Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People
Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, written by Project H founder Emily Pilloton, serves as the inspiration for the Design Revolution Road Show.
The 40 products included in the Design Revolution Road Show’s exhibition have been featured in the book, and the tour’s lectures and presentations are based on the toolkit and call-to-action set forth in the book’s introductory essay by Emily Pilloton. The 100+ products featured in the book range from appropriate technologies in the developing world to retail and consumer goods that improve life.
With a foreword by Core77’s Allan Chochinov, Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People, was published by Metropolis Books, September 2009, and is now available in stores and via Amazon.
From the Back Cover
In January of 2008, with a few hundred dollars, a laptop and an outsized conviction that design can change the world, rising San Francisco-based product designer and activist Emily Pilloton launched Project H Design, a radical non-profit that supports, inspires and delivers life-improving humanitarian product design. “We need to go beyond ‘going green’ and to enlist a new generation of design activists,” she wrote in an influential manifesto. “We need big hearts, bigger business sense, and the bravery to take action now.”
Urgent and optimistic, a compendium and a call to action, Design Revolution is easily the most exciting design publication to come out this year. Featuring more than 100 contemporary design objects and systems–safer baby bottles, a high-tech waterless washing machine, low-cost prosthetics for landmine victims, Braille-based Lego-style building blocks for blind children, wheelchairs for rugged conditions, sugarcane charcoal, universal composting systems, DIY soccer balls–that are as fascinating as they are revolutionary, this exceptionally smart, friendly and well-designed volume makes the case for design as a tool to solve some of the world’s biggest social problems in beautiful, sustainable and engaging ways–for global citizens in the developing world and in more developed economies alike. Particularly at a time when the weight of climate change, global poverty and population growth are impossible to ignore, Pilloton challenges designers to be changemakers instead of “stuff creators.”
“Design Revolution is positively spilling at the guts with displays of ingenuity and resourcefulness,” writes Allan Chochinov in his foreword to this book. Showcased within its pages are more than 100 contemporary products and systems– selected by the author, industrial designer and Project H Design founder Emily Pilloton– that empower people around the globe in myriad ways and demonstrate that design can change the world.
What People Are Saying About Design Revolution
“Seeing all of this product-design innovation in one place is a thrilling experience– Design Revolution opens the doors and shows you the power of what smart design can accomplish. The book proves that this is the direction we should all be going in, and Emily Pilloton is going to help get us there.”
– Amy Novogratz, TED Prize Director
“Pilloton is a force of nature and Design Revolution is the perfect storm of inspiration, optimism, and ingenuity. This book should be on every designer’s shelf — no, in his or her hands.”
– Valerie Casey, Global Practice Head, IDEO; founder, The Designers Accord
“In a world stressed to the limit, Emily Pilloton’s book comes as a truly inspiring addition for those who believe design can make a difference.”
– Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr, founders, Architecture for Humanity
Recent Blog Posts
Download the Design Revolution Toolkit!
At each stop on our tour, we’ll be giving a lecture presentation about how each of us as designers can work for the greater good. We know, however, that intention only goes so far; we must collectively establish best practices. When we’re designing for homelessness, health, poverty, education, and well-being, the stakes are higher than ever, with little room for half-hearted efforts.
With that in mind, we have compiled a Toolkit for both design students and educators (or really for anyone who wants to apply creative problem solving to social issues) that outlines 13 values and corresponding strategies for not just how to design for the greater good, but how to produce GREAT design for the greater good. (Note: The 13 values are derived from the Designer’s Handshake document included in our book, Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People).
The Design Revolution Toolkit is available to all, as a free pdf.
DOWNLOAD THE DESIGN REVOLUTION TOOLKIT HERE >>>>
November 3rd, 2009Upcoming Design Revolution Book Events
November 5, 2009, 7:30pm
Builders Booksource, Berkeley, CA
Join author Emily Pilloton at the Berkeley book seller for an evening of discussion, book signing, and good food and drink! Books will be available for sale, signed by the author. Emily will give a brief presentation about the book and Project H. More info via Builders Booksource here.
November 11, 2009, 5:30pm
American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter
130 Sutter St, Suite 600
Emily Pilloton will give a lecture about the Design Revolution, and why we need to design solutions instead of stuff. AIA/RIBA members can earn 2 LUs, books available for purchase via William Stout. More info here, rsvp (at) aiasf (dot) org
Hope to see you there!!
