 Hello everyone, welcome to Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum's National Design Week. Thank you for coming. My name is Kim Robledo-Diga, I work in the Education Department here at Cooper Hewitt. I'm the beginning of the show, I'm going to kind of get passed along, but I wanted to first of all mention that today's Winner's Salon is part of our National Design Week which was started in 2006, and it's part of the celebration of our National Design Award Winners Program. Throughout the whole week the Education Department runs free programs throughout the week celebrating the designers and sharing their vision and their work with multiple communities, like today's program. And before we kind of move on, I want to acknowledge some of our wonderful support. National Design Awards Programming is made possible by the generous support from Target. Additional support is provided by Adobe, and funding is also provided by Design Within Reach, Altman Foundation, Facebook, Edward and Helen Hinz, and the Siegel Family Endowment. I want to welcome my colleague Cynthia Smith, who is a curator of socially responsible design here at Cooper Hewitt, who will introduce our National Design Award Winners and start our moderator program. So welcome again, thank you. Thank you Kim. Boy, I'm very pleased to be with everyone here today to have these four stellar National Design Award Winners to talk about this really broad area of design, social good and equity. I first want to introduce everyone to the four winners. I'm going to start with Gabriel Stromberg on the end. He represents civilization. They are the 2018 National Design Award Winner for Communication Design. Since their founding, civilization has built identity systems, digital experiences, printed materials, environmental graphics, and exhibitions that are engaging, empathetic, sustainable and create meaningful connections. We now next is Gail Anderson. She is a partner of Anderson Newton Design and serves as the creative director at Visual Arts Press. The in-house design studio for the School of Visual Arts here in New York, where she teaches both design and art history. Gail is the recipient of the 2018 National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement. Third, we have Christina Kim, who is the co-founder and designer of DOSA, a clothing accessories and housewares company with a focus on rethinking conventional fashion industry production and sustaining artisan cultures. Christina receives this year's National Design Award for Fashion Design. And next to me here is Liz Gerber. She is the co-founder of Design for America, the 2018 National Design Award Winner for Corporate and Institutional Achievement. Design for America is a national network of innovators working together to tackle challenges ranging from accessible healthcare to drinkable water. And they work to improve their local communities through design. So since we have a limited amount of time, we're putting this together as a conversation. We look forward to a very engaged and spirited discussion between the four designers today. They can talk amongst themselves. There's no order to these. We're not going to go down the line, but they're going to answer and speak freely. We also encourage people in the audience, if you have a question, feel free to interrupt in the middle of this. We do have someone with a microphone that we could engage you also in the conversation. And we will leave, we'll see how the hour goes. We'll try to leave some time at the end for the audience if there's other questions. So let me begin. How do you incorporate issues of social good and equity into your creative practices and what does this mean for you as a designer and educator? Let the conversation begin. I don't mind starting. This is really built into the foundation of our studio and I think a lot of it has to do with really approaching it from a historical perspective. When we first formed our studio, I always liken it to how a group of musicians come together and form a band. They usually have other bands that they really bond over, have very similar musical tastes. We had similar things that we were inspired by in the world of design, specifically in design history and a lot of those had to do with design being this catalyst for social impact. Everything from silence equals death, the work of T. Park Coleman, a lot of the work that's done within the civil rights movement, all these really amazing examples of people using design to create change, to impact the world around them. We just thought that was so inspiring and that really from the very beginning has been one of the key concepts and foundations of our studio. I'll build on that and say thank you, that was really interesting. Like you, Design for America also had the foundation, it was built from the foundation and really was actually built in the local communities. The vision was to have design studios in every community throughout the country that were really looking in their social community and looking for what challenges and opportunities were very meaningful to them that they could approach and use design to solve. I remarked this question that it's both in the mission of our organization as well as even in the structure of the design of the organization itself. I feel like I'm a little late to the game with us. You're not late. My background was many, many years at Rolling Stone where we were doing a magazine every two weeks, I was there for about 15 years and we're doing nothing of any deeming value to anyone except ourselves in a lot of ways. But I always felt like because of what I was doing that I needed to find some other way to give back and because I was working with celebrity stuff and continued to do that at my next job and just sort of fun silly stuff. Education became the thing for me to make a different kind of contribution. And so it's been about 30 years or more than 30 years that around 30 years I've been teaching at SVA and so it's been about getting young people involved and they've