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Introducing Our New Design Thinking Contributor, Kristina Drury of TYTHEDesign

I’d like to welcome Kristina Drury who will be talking to you on the 2nd Wednesday of every month about design thinking. She will introduce you to design thinking in her next post and from there on out, help you to solve challenges in your business and creativity using this methodology. We thought WWM could use an infusion of how-to about the topic of design research – which endlessly fascinates me – so I invited Kristina to help out. Luckily, she was happy to oblige so without further ado…
- Chauncey

Article written by Kristina Drury – founder of TYTHEdesign

Lately, the term ‘design thinking’ has become quite a catch phrase. You hear about companies using it to tackle challenges, meet the needs of customers, even re-brand whole countries. Through my posts on whatwomenmake.com, I’m going to show you design thinking techniques that can be put to use to by designers and non-designers alike to aid in any organization or project. I’d like to be resource for those of us in the female entrepreneur community.

A bit about me…. I am a passionate social and environmental designer. I began TYTHEdesign in 2010 after working in the social sector where I observed organizations struggling with challenges that sprung from unsuitable structures and/or inefficient communication strategies. After working with these groups, I saw that they benefited from a design-based approach. I felt it was important to use my skills to make a positive impact for the greater good. Working with non-profits and social ventures, we support their communication and organizational needs.

mobile soup kitchen (RV) operating in Brooklyn

spatial organization and the design at the service window of a mobile soup kitchen (RV) in Brooklyn

Over the past year we have been fortunate enough to work with some great organizations including TEDxBrooklyn, Cleargreeen Advisors, SSBx (Sustainable South Bronx), and Crop to Cup. We’ve also designed organizational efficiency systems for a mobile soup kitchen, developed a life skills training program for women in a family shelter, and now we’re developing an after school program teaching life skills through entrepreneurship in the South Bronx. Here are some more of our recent case studies so you can see all the details.

Prior to that, I was the New York Chapter Head for Project H Design, a charitable organization focusing on product design for social change. I was one of the lead designers of one of their programs called Learning Landscape. It was an educational, active learning playground, built in locations from Tanzania to Mexico. It was featured at Cooper Hewitt’s 2010 National Design Triennial. I worked also as the Assistant Director at the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation, in the consulting wing of an organization that looks to support and grow social/environmental enterprises. We worked with with clients like UNESCO, WestElm and Starbucks and a series of small non-profits and entrepreneurs.

Look for my first tips on the second Wednesday of every month!

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KRISTINA DRURY is an expert in design thinking and the Executive Director of TYTHEdesign, a consultancy serving the social sector based in New York City. She has a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from McGill University and a Master’s in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute. Feel free to contact her if you have questions at all! She’s here to help.

Thursday • August 11, 2011 • by Chauncey Zalkin

Category: Design Thinking, Interviews, Kristina Drury

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Talk about an Inspiration – Two to start the week

picture of Ma ke from Victoria & Albert collection

1 Eva Zeisel

Eva Zeisel turns 103. Thank you to Haute*Nature for bringing this working woman’s birthday to our attention and for posting her TED Talk which I hadn’t seen.

Eva is a fully decorated *design revolutionary and **lifetime achiever (*New York Magazine, **Cooper Hewitt) and then some.

2

I had my students read this article about socially useless companies, a descriptor I like even better than ‘socially responsible’ which is already a buzz word that has been bandied into meaninglessness. Instead of thinking about how you might,as a company ‘do your part’, the idea of social uselessness makes you consider whether you should be in business in the first place. I personally have a fantasy of wiping the corporate slate clean with all new business models instead of watching the old geezers limp along like the wounded brittle giants they are so the word ‘useless’ struck me as did Ma ke’s work, found on Design Boom:

Ma ke

This fashion designer from China, who spoke at the ICOGRADA Beijing World Design Congress 09, writes Design Boom, “confronted by the local clothing industry with its cheap, homogenizing mass-production and poorly paid workers… and by a fashion scene lacking local aesthetic influence and dominated by foreign labels… dedicated herself to developing her ‘useless’ (‘wu yong’ translates to ‘useless’) ideas.” (ideas of uselessness). The results are breathtaking. She’s doing what nobody I know of in China is doing, communicating the roots of Chinese design and tradition. I want more.

Here is a link to a review of a documentary, also called Useless about her work and Chinese factory conditions made by Jia Zhangke.