Bottom Up vs. Top Down

It has been a while since my last post (a line too often found in blog posts), but it has more to do with time and technical issues than with my interest in carrying a conversation and getting the word out about the power of design. So as I sat here in an airport and wondered who reads this blog I began to search through all my unpublished drafts, and found this bit from one of our Paris shows. I read it and thought it would be an appropriate post for the holiday season:

As I walked the aisles of the M&O it hit me, just as it has many times before: if you believe, as I do, in entrepreneurship at the service of society, then the simple truth is we have moved as a society in an often destructive and opulent direction. We are all connected by patterns of consumption and excess, and by ALL, I actually mean the people for whom we design and court as customers. This design world is particularly crazy. It is primarily focused on aesthetic problems outside of the context of societal and practical endeavors in design.

Who am I to say this? To cast a stone? I am another human, aware and thinking, and also a participant of these patterns. I REALIZE what my impact is and look for ways to reduce it every day. But this is not the reason for writing this. My motive is that I am looking for an answer to the questions that burn in my mind:
“How can I be a part of something good?”
“How can I in my own way change things for the better?”

I thought about this in the context of a luxurious show rich in textures, colors and experiences that few get to enjoy and contemplated two approaches: I could abandon my endeavor as a designer of sustainable furnishings and dedicate my life and design ideas to improving society from the "bottom up", or I could continue down this path of social entrepreneurship and strive to change society from the "top down". The road is not simple, but my way is design, and design is about ethical and humane pragmatism.

There are countless "bottom up" models and many people that have made these models work well. In addition, other ways could mean having to fight fire with fire (which, oddly, works for fire fighters!) and in my mind the social and environmental problems of our times can not be simply solved within the framework that created them.

On the other hand, there are also many examples of "top down" models of social and environmental transformation that have been successful. They are often very powerful models due to their pragmatism. They reach out to us in familiar ways. They ask questions AND provide options in the same sentence. This practical nature, which should be built into my
profession, is what appealed to me years ago when I started MIO and still appeals to me today. However, I am aware that being practical does not equal being "good" and know that "practical" has led us down the road of some corrupt and bogus environmental and social practices. In short one could argue that while "practical" damaged our society and our environment, it also accounts for much of our progress and is our hope for the future. I believe that when "practical" is channeled properly [creatively?] it can produce the most humane, elegant, efficient, and cost effective solutions. It can ultimately transform our appetite for more into an appetite for less, for “smarter”. It can be a tool to change our language and our values rather than just an appeal to our better nature. This approach encompasses both our vain nature and our desire to lead richer, better lives.

I arrived at my answer. Not THE answer but one that is more than just talk. In a scale appropriate to my business and design, I have experienced it and wake up every day thinking about what is next. I get ambitious ideas and know that we can actually change the world for better. I think that Ray Anderson said it best: "We'll be doing well by doing good."

Happy holidays from MIO!

What have we been up to?

It has been a while since my last post, but with all the running around it has been hard to take a pause. Today I finally have a few minutes to post about recent MIO sightings:

1. Maison & Objet (Paris)
2. New York International Gift Fair (NYIGF)

We were at the M&O show for a second time and experienced an incredible show. This edition was much larger than the one in September and seemed to have a lot more variety. It also gave me some time to reflect on the needs of the European market and I had quite a few enlightening ideas that I will share in future posts.
Here is a shot of our booth at the M&O. This was the debut of our Ripple PaperForms (top right)
Above is a shot of our snacky Bendant display explaining the DIY chandelier.

In New York we did something a little bit different this year:
Our introduction of the Origami table and new colors for the Nomad System (Orange, Red and Ochre) required that we re-shuffle things to fit our space. Isaac was in charge of the booth this year, while I was away in Germany and Paris. He did an incredible job with the help of our assistant Matt Braun. Everything had a cozy corner that peeked the interest of buyers, reporters and the curious.
The Origami table was a huge hit at the show, making our first furniture introduction very exciting. Other furniture pieces are in the works and will make their debut at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) this May.
The new Nomad range of colors... Can't wait to build something COLORFUL!
I almost forgot! We had some strange visitors (see above)... pretty much every day, but we welcome those "klezmer" moments and later come to cherish them as evidenced by the image below:

MIO's Graphic Identity

The work of MIO is the result of perfectly balanced collaborations and good timing. This is definitely the case of our collaboration with one of MIO's unsung heroes: Weraya Thongon or as we call her lil' View. She has been our Graphic Designer since the beginning, tirelessly making our message elegant, beautiful and clear. She has produced graphics for all our catalogs, products, instructions, websites and events. She has been there from the beginning and now is a partner at an innovative design company in Thailand: Graphic Farm. Now you can see exactly what she is up to here: http://graphicfarm.blogspot.com/