got so many options now and to show people what's out there and to get them to do the stuff that I wasn't doing at their age. So I think for me, you know, I didn't really set out to do fashion and what I was interested in is just spending time making things with my hand. And I chose to work in different cultures where the language wasn't common. So the way we engaged and communicated was either doing it together in many cases, I was learning their skills and then using the skills that I've learned from them I was able to design with them. So I think through the way I worked for the past 27 years it became much more of an equal relationship as a designer and a maker and that there's a great deal of exchange in developing the design and I think now looking back I think the fact that I didn't want to necessarily know what I wanted to do and was interesting spending time making that I think created an interesting way of working with a designer and a maker. I mean for you guys, how did you know? Because again I say I didn't know how did you know it at 27 years ago, 30 years ago, whatever that's what you, you know, the design could make a difference in that way. I didn't know at all but because I didn't have the tools and my tool was my interest in learning what they do and understanding the skill I was able to use my art background to take it to a place that they wouldn't have taken and generally I have been working with the same communities and same group of people for past about 15 to 27 years so the fact that we've known each other and worked together for so long that I think we kind of built our own vocabulary of where we work together and I think it's all because of the time that we spent and not knowing what I wanted to do. I'll answer that. For me it was age eight and it was driving eight. Right. Well here's what it is and I credit it's my grandparents I mean it all goes back to the grandparents so my grandparents moved from urban Philadelphia to rural Vermont with a distinct mission to build and serve a community up there, a rural community and so when I was eight my grandmother and I would go to the bakery we'd get the day old goods and then we'd drive around to all the homes that many of them didn't have electricity, very tiny they didn't have access to cars and we deliver the day old goods to the community members and my grandparents did that in all sorts of different realms they'd build things for people would I call it service design, would I call it product design at the time, my grandfather making in his workshop making things for community members that were needed no but I realized that the idea that you could consciously intervene and help people in your community was a very valuable kind of work I think it was just Catholic school for me so that got me given That too What I think is really interesting is a lot of what we're talking about is the specific choices that we made and the fact that we're working in this space and it's because of these very maybe sometimes not so at first intentional but what are those things that maybe you're working in opposition to I mean have you ever specifically made those choices where you're you know I'm going to work doing this that's creating social good as opposed to other space I mean do you remember consciously kind of making those choices I have so I moved to California, Los Angeles in 1996 and in downtown LA there were just fantastic old buildings and I took this very large space and you know I first started in New York in the garment industry in a very small spaces factories with really really small shrooms were big very much divided up in spaces with very little air ventilation or any kind of consciousness for the makers and so when I moved to Los Angeles and took this 10,000 square feet one of the first things that I decided to do is have one floor and not create any kind of architectural divisions at all but then the studio becomes fluid from the design to shipping to making it all became on the one floor so that we all could be part of the making and obviously the word I use a lot is making because as a designer the time that I spend most is interested in how we make and so I think that was the really the big choice that I made and to think about the weather, you know the light and not to bring in certain comfort to everyone in the company and make conscious environmental choices and I think that was a really good starting point for me to create my own kind of where I wanted to be as a company but it's interesting that space, I've been to the studios out and civilization studios out in Seattle to hear you describe this space in Los Angeles and then even the image I saw here of some of the work that how does the space that you work in it's not just, it sounds like not just the connection either with the people that you work with in the community, how does that environment influence the work that you do it sounds like it was critical in the middle of it and I would be curious also with civilization like that origin story of your studio space is interesting go ahead for me, you know most of my workers are Latinos and in the beginning being in downtown I didn't realize what kind of impact that it was having on my workers and they live their lives in downtown LA so I wanted to make sure that their family so like on Saturdays we do overtime and we work half a day and I welcomed for their children to come and kind of take about an hour to see what their parents do and be able to go out after their parents work finished and become, their parents work is part of their weekend life so they had to do work on Saturdays and work overtime and for the children to be part of what their parents were doing you probably know about garment industry, sweatshops and that's one of the things that I really wanted to think about what does that mean when we say sweatshops how could we change that and for me I'm an immigrant coming from Korea that that idea of a sweatshop was something that I really wanted to rethink about and how do I change it