy of up and coming Leeds based illustrator JayPee, whose highly creative illustration and design work is well worth checking out.

Test Space founder Neil Owen explained that as well as having their HQ back in Leeds, ‘rapid exhibtions’ such as this were something they are very keen to do more of in the future. Having already exhibited in Leeds and Manchester they will also be taking the show over to Glasgow after their stint in London. It’s great to see agencies like Test Space supporting young talent and carving out a space for this work in the creative scene in the UK and hopefully more similar initiatives will follow suit in the future. As well as exhbitions they also run pop up kitchens, cross-city showdowns and design weekenders. Last year they ran Ink For Aid, a one day event that brought together artists from all over Yorkshire including live music & art, a tattoo convention and a local school competition to raise money for the people effected by Japan earthquakes.

If you are lucky enough to live in or be in Glasgow in the coming weeks then Test Space: Sampler comes highly recommended. If you are a fan of quality illustration and print work, you will not be disappointed.

Sugru: ‘Hack Things Better’

It’s often said that the best inventions are the ones that come along and solve a common problem that’s yet to be fixed. This obviously gets harder to do as time goes by and the list of solutions to everyday problems slowly gets ticked off. Well what if a product came along that not only solved multiple problems, but also let you customize and actually improve existing products? Introducing Sugru, an affordable, silicone rubber clay that can be used for well, pretty much anything!

Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh, Sugru’s inventor, was studying for her masters degree at the RCA at the time when she had her vision for the product: “I don’t want to buy new stuff all the time. I want to hack the stuff I already have so it works better for me.” “I was making things with silicone sealants and sawdust, and started using the leftovers around the house. I modified a knife handle to make it more comfortable. My boyfriend said, ‘Imagine if everyone could do that — like with stiff jam-jar lids.’ It was a great idea.”. Realizing that there was a huge potential for this type of product in the world she set about assembling a small team of experts from the worlds of business and science to help her turn her prototypes into reality.

It took seven years of hard graft for Jane to to get Sugru into mass production but when it finally launched, the timing couldn’t have been better. Just as most of the western world was entering a recession, Sugru represented the save and thrift attitude that would fast replace the boom and bust of the last decade. People were ready for Jane’s vision and it was an instant success, getting orders worldwide. The genius of Sugru is that your imagination is the limit; just like in the digital world, you can now fully customize your physical world to suit your needs. It’s sticky enough to adhere to metal, wood, ceramic and plastic, whereupon it can become a handle, a protective coating or just a new, custom part. Once you have moulded it to the shape you desire, simply leave it for twenty four hours and you have a flexible adhesive that can withstand heat and cold of -60°C to 180°C. It’s dishwasher proof too!

On the brand blog you can find some great videos and posts of different uses or ‘hacks’ that happy customers have sent in, showing off their new improved products. From creating a better usb socket  for your mac to acting as a bumper for your iphone, it’s all up there. They even attracted the attention of Google who created small handouts called ‘Googru‘ to prospective employee engineers at recruitment fairs. My favourite hack so far though has to be Lego meets Sugru, it’s just brilliant! All the childhood fun of Lego brought into the adult world, that has hours of creative fun written all over it for me.

It seems like all Jane and her teams work is starting to pay off and Sugru is going from strength to strength. I can’t wait to get my first pack and start hacking!

IDEO’s HCD Connect

For those unfamiliar with IDEO, they are one of the world’s leading design and innovation agencies. They champion ‘design thinking’ as a methodology and approach that sits at the centre of their work. Design thinking as CEO Tim brown puts it is: “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” Ideo use this process very successfully to consult many of the world’s leading brands on how to transform the way they develop products, services, processes, and strategy. IDEO.org is Ideo’s non-profit organization that uses the exact same approach to create ‘human-centered design’ solutions for Nonprofits, Social Enterprises and Foundations. In 2010 they launched the hugely successful OpenIDEO, an open innovation platform allowing people to collaborate and solve some of the world’s biggest challenges for social good and at the beginning of this month they launched their new platform funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, HCD Connect .

In 2009 IDEO decided to distill all their learnings from a decade of working with a human-centered design methodology into a series of free to download PDFs that they called ‘The Human-Centered Design Toolkit.” The idea behind the toolkit is to specifically empower social enterprises and NGOs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America by giving them their field-tested tools for social impact in a way that focuses more on sharing information than authorship. So far the kit has been downloaded more than 74,000 times and has lead to incredible social innovations such as the HeartStart defibrillator, CleanWell natural antibacterial products, and the Blood Donor System for the Red Cross — all of which have enhanced the lives of millions of people.
Now, with HCD Connect IDEO.org are opening the Toolkit and its processes to individuals as well as organizations. Through the new platform new users can connect with other like minded practitioners by setting up a story page so they can share their own work and projects. User story pages include an overview of the project, the location and focus area of the social work (health, gender equity, education etc.) and what methods were employed to support the work. As users start to share their stories and connect with one another IDEO.org hopes that they can build on each others’ ideas to build their projects co-creatively. And in the very near future members will be able to apply for micro grants to help manifest their project solutions.
It’s another very exciting venture from IDEO, harnessing the power of human centered design for  social innovation. Given the success of openIDEO, this is definitely a project to watch for 2012 and beyond.