Want to see more of View's work? Visit her site! http://www.graphicfarm.co.th/

A Quiet Evening

It was a quiet evening filled with doodling and thinking about new projects. That same day I got ID Magazine in the mail filled with images of other designer’s studios. I figured I'd share a few quiet moments at MIO so I went looking for those small corners that look perfect in their organized chaos. I found a few:

The Packaging Is The Message

Our products are designed in a holistic way which means that packaging and shipping play an important role in the development process. Our decisions are influenced not only by cost but by the impact these decisions have. For this reason we have been re-developing some of our packaging and figuring out new ways to cut on waste and create a more user-centered experience. The first candidate for re-design was our line of PaperForms. About two weeks ago we eliminated the bleached liner in all of our boxes and replaced it with a recycled kraft liner (bringing back our original look -circa 2004-). The box itself was re-designed to better fit and protect the product without having to create a new die. Internal wings were perforated into the tabs to hold the product down during shipping. The same box fits V2, Flow and Acoustic Weave reducing inventory and the need for additional dies. Next up in the process is the label. We will re-design the graphics to work better with the new kraft color but will still use the soy-based inks to print them.

The Bendant Lamp is up next. After looking at all the alternatives we have created a more efficient packaging system for the Bendant lamp. The new design reduces material use and labor, while elevating the user experience. A flat-packed chandelier that is co-designed by our customers deserves packaging that fits the experience of the lamp. Several tests and rounds of prototypes have generated a lot of great information about how to better ship and display our Bendant Lamp. Some of the improvements include a handle and a perforated cardboard zipper to extract the lamp. The graphics are under development but I will be sure to post the results. For now I leave you with some images of early prototypes and tests.

Of course the fun does not stop there, expect lots of new packaging improvements soon.

The power of Transitional Design

Businesses worldwide are starting to tackle the immense challenge posed by the current paradigms of products and consumption. They are also confronted by the difficult task of dealing with the emergence of an economy based on social, environmental and realistic financial expectations. The approaches taken by these organizations may sometimes seem divergent and even at odds with the final result. Some companies are working on their image while others are investing heavily on “cleaning” and making their operations more eco-efficient. Regardless of the strategy, these initiatives have managed to raise red flags for proponents of radical change. Some would like to see change happen quickly; without an ear/eye to the ground where the change has to happen. The question no longer is about the technologies necessary or the will of companies, but in the transformation of both internal and external culture as well as the dramatic re-engineering of infrastructure to sustain this kind of change.

Most of the companies we work with do not have a large budget allocated to the transformation of their manufacturing, business and marketing practices. As a matter of fact many don’t even have a strategy in place. We believe that this is often fertile ground for change. What starts as a test to make money doing something outside of their own markets becomes a gradual cultural and business transformation.


The standards by which customers have been “trained” or “accustomed” to judging products and services are changing slowly. This is no surprise as the decision making process is deeply rooted in consumer culture and heavily influenced by the media. Unfortunately the expectation is that companies will turn on a dime and more worrisome, that customers will embrace new values over night. This is not only unrealistic but dangerous to the momentum that environmentally and socially driven product lines, companies and organizations have achieved in the past few years.

A period of adjustment is necessary in order for things to change. This usually means a period of unrest for markets, consumers, manufacturers and marketers. By my estimates we are five to six years into this wave of change and we will require over a decade to achieve significant transformation in “consumer values”. What we are left asking ourselves is: what is an acceptable rate of change? What technological leaps are necessary? The answers are being determined everyday and all of us have not only the opportunity but the responsibility to choose.

Sustainable Meltdown

We have read it in magazines and newspapers, we have heard it from politicians, the tube and the web. Green is a fashionable, trend-setting cultural commodity. This has a lot of people very excited, while others worry and wonder if all of this "green" stuff will go away like it did in previous decades. Is sustainability in its current form a big fat juicy trend? And if it is a trend, what does this mean to companies who have been committed to sustainability before it was a fashion statement? What are the consequences of this much attention?

I must admit that I have thought about these issues more than once, but I have done so because colleagues and friends have been kindly sharing their thoughts and concerns frequently. I have come out of these exchanges unmoved when I point out that sustainable development is inextricably linked to the economic, social and political conditions of today. For me sustainability is not a design movement, a fashion statement or a trend, it is a logical, and ethical problem solving process that addresses the cultural and social issues we face. To put it simply, issues of national importance such as energy independence, defense, climate change and health care are directly impacted by the greening of society. The means may be questionable and the excesses of the market evident, but no matter how many layers of cool branding or good old marketing are spread on top, the simple truth is that sustainability is not likely to fade away like leg warmers, skulls and polka dots.