and how do I make my workers feel part of what they do and to me it was the space for me space played more of a role of validation I've been a part of a couple different startups if you will design related startups and with each one as soon as we had and I kid you not the first closet because I decided any space was better than no space it just meant it was real it meant that our efforts were real and the work we were doing was real and even if we could only fit two chairs and a locker in there it was real and I've worked in a lot of really interesting spaces including a double wide trailer and kind of the edge of anyway all sorts of different spaces in an old meat house and each space has offered a sense of excitement about and potential for changing existing conditions particularly the meat house was interesting but thinking about what was this used for before and now how can we use it today and how can we make it a space that's constantly evolving with our organization as well I've found that with one organization the space almost we went through about six iterations it almost got too precious and when the space got precious it meant that we couldn't be as playful with the organizational design so space is very much references our process as well I grew up, live and work in the city so I'm happy I have a window so I got nothing but you're part of this wonderful school and you're embedded in four windows in my house four windows in my office they are so really I got part of the city unbelievable so I'm going to shift this a little bit talk about the world at large all of us I would say we find ourselves navigating a world of profound change from new notions of truth polarized discourse widening income equality mounting climate challenges to advances in technology from automation to AI and so what do each of you think the role of designer is in this rapidly changing social, political and environmental landscape and to add to that in what ways has do you think the designer's role has changed over time my role as an educator is to get the students to really pay attention to what's going on in a way that they sometimes don't to get the spark going to make sure that they're again doing things that I didn't really do at their age and right now that they're doing something, anything that they're aware that things are really scary right now and even though they're kids and I don't want to make it worse for them I want them to really wake up and I want them to feel empowered and to know that they can make change and it's amazing when you see them do that and there are so many new courses there's an activism that they can take and different master's programs at SVA to really get them motivated so that's my job is like come on let's get going guys well and specifically in the space of visual communication I mean the way that I see visual communication it really is a social transaction right there's a giving and there's a receiving and I would say from my perspective the most successful examples of design are the ones that really use that relationship knowing that what design is doing is it's activating these kind of collective understandings this kind of collective vernacular I really see the role of the designer within that relationship as one that's there to facilitate meaning and to make it meaningful and to make it human and I think that what I see again and again is as we just we receive these new technologies the designers are the ones that really go in there and make them relevant make them meaningful and ultimately make them human we have a voice now as designers we're not just making cool stuff we can make change and that's absolutely and I mean when you're thinking about what's on the horizon too right I mean imagine what that's going to translate into once designers get ahold of that so at Design for America we have a really unique opportunity and privilege to work with students across all majors so we have computer scientists who love AI and we have political scientists who love policy and we're really what we're trying to do is engage all of them in design work and actually work on real problems in the community and by doing so the vision is that we don't all graduate and go on to become professional designers in fact some of them go on to be every profession in the world they go into government, nonprofits for profits and to me that's the world I want to live in is the world in which everybody has exposure and understanding of design and they bring it to their particular practice I have been really interested in natural resources and how we use to make let's say clothing and first 15 years I've kind of followed this traditional way of making buying fabrics and cutting fabrics and making clothes but last 25 years I've been working very closely in the countries and areas where I got to watch how the cotton are grown, how it's procured how it's hand spun and loomed and handmade and through that process as a designer what I really learned is amount of time and amount of hand that it goes in by a maker so like for example you know I realize what happens in the world of organic cotton versus a conventional cotton I saw my first first hand what happens to the farmers I mean the spinners who were spinning conventional cotton and you know because of the pesticides and chemicals that was being used I saw my first hand what happens to their hand so I think what I learned is to look at natural resources and how we procure it and then once I've learned that I also realize the preciousness of the natural material so the way I used to design I had to rethink about how do I use the materials so now what I think about is I do make a traditional way of making clothing but we also try to really incorporate recycling as part of our practice so there's a second generation of fabrics that we make out of leftovers on top of that there's so much of these recycling requires one of a kind work which allows for me to hire a lot of people who have less skills but also pay well but also to incorporate