For an excellent example of Human-Centered design in action watch the video of IDEO’s Jeff Chappin TEDxChange talk ‘Design as a tool for better conversations’.

Method: “Clean Happy”

Having been awarded the best brand of 2011 earlier this year here on Good Design, I was very keen to see where Method were going to take things marketing wise this year. Traditionally a brand that relies on the strength of word of mouth and personal recommendation (and in a lot of ways still does) for it’s marketing, Method has risen in true challenger brand style using their excellent eye for design and first class sense of fragrance to create desire in their customers (or as Method likes to say ‘advocates’). As of course any challenger brand gets bigger they start to make profit which in turn leads to a marketing budget that previously hadn’t existed. Method have over the last few years worked with a number of top U.S. ad agencies including Crispin Porter & Bogusky, TBWA/Chiat/Day and Droga5 to try and enter the world of  traditional media in a bid to reach a wider audience.

Their latest effort comes in the form of  ’Clean Happy’, a digital campaign created by Mekanism. Unlike their previous campaigns ‘Clean Happy’ exists purely online, the centerpiece being their Brand Anthem video which runs at just over two minutes and can be found on their YouTube and Facebook fan page. Method has become famed among their fans for their quirky, off beat advertising using slogans such as ‘People against dirty’ and ‘For the love of clean’, ‘Clean Happy’ is certainly following suitably in this vein. The Brand Anthem contains amongst other things, a marching band, skateboards, a huge sink full of balloons, a children’s party and a stunning 40-foot multi-coloured light wall made out of bottles of their handwash. Not your average cleaning company ad then! But Method are far from average and co-founder Eric Ryan wants the brand’s personality to be “fun and human” describing the new campaign as “Flight of the Conchords, meets Willy Wonka”.

The campaign is being released in four stages starting with the Brand Anthem and then followed by four other clips being released monthly. The first of which is called ‘Clean Like a Mother’ and has been released this month (April 2012). It stars and introduces their new brand mascot ‘Noah’ who brings a hilarious comic edge to the brand and really encapsulates their fun personality. Just to put this latest marketing effort to scale, Method are spending $3.5 million out of a total $10 million for the year which may sound a lot, until you consider that one of their biggest competitors Procter & Gamble will spend an estimated $150 million to introduce a new variety of their detergent Tide called Tide Pods.

It seems like Method’s strategy is already paying off however with well over a million views of the Brand Anthem and and just under half a million for ‘Cleans like a Mother’ respectively in just over a month, not bad! Be sure to check back on Good Design over the coming months for the next campaign installments as they are released.

To read the full method review click here.

COMMON Pitch: A Party To Fix The World

COMMON is very much a firm favourite here at Good Design. Founded in January of last year by ex-advertising rock star Alex Bogusky (named creative director of the decade by Adweek!) along with his wife Ana Bogusky and partners John Bielenberg and Rob Schuham, COMMON supports, connects and celebrates those designing a new era of socially-minded enterprise.

The vehicle which they use to celebrate these rising stars of business innovation is the excellent ‘COMMON Pitch‘. Billed as a ‘Party to Fix the world’ Alex describes it as “One part social change. One part problem solving. One part party.’ Here’s how it works: ten entrepreneurs have five minutes to pitch their world changing idea to a panel of social innovation experts as well as a live and virtual audience of thousands. Then at the the end of the evening the votes are counted and one lucky winner walks away with a prize package of cash and in-kind services valued at over $30k, to help turn their idea into reality. There is of course also the staple ingredients of any self respecting party in the form of beer and live music.

http://vimeo.com/38468651

So far in America there have been COMMON Pitch’s in Boulder, Colorado (where the team is based) and New York. As well as these events COMMON has now taken COMMON Pitch international, holding an event at this years Design Indaba, one of the world’s biggest design conferences that serves to create ‘A Better World Through Creativity’. So far there have been some brilliantly inspirational pitches with U.S. based start-up ‘Good Karma’, a subscription service that provides ‘like new’ baby clothes to busy socially conscious parents and Cape Town based EarthBagBuild, a social enterprise that teaches people to build their own affordable homes using unique earth bags, both winning COMMON Pitch NYC and South Africa respectively.

