the Designers Accord

As a designer and creator of "stuff" I have become acutely aware of the "things" that I am creating and what they exponentially become long after leaving my desk as a crude pencil sketch. In the last year I find myself asking how I can make a difference as a designer to help affect change for my clients. For every project that take I try to make at least one suggestion to help reduce, recycle, reuse, or suggest a material that might have less impact. I was excited when I recently read an article in Fast Company magazine about the Designers Accord

The Designers Accord is a global coalition of designers, educators, researchers, engineers, and corporate leaders, working together to create positive environmental and social impact.
The Designers Accord is made up of over 100,000 members of the creative community, representing 100 countries, and each design discipline.

the Designers Accord was created by Valerie Casey, of Ideo, she originally dubbed it the "Kyoto treaty" of design. If you'd like to learn more about Valerie and the Designers Accord, read the article from Fast Company, and in the meantime think about ways that you too can make a change to benefit the future of design.

Below is one of mine, the Retread Doggy for a client in the pet industry. Dog toys are most literally throw away items, their life span often isn't all that long, so I came up with Retread toys, they utilize recycled poly fleece, recycled stuffing, and excess leftover overstock prints from the open market or local factories that would likely eventually be discarded. Every dog has his own unique sweater no two are alike. I also suggested using a PLA(corn fiber) squeaker inside instead of the traditional plastic ones, and each toy comes complete with the retread toys label.


Change comes little by little and if we all pledge to be part of the solution the end result will be huge.