people with great skills and able to add values and I think this is something that I've been working on and I'm very interested in sharing we've been collecting data on what happens when we lose and not at the cost of raw materials and then how we could change the income that artisans could make and so these things all have been happening in the last five years and I see that a lot of next generations of designers are very interested in thinking and approaching design from a different place and that's what I'm interested in really sharing for the future how does that affect the rest of your life what you buy, what you drive I am very conscious of how I live and the choices that I make so I like I'm very conscious of not using plastic for example especially one time use plastics so I carry my own bottles and when I travel to bring things for the artisans I would bring things that I think that would make their lives a little bit more conscious so last time when I went to India I brought them all these stainless water bottles for them to have while they are working I try to practice it every day in my life because that's the only way I think I could really share truthfully it's interesting because what I'm hearing in everyone's answers is basically the concept of responsibility and accountability within everyone's process I mean is that something that's inherent in the role of a designer I think it is now I don't think it was of course and I think that we teach that now I just came across I was in class yesterday and came across a quote from Bucky Fuller who said as a designer you have to make a choice you can either make sense or you can make money and this was a quote in Victor Papinex 1971 Design for the Real World book and my students and I had a wonderful conversation about that yesterday and we came out with well do you have to choose and they and I had to remind them they were shocked by this especially because I just presented Buckminster Fuller as this renaissance man who you know philosopher everybody respected etc and they said but he said something really dumb like how do we make sense of this anyway I think I'm right on with you I think things are changing and there's an idea that you can do which is so exciting I'd love to hear his comments now well there's a designer named Eric Carter and he posted an article on the Walker blog this was a few months ago I don't remember the title but it was kind of railing against designers kind of working in this kind of space of kind of like hyper capitalism and one of the things he said was he said these designers are going in and just by choosing the right typeface they're elevating a brand's value and it was definitely a critique of designing this space but I remember when I was reading it I was like that's incredible you can actually elevate a brand's value just by picking a typeface that just proves that design's really really powerful not just in that space but you know period so I have to ask a nerdy question what typeface does your organization use to represent your own brand we just a really neutral sans-serif thanks for all those font people it's interesting you bring up this whole idea of responsibility do you think this new generation of designers feels a stronger sense of responsibility and I would include in that because Christina you work with people around the world people who are not trained as designers but the makers do you think that they feel a stronger responsibility I think the people that I work with they have had this skill set that was kind of carried down by generations and I'm talking about Mexico and India that's where I work and China as well you know I think they're concerned more about keeping the tradition going and I think what I feel is that as a designer you can really kind of share the design sense design thinking to artisans so therefore they themselves could become possibly designers as well I'm not sure I'm answering your question right and if I'm going in the right direction for you but I'm very conscious of keeping certain kinds of traditions keep going all over the world so the way I see that happening is kind of creating an equality with a designer in America and themselves becoming possibly designers on their own right maybe I'll speak to my observation of the first Obama election in 2008 I live in Chicago and that was very much what was happening at the time so I along with many others were really surprised by the engagement of the youth particularly in politics in a way they had never been before around issues that mattered to them and I think for me that was a real turning point in terms of the next generation looking to you know actively reflecting what's their responsibility in their community what's their response what are they going to do effectively so I've seen it yes very much my answer is yes to you I've seen it in this generation I'm seeing it more as people are getting involved in more involved in politics and more involved in their local community I think people are feeling much more responsible whether they do that through their paid work or their non-paid work is still a question but it does fit in the portfolio of their life it's interesting because this whole idea of new notions of truth we have a couple of people on the panel who work primarily in communication design and how do you how are you addressing that within your own work does it come out are you explicit or how does it are you part of a larger conversation around this I'm not quite sure I understand the question well in your own work around communication do you embed any kind of new notions of are you explicit in in trying to convey this idea of I guess with algorithms and the conversation that's happening you're not helping here maybe this is not a question for you maybe this is more of a question for Gabriel I know you engage larger audiences and often have a position take a position on different things does this realize this whole idea of new notions of truth get realized in the work that you do do you