Design is woven into every aspect of my life; it is inseparable from who I am and from the reality of how I perceive and interact with the world around me. I believe that every person has the capacity to be a designer: every outward act is an act of design and, like historian Melvin Kranzberg’s first law of technology, these acts are neither good nor bad—nor are they neutral. This is how I perceive design. It is then up to each designer to mediate or influence which side design takes. Through my actions I attempt to contribute products that elicit joy. My goal is to inspire others to practice this way of being.

 

Understanding that the world has moved from disruptive technology to disruptive ideas. My praxis of design views the Designer as Intellectual-Maker, moving the traditional role of product design as an applied art to the designer as an ethical arbiter of ideas.  My current line of scholarship follows a logical progression that has emerged from the intersection of my current practice and my graduate work at The Ohio State University, “Design for Non-Designers”. This work focused on researching and creating a process of developing ideas. Through this I produced a body of work that includes lectures, workshops, papers and, currently, the writing of a book around the value of the designer as change agent.

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My professional work reflects the influence of the designer as author. Just as writers are expected to express a voice, opinion and point of view that is carefully developed through years of practice, designers should be valued for doing the same thing. Writers express authorship through words; designers express theirs through form. My work involves problem solving, considering the audience and context, but the true value lies in the precious filter of the author's unique human experience and creating objects for everyday use with the express purpose of bringing joy to the end user. I put my own designer’s spin, or authorship, onto each project, in the hopes of sharing the passion for life with everyone who comes into contact with my work.

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Please feel free to read and disseminate my writing.