My wonderful Nana discovered I had a list of books/music I wanted on my Amazon.com Wish List, and she bought me a bunch of it for Christmas. One book didn’t come until a couple of weeks ago, and that was the Design for the Other 90% book I wanted. This book came out of an exhibition by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum of the same name (check it out here). The exhibition brought together designers and engineers from around the world designing for the “5.8 billion people, or 90%, [who] have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted…”
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I have been hesitant about buying makeup since, well, I went a bit overboard in the glitter department in middle school. I don’t really wear it that often, but I’m interested in investing in some nice new stuff. The problem lies in searching for products that are eco-friendly AND good for my health. How do you google that without sifting through message boards galore? Well, I just found this website called Good Guide, they rate everything from food and personal care products to cleaning products and toys. They rate products on three scales from 1-10: Health, Environment, and Society (ethics, safety, etc). They allow for user reviews and you can purchase many of the products from links off the site. They also go a bit further and clear up some common myths about ingredients and production and help make being conscious about what we buy a bit easier.  So c’mon consumer America, jump on board! Find out where your money goes.

I recently received an email (thanks Bob!) about this campaign and thought it was definitely blog-worthy. The World Food Programme has released a very powerful statement: for the first time in history, the number of hungry people worldwide will exceed one billion. So, naturally, they are calling people to action. Their Billion4Billion campaign revolves around the use of Social Networking tools to get the word out about the overwhelming hunger issue. Powerful stuff…

Find out how you can help here…

For all of those who came, we want to extend a huge thank you. We appreciate your enthusiasm, commitment, and are just plain proud to know ya. You all get us excited about our role as designers in the community.

For those of you new to Idea Incubator, Hatchet Design hosted the first Incubation period last Friday after work. There was beer and pizza (fuel), and a flurry of ideas. The goal was to throw around any and all ideas, big and small, that may lead to future projects.

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While I was at the University of Florida, I had the opportunity of working with Graphic Design Associate Professor Maria Rogal and 9 other students on a real-world project based in Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Our MINT class, an elite interactive design studio of 10, traveled there in February 2009 and got to meet some truly amazing people. Our mission was to learn as much as we could from them and apply what we learned about their culture to figure out a way we could step in and make a difference.

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Until recently, I too have fallen victim to blaming faceless monster corporations for many evils in this world, especially in regards to sustainability. But lately, I’ve come to find out that many of them are making huge strides towards becoming more eco-friendly. Walmart, for example, is striving to use renewable energy and is now the “largest private producer of solar power in the United States”, according to Good Magazine. I know, I couldn’t believe it either. They are making a push towards all Energy Star appliances, and are in the process of making a scorecard to test the sustainability of their suppliers, which has now become an example for other corporations. AND, Walmart was the sole carrier of HP’s recently released laptop that came packaged in an over the shoulder sling bag, eliminating waste completely. Sorry PC Hipsters, they’ve already sold out.

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