mean when you say new notions of truth do you mean the way that or the absence of truth well I think design is best when it's truthful and I think that and this is something that we deal with every day just kind of working in the space of technology and so I think it's an ongoing conversation I don't think that there I think that we're all I mean in every space that we're working and we're all kind of confronted with this kind of new reality that's kind of set in and what I think is going to happen is I think that people are going to understand that they do have the power to change it I'm actually surprised that it has evolved and in a way so in the midst of what seems to be a very kind of like passive acceptance because truth is really important and information is really important and so it's really complicated well it's interesting because you have a studio that also has a gallery space in it and you choose to explore different ideas and history and all that does that come up in what you select to bring out to the public as opposed to where your studio you have clients or you create these public programs does it get expressed any way within those different venues well so there are there is so much change happening right now and we connect with a lot of people who are making that change happen and we're really inspired by people working in the space of activism and social change and a lot of the shows that we feature in our studio center on that we've we just had a show based on the book by Bonnie Siegler Signs of Resistance which is about the history of protest we've also worked with Mirko Illek and Milton Glaser we did a show that was also centered on protest so we do think that this space is really relevant and an important one and actually how this kind of dialogue came about was we were in the wake of the Trump election and we were all sitting around feeling really sad less than positive and we were like okay well how can we bring design to this how can we actually address this with design and it's interesting because I teach design history and so I'm actually engaging these types of questions in these types of questions with students constantly and I'm sometimes surprised that they don't see more opportunity to bring design into this equation sometimes I think they're so overwhelmed that they're like it's almost like they don't have that aha moment where they're like I'm a designer this thing that I'm doing is powerful I could actually bring this to the conversation I have something to add and so I'm constantly showing them examples of yeah me too I'm pushing all the time we have a show up at school right now in the main gallery on the west side Art is witness political illustration in the last two years Adele Rodriguez, Steve Brodner put it together it's all these great illustrators and designers it's pretty much a Trump show and it's there's a little social media campaign brewing for one of my colleagues that you'll see soon a tiny Trump and he's cut out these tiny trumps that will be planted around the city and around the world in a few days and we've got some little grassroots things like that going on so it's yes we're engaging and we're engaging as artists which is fantastic so there is this polarized discourse that's happening we read about it every day it's right in our faces do you think as designers across the country we have Seattle, New York Chicago, Los Angeles there's ways that we can begin to use design to talk to each other so we have every year Design for America puts on a leadership studio in which we invite our 40 different students from 40 different universities to campus as well as some of their mentors and advisors and I have to tell you it's always such an interesting and we do a little design charrette and then we do some connection our goal is to have them all connected so while we work across the country we want this opportunity for them to connect and what always strikes me is when we're doing the design charrette how do we frame the design challenge that's socially oriented in a way that's non-political so for example we had engagement we had looking at how can design improve the voting experience as an example and we're very conscious that people are coming from different places and we want to we know we're going to have hard conversations regardless of whatever the topic is because people are bringing their own values in but we're ready for it and we're excited to engage and people report really feeling comfortable engaging especially when they have a shared process design they can talk through their different values and perspectives on contentious issues like voting we've done work in education in healthcare all of those and it's been really exciting for me to see young people being able to talk with each other with different perspectives but a shared passion for using design how do you keep getting political right now when it only gets political it gets political it's respectful it's respect it's political with respect being in the same room having conversations and I think that's what we quite honestly to make this a political conversation that's what we need we need conversation we've been talking a lot about the next generation and and how students or people that are working or thinking about all kinds of ways to engage but how do you think designers and creatives can increase their ability to make positive change in the future do you think there's something gleaned from your experience that you would recommend or codify or teach your students or your workers or your makers I am you know last few years I have been really interested in kind of communicating my ideas with the consumers so I have been making workshops for them to understand what it's like to mend clothing or make small objects that we sell with leftover fabrics for example, I just did a workshop on Saturday making what we call Corazon Milagros the work that I do in Oaxaca I brought here I brought scrub fabrics and it was so interesting to see the different age groups I