Hasta La Ideas

After two days of Do-ferencing, the third and final day of Design Ethos started bright and early at 8:00am, as several participants skipped the “coffee social” in lieu of dedicating more time to final presentations. “Do-ers” (aka participants of the Do-ference side of things) were scheduled to show their respective concepts for Waters Avenue to the rest of the conference at 4:30 that afternoon. The feeling of an impending deadline was universal, as designers, students, Waters Avenue residents rushed around the city of Savannah to finish on time.

The student panel with constituents from Purdue, MICA, and SCAD.

I decided to desert Team Empowering Culture during their time of need, dropping off Rhino files to be laser-cut into a stork (see below) before heading to Hamilton Hall to check out some of the panelists. Panels ran concurrently, starting with Mark Randall and Ursula Tischner, which ran at the same time as a student panel. Randall talked about how to get social innovation projects up off the ground via building community, finding connections, and getting heard in order to get funded. Tischner focused primarily on sustainable design as a full-time job, urging the audience to “make sustainability attractive.”

Mark Randall

The concept of doing social innovation and making is fiscally viable was a theme seen throughout the day, as each panelist addressed how they funded their work enough to keep the lights on. , The topic of making a living as a designer working in the field social innovation was clearly on everyone’s mind—it even came up in the student panel (which ended up being more of a student table discussion)—and was the topic of Noah Scalin‘s panel presentation.

Noah Scalin on “Making A Living As A Socially Conscious Designer.”

In fact, Scalin’s talk was called precisely that—”Making a Living As a Socially Conscious Designer”—based on his own experience as founder of Another Limited Rebellion, relating how he built his studio practice up in 2001 when a “socially conscious design firm” was a laughable phrase to a successful example of good business. His latest book, The Design Activist’s Handbook: How to Change the World (or at Least Your Part of It) with Socially Conscious Design, is available for pre-order.

A [free] poster designed by Scalin for the 99% movement.

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