Editing: Design by Numbers

Like contemporary musicians the job of the designer is to edit and single out the most powerful combinations. By combinations I mean design choices that have the greatest social, environmental and aesthetic value / impact. In an age when virtually any product imaginable has been designed and redesigned countless times, our role has been transformed to that of curator, co-creator, cultural engineer and ethicist.

This new role is surprisingly more complex, more rich in opportunities and more demanding of designers. What does it mean when the role of design is transformed into that of an administrator of ideas, an orchestrator and a social engineer? If in fact this is our new role what are the required skills and background required to educate and transform consumers into active participants in use, experience and collective social and environmental investment?

The tools of the past, those that give form, color and texture to objects are only a small portion of what is needed and required by our evolving culture and our fading planet. We have today the technological prowess to completely destroy our way of life in a matter of years. I prefer to think we now have the ability, responsibility and technology to stabilize markets and to begin transforming our habits, behaviors and value systems.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

-Albert Einstein

If the above is true (as I believe it is often the case), then we must not only be guided by the tried and true, but by the statistical, factual and humane. It is time for designers to embrace ethics and statistics as strategies for goals beyond the aesthetic and utilitarian. We need to take information that was once the domain of number crunchers and marketers to use it as a solid platform for design interventions. Customer insight is not just to sell more stuff, but to create a framework that is more human-centered and that accounts for the social and environmental effects of design.

What does this mean in practice?

Design is not always about more stuff. It is about service, function and experience:

Imagine if designers stopped making new stuff and instead decided that they should help companies edit what they make and how they make it. The power of this approach has been underestimated.

Design must begin to be measured in quantifiable numbers beyond dollars:

Everyone knows that design adds value (at least those who understand the purpose of design). Expression alone or design as branding is no longer enough. Integrating design into the purpose of a business changes the business, integrating design into a business simply changes the design. Until we can make the environmental consequences a non-issue we need to realign our focus and begin measuring the impact of design on our environment and on people.

Design is for people:

People should be central to major design decisions. The ultimate goal of design should be a hybrid of sustainability and design. Perhaps something like this: "Experiences and functionality that satisfies the needs and wants of people in a specific context without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs and wants."

Awareness needs to be a built-in part of the design:

Changing minds and behaviors is a tough thing, except when we build in behaviors into a design or if we are able to reward them. Awareness needs to be part of the function of a product. We need to make awareness an automatic benefit, not a warm and fuzzy excuse to buy something we don't need.

Design for the whole story:

Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. As designers we have focused disproportionately on the beginning and the end of a products cycle. If we keep focusing on the origin of products and materials alone, or if we just worry about the "death" of products we will have missed the biggest opportunity for change. We need to design "perpetual sustainability" into products and services. Imagine if every product generated an environmental dividend each time it was used. We would certainly be on our way to building a transitional strategy for short term sustainability or even long term depending on what was being designed.

There are no magic bullets:

We need to look at as many solutions as necessary. If we are guided by the numbers we will make educated choices and in turn have a measurable impact. Design for the numbers won't lead us anywhere, design without numbers is an empty promise, but design by the numbers can bring about a whole new way to think about what we should do next.

MIO For Target

Reviewing my last posts I see that there is quite a bit missing here. Specifically our MIO for Target collaboration. Here is a bit about and some behind the scenes (after my blogophobic moment -we can thank Blogger for that-).

MIO for Target
MIO for Target was launched (a small collection of outdoor living products). The collection included the first ever composter carried at Target stores, an indoor and outdoor solar lamp (that uses the sensor as switch -turn it upside down to turn it on-), a portable hammock (the pouch turns into a hammock pocket for sweater, magazines or shoes), a molded paper pulp herb garden, a watering can made from recycled plastic and gardening tools. The collection was designed around existing vendors and focused on creating products that used existing infrastructure to create accessible sustainable design for the garden. Every product in the collection has a unique story behind it that we are very proud of, but the thing we are most proud about is the design of our first "Active Sustainable" product. I consider this one of our biggest breakthroughs in sustainable design thinking / design. Before I keep going this is how we define "Active Sustainability" at MIO:

Active Sustainability or Perpetually Sustainable Products: Products that, by way of their design, encourage conservation. The best actively sustainable products are designed so that the stage in which the product has the greatest environmental impact is precisely when the product’s conservation attributes are most active. A product can only be considered active if it produces a positive and quantifiable environmental impact each time it is used.

Our vermi-composter and solar lights for Target are great examples of "Active Sustainability". In both instances the products function (useful life) is the major sustainable factor in the design. The environmental dividends provided by the products throughout their useful life, far outweigh the potential impact of materials, production and sourcing combined. This does not mean that we disregarded these very important aspects, but we were obviously focused on yielding a more holistic approach to designing sustainably, especially at that scale.

MIO for Target was a limited time collaboration, but the lessons learned from this fruitful collaboration are beginning to permeate all of our activities at MIO.

MIO for Target at the Living green Expo in Minnesota
We were invited to be a part of Target's booth at the expo and had composting demonstrations all day long for three days straight. It was a lot of fun to explain our products and meet people that are as passionate about sustainable culture as we are. The booth also had an energy station where visitors could test the difference between powering (with a crank) incandescent bulbs vs. compact fluorescents and a water station with a good visual representation of the impact of using a low flow shower head.


Last but not least I wanted to share with you the proper sequence for preparing a vermi-composting bin:


Buy some coir and get some sheets of newspaper. Shred a few sheets of newspaper and put them on the side.


Take a few of the whole sheets of newspaper and wet them. Cover the bottom of your vermi-composting bin to prevent worms from falling down the perforations. Red wiggler worms like moist environments.


Cut a good amount of coir, enough to fill about 1/4 of your composting bin and place it in a bucket.


Add water slowly and let the coir absorb all of it. Keep adding water until the consistency of the coir is like a wet sponge. This is an ideal medium for your worms to make a new home and work hard at breaking food down.


Make sure the coir is moist and that there are no dry bits of coir left in the mix. Add more water if necessary.


Add a few sheets of shredded newspaper to the bottom and then start adding the moist coir.


Keep adding coir until the bin is 1/4 to 1/2 full. Do not compact the coir and the paper.


Add one to two pounds of red wigglers. This type of worm is the most effective at breaking down organic household waste.


Eat the worms. Actually this step is optional ;P

Your bin is now ready to be used. For best results make sure to chop down foods or grind them down. The smaller the bits the better! Bury it and cover with the coir. Let the vermicomposting magic begin!