mean we're talking about age starting 4 years old to 70 years old both young kids to design students possibly to you know, museum goers partaking in making and I think that's really important for me to share the idea of making and idea of designing that needs to go to your home it can be part of one's life and I think through that process by one learning to make and experiencing things making with the hands I think you make different choices as consumers because I think as a designer, yes I think it's really important how we design but share with the consumers how you can be a consumer and I think that's one of the areas that I didn't really think about in the past but last 5 years I have been definitely thinking about and I definitely see how my consumers have become much more I don't want to use the word smart but more informed consumers and they make different choices like shopping bags they refuse plastic bags we don't use plastic bags but already they come with understanding they are making choices and I think that's really important for me to share that I really appreciate Dosa's design and what Christina do with local production in India and other places I think the message Christina's design deliver is so powerful because it is made of not relying on the huge fashion industry it doesn't have much to do with cat work that's so so strong on media and the technique and production involved in the making is something very familiar it's a domestic rather making fabrics textiles, making clothes and all those and Christina's doing traditional traditional production method and with the workers there is giving me as a consumer message there I may be able to make it or I may be able to participate and it's wonderful it's happening in India and I'm a textile conservator at the MAD so we are very keen to understand what's the original production involved material technology involved in it and she is successfully preserving it and also successfully commercializing it and continue to be produced without getting extinct because of the financial pressure and you want to say something? Yeah I do because I'm not sure many of you but like I grew up making my own clothes so this is a very recent history that we made our own clothes so I think it's a fantastic place for me to share with you that you can also make the concept of making does not necessarily have to be at the level of designer and that's what's really important for me to share that message that we could all practice being a maker How much time do you spend traveling out? Really bad but seven months of the year That's the question I want to participate in the making process myself I live in I just moved to Westchester from the city and I found that there are more available resources than the city environment I used to but still it's not much production and manufacturing tradition has been preserved around and I heard remotely environment somebody's investing somebody's whole life to preserve some old fashioned weaving studio and things so Cristina is doing wonderfully amazing all over the globe but what do you think about the situation in America? Well you know what I came here when I was 14 years old and of course I knew how to sew a little bit but really you know where I learned how to sew? Hormac in high school so for me this is one of the things that I really want to promote in these classes that are not necessarily academic driven but life driven back to school so you know I've been giving a lot of workshops with a different level of designers and students with different disciplines ending for example so I think that is the way to go back is to bring thinking about school system education in high school junior high school level I'm going to add that I think it's not only education but what you're all doing compliments that there are three women and one fabulous man on this panel is really having more female role models I come from a product design background which is dominated by men and I continually I have my students say we have all these speakers come in oh there's another man and I know it's so powerful when we have women come in try to find a person of color yeah well that's right yeah very difficult but I think the more diverse role models we can have the more young people will say look I can do that I can see myself there but we need the pipeline problem is a big issue for design I feel like I get that opportunity now as an older person, as a person of color as a woman like it's my responsibility to do something if you don't speak up what I didn't know to do when I was younger I know now and this next stage of my career is spent doing that thank you we have a question over here I'm approaching this from interior design perspective and back to Christina's point and the comment posed earlier I think HGTV has done a lot to promote interior design and do it yourself and it's kind of taken over my industry in a sense that we are all trying to figure out a different way to really perform our business and to be designers and to Christina's point I do think that learning how to sew is a lost it's a something that I also learned in homec my daughter is just peaking an interest in and I applaud that I think people need to go back and really learn how to do those trades I don't know the right word but that our mothers did that our grandmothers and great aunts did it's a lost art so I have a very concrete to do for everybody here if you have children or you don't it doesn't matter for Halloween sew your costume that's what we're doing in my family we insist so my 8 year old son is out there so if you're looking for something to start doing tomorrow teach someone to sew their Halloween costume if you're into Halloween we can take more questions are there other questions out in the audience what about you know at school we've got digital embroidery and stuff like that what's your what's your take on all I try to use all medium that's available to do best work so for example I just finished a project at a museum in Palm Springs silk