4 things a week: I'm back!

Did you miss me.

I expect the answer to this question is that you didn't realise I was away ??. Unless you get my 4 things direct to your inbox (which if you don’t - you must, it’ll be the highlight of your week).?

Earth

Becoming a parent has meant I’ve been thinking a lot about what has been recently become a fairly persistent sense of doom that the world is becoming an increasingly unstable place for future generations. Turns out, this is a natural way to think, in fact, it’s a very human way to think. It’s a survival mechanism to prioritise negative information, and so we store up a bank of negative news stories and think the world is falling to pieces. That’s not to say there aren’t issues. Global warming is a serious threat, one I’m definitely worried about. But sometimes we need a reality check on the overall state of things.

Here is a stat that’s unexpected: In 2020, 94% of people in China said they had either already switched or planned to switch to a more environmentally friendly energy provider to fight climate change. In Europe that number is 70%.?

I’ve had a lot of my misconceptions about the world challenged by looking into the work of physician and academic Hans Rosling and I have no doubt you’ll learn something by checking out his initiative Gap Minder.

Innovation

At the weekend a friend of ours came to visit. Her husband has a Tesla which she drives regularly, but when asked if she was going to drive to ours she said no, ‘charging it is too difficult away from home’. There are charging points at the Tesco literally next door to us, but even when we pointed that out, she still said it was too difficult and so she got the train. Win for public transport, but seriously, how hard can charging a car really be?

Turns out it’s kinda complicated. Not all cars have the same ports (Lightning cable vs USB C all over again!), so you need to carry adapters. And then there is the additional challenge in that charging takes a while. So you plug your car in and go and do the shopping. But what if someone comes and unplugs you whilst you are picking up your bread and milk? So the chargers lock into the car and, in some cases, you need your phone to unlock them, unless you are using an adapter, in which case it just locks in the adapter…

I have no doubt that people with an electric vehicle will say that it’s really not that complicated, but if it’s enough to stop an intelligent person in there thirties from being confident enough to drive more than an hour from home, then it’s stopping a lot of other people too.?

I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this…

Morrama

Buying and throwing away stuff has become the bedrock of our economy and Gen Z in particular are trapped in a conflict of sustainable values and addiction to fast fashion. But they could be the tipping point generation, if we can empower the children of today to choose better products, demand sustainable alternatives and believe that circular planet conscious consumption is possible.

This is why I’m so proud of our @kibu headphones. So often we work with businesses who aren’t bold enough to do more than pay lip service to sustainability, so it’s been refreshing to be able to rethink kids tech from the ground up.?

Whilst the majority of our design work we do for clients, this was a project from our Morrama Lab. We partnered up with our neighbours Batch.Works to explore the possibility of making circularly tech, moving away from injection moulding parts and assembling large numbers at a time and focusing on the zero-waste approach of manufacturing on-demand using modern 3D printing techniques.

You can read more about the project here. And get a limited time discount on a pair for both little or big kids (yes, we do adults ones too!).

Inspiration

Many of you may know that I co-steer a charity called Design Declares. D! started as a campaign in 2022 to get designers to recognise and act on their impact they have on the planet through their work. Since then we have amassed signatories all over the world, and helped set up chapters in Ireland, Brazil and (coming soon) Australia.?

Last month we set up a D! WhatsApp community, bringing people together to share ideas, ask questions and the conversations have been truly wonderful. It’s awesome to have a group of equally passionate, inquisitive, creative people to hand to pool knowledge or ask for advice. Particularly for those who don’t have an existing network, I would strongly recommend you join the community using this link

??

https://chat.whatsapp.com/B9Bdofu6LCoGXOO0MNifHC

(or scan the QR code).?

Recent discussions have been about climate and design related events, how to maintain positivity when you feel that climate anxiety seeping in, and how you broach the sustainability topic with clients.?

See you there!

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P.s. Just incase you got to the end of this and aren't sure who I am, I'm:

• an industrial designer (I design and engineer physical objects)
• founder of Morrama | Certified B Corp
• former tutor of Design Futures at the Royal College of Art
• co-instigator of Design Declares