I think COMMON Pitch is a wonderful way of strengthening the social innovation community through putting the best creative, socially orientated entrepreneurs into the limelight and showing the world a better way of doing business. This type of event is something that has been happening in the tech world to great effect over the past decade but up until now has been lacking in the social sector. By providing this vibrant, entertaining platform COMMON have demonstrated that when you combine business with a social mission it really is one of the coolest things in the world. After all as Bogusky says “Saving the world has to be fun otherwise who’s going to do it?”

For Good Design’s friends across the pond, look out for COMMON Pitch Milwaukee taking place in June this year. Click here for full details. Fingers crossed for a COMMON Pitch London in the near future!

Make/Time with Good For Nothing

*Warning, the following blog post contains gushing praise. Those with a disposition against repeated compliments, please leave now*. Yes folks at the weekend, after admiring fan-boyishly from afar, Good Design finally got to met Good For Nothing and I have to say in no uncertain terms I was quite simply blown away. Sometimes when you are a huge fan of an organization or project, meeting the people behind it can ultimately bring you back down to earth with a rather nasty bump as you realise they were not quite as nice as you had expected. And after blogging about Good For Nothing for some months, my expectations were high. But I have to say, on this occasion not only were my expectations met, they were exceeded. It’s official, Good For Nothing rocks!

Tom and Dan (Good For Nothing) and Victoria ( Naked Communications) could not have been nicer hosts on the day and talking to them it was instantly clear that they have a genuine passion and excitement for what they do and it seems with very good reason. Set in the stunning and aptly cool space of the Hub Westminster Make/Time was the latest instalment of the Good For Nothing weekenders. As I explained in my previous blog post ‘Sony’s new volunteering app +U‘, Make/Time’s aim was to bring together  ’doers’ including coders, designers and strategists to use +U’s open source codes to solve three briefs using three teams. The first team I spoke to was team ‘Espace Benevolat’, their brief was to ‘create a mobile volunteering app’ and ‘develop creative tools to communicate to Espace Benevolat‘s users about the app’. For those unfamilliar with Espace Benevolat they are the primary French volunteering charity that links people with volunteering opportunities in their area.

The second team I spoke to was ‘Thames21‘ and their brief came in three parts. This was to hack the code for the Waterway Treasure Map concept, producing a working prototype for their fundraising pitch, to make +U work brilliantly for Thames21 and to develop engaging communication to get more people using the Thames 21 app. And last but not least was team ‘Freerange’, who had the awesome challenge to ‘take the +U code and create something magic that could get loads of people up for volunteering’.  Talking to all the groups it was clear that everyone involved was behind Good For Nothing’s mission one hundred per cent and there was a real buzz in the air as everyone worked with dedicated efficiency towards their end of day presentations.

What really made my jaw drop though was just how much work was actually achieved in the space of  forty eight hours. Due to work commitments I couldn’t make the Friday and so I felt slightly sheepish rocking up on the Saturday to then effectively, take pictures, chat a bit and then tweet about it! However I had a great time keeping a live feed of the days activity through Good Design’s twitter account and the #Maketime. Everyone was extremely friendly and the coders kindly made sure to take their time and speak slowly when explaining their work to me, although I still only understood minimal amounts. But you didn’t need a degree in computer science to understand how much hard work was being put in. In the second half of the day the pace (and the tunes!) really upped the anti with the comms teams proceeding to produce a film and stop motion animation in a matter of hours, admittedly with varying degrees of success but ten out ten for even taking on the challenge.

The day finished on a high with all three teams delivering fantastic presentations that included working prototype apps, slick branding design and and truly engaging strategies. There was even a last minute fourth presentation that had been prepared in the last half hour! A perfect example of the spirit of the occasion. It was as if four weeks worth of work had been condensed into forty eight hours. And it was all certainly not in vain, not only the did the teams leave with the satisfaction of  having delivered top notch work for their chosen charities, there were also Sony goodies  to be given away in the form of Sony tablets, Bloggies and a trip to meet the clever minds at Sony’s R&D department. As well as Good For Nothing manifestos and T-shirts.

I have to say that overall I found the whole experience hugely uplifting and genuinely inspirational. Too see creative people from all disciplines working together and sacrificing their weekend to use their talents for good really does leave you with a heartwarming feeling and a belief that projects like Good For Nothing are just what the creative industry needs. And with the great news that they have just been awarded Nesta funding, it seems that Good For Nothing are going to be around for the long term and I can only see them getting bigger and better.

Follow the full Storyify of the event here. Plus loads more pics on the GFN flikr.