screening digital printing hand embroidery applique recycling all of it for me it's not just a one choice it is the best choice for what is going to look like at the end and also for me I like to consider who's making it and what kind of relationship that I could have with them I tend to work with a lot of men believe it or not most of the invoders that I work with in India are Muslim men and it's so interesting that we don't consider men can do hand work I have to say their skill is so beyond and in my mending classes art making classes last week the boys were so good at it my hat is off to you men I think you guys should start sewing really there is something about the way you approach sewing and again there's a slight difference there is something about it that had a different quality I had to take pictures to keep it and I can't tell you exactly what but there is something different and the boys took it with a different stride so I was very curious why in our culture the modern culture men don't sew because tailors are men right the question my dad sewed and my mother let me fix those curtains I think that's so cool isn't it so I have a question for the panel the panel the broader theme was social good and so my question to you is how do you define what is good what shapes that definition for you and how do you keep track of your unconscious bias when you are thinking about what is socially good that's a fabulous question and one obviously that weighs all of us down of it because it's tough the way I think about it for myself and the way I teach my students to really simply think of all the stakeholders in your design and what really comes easily to all of us are the ones who are going to benefit oh it's this person and this group and that group etc and benefit in some socially oriented way and then we think about negatively the impact by this and that's harder to that's a harder conversation to have but important to discuss let's say what would happen if we develop this new product or service who's going to be negatively impacted who's going to lose a job who's going to have more traffic in their neighborhood I even think with all your traveling I was just noted told the other day that that actually airplanes are significant the travel that we do as leaders is one of the worst environmental impacts we can possibly have and out does every other attempt we have and it's been making me really think what's the tradeoff I'm making to be physically here versus on a screen talking to you all and who's benefiting from this and who's not benefiting from this and trying to decide given my values at that time what the best tradeoff is I'm not going to lie to you that I think every action that we take positively impacts some and negatively impacts others I think to think otherwise is it's false I don't mean to look at you I'm just ready for somebody else to take on this I'm desperate for a new approach if you have one I want to learn I feel really lucky all of the clients that we work with we believe in what they're doing we really let our principles guide us and so that's really how we define what we consider positive social impact I mean and that's everything from working with an organization focused on climate change an organization, an activist organization centered on women's reproductive rights many cultural organizations all of the people that we work with we actually have this personal connection to and so the result is the work that we do we're very personally invested in and I really do think that's kind of the kind of defining thing about our studio so I think that's how we're kind of making those decisions and I think that's really what that means to us I like being part of an organization I like being part of school of visual arts, being part of a college and art school in particular that's been great these last few years I've always been involved in the teaching part to be on the administrative side and to feel like the things that we're creating at Visual Arts Press for incoming students for existing students and anybody interested in art I feel like I know this audience really well and it's a pleasure to be working for that audience I love the other audiences I've worked for but this is different I can help to get a kid to make this amazing decision to go to college and change their life and just listening to you talk you can hear that personal connection and I think it's interesting I've gotten snippets of that from everyone's responses tonight that everyone is just so personally invested in what they're doing and that really is a key thing that drives the decisions that they make and the choices that they make I think for me, like we said I travel a lot one decision that I've made to slow the process down and to really analyze every decision I make which could be let's say in a case like going to India and work it's been interesting because I decided not to go to India as often as I do and once I go, I stay much longer that's one and try to communicate with the modern technology and computer and so kind of created this dialogue via email and what's happened by making choice not to travel as much as I do I think without realizing it they are becoming now having to make the design decisions therefore I think they are kind of gaining design sense by me slowing down the process and I see that there's a lot of a creative element that is coming in that I didn't expect it before which I'm so grateful for thinking about what kind of impact that we make as a designer who has to travel and work and fly around and I think slowing down I think that has been the best kind of new way of looking at how to be has been a great help for me it sounds like you're empowering them yeah for sure I think we've run out of time I think that's a great note to end on empowerment and slowing down especially here in New York City during national design week so I want to thank our National Design Award winners Gail Anderson Christina Kim Civilization and Design for America join me in thanking her