Design is Human

Chris Hardy is an American industrial designer based in Atlanta. Born in Houston in 1984, he pursued an education of design, receiving a BFA in Industrial Design from the College for Creative Studies and a Masters of Design from the School of Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. After returning to the United States in 2009, he began his career as a freelance designer collaborating with furniture and lighting manufacturers as well as interior design firms.

His work has been exhibited at Salone de Mobile in Milan, Frankfurt Light + Building, Neocon in Chicago, Wanted Design during New York Design Week and Montreal’s SIDIM. He has been featured in design publications including: Metropolis, Dwell, Wallpaper, Surface, Architectural Digest, Interior Design, Frame, Hospitality Design, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Dr. Pierce Gordon—An innovation catalyst, researcher, facilitator, and evaluator. He specializes in interdisciplinary research that unpacks how communities value, support, and practice innovation in social justice and international development. His research and consultation work has worked to track and support the field's spread, complexity, and emergence. Whether conducting ethnographic analyses and facilitation projects in the Botswana innovation ecosystem, or by co-founding Reflex Design Collective, an equity design consultancy that's worked for creative social justice in the Bay Area, his core aim is to critically catalyze good social change.

Atlanta commercial real estate broker and cultural developer Gene Kansas joins MA!'s Elayne DeLeo for a conversation on how his childhood in the gumbo of New Orleans inspired his love of storytelling, his work to save the historic Atlanta Daily World Building in Sweet Auburn, and the responsibility of developers and humankind to create "affordable everything".

In his 20+ years in Atlanta commercial real estate — and inspired by a colorful, deep-fried, parade-filled, culturally rich upbringing in New Orleans, LA — Gene Kansas has garnered a reputation as a champion of historic preservation, adaptive reuse, community building, and storytelling through the built environment. Each Gene Kansas project aims to blend an appreciation of culture and history with creative, responsible, and vital refashioning that brings new relevance to space and how it is used by clients, neighborhoods, and the city.

In our last podcast of 2020, Elayne DeLeo spoke with multidisciplinary designer and researcher Victoria Ayo. They discuss why designers need to create with intention for greater equity, and her research on maternal mortality in the United States and how it disproportionately affects black women across all socioeconomic levels. This research led her to create the pregnancy care app Kindred that provides doula-informed care and support for a fully supportive pregnancy experience available to all mothers.

Victoria is a multidisciplinary designer and researcher based out of New York City. She is native New Yorker with roots in Georgia and a passion for great food! She studied Digital Media at the Georgia Institute of Technology before returning to New York to work as an Experience Design Consultant designing for Bulge Bracket Investment banks, Supermarkets, Agencies and more.

She recently completed her MFA in Products of Design at the School of Visual Arts where she explored the ways design could be used to create more equitable maternal healthcare for black women.

She is currently designing listening experiences at Spotify.

Elayne DeLeo has a conversation with Andrew Graves, Director of Ortus Economic Research on what defines a design economy, the data and outcomes of his research for the Design Council UK, how design is key to future economic growth and positive societal change, and why cities should invest in a study of their creative industries to understand the impact of design on business growth, real estate value, new investments, employment, GVA and exports, policy decisions, and the use and under-use of design within the economy.

About Andrew Graves

Andrew Graves is an economic development strategy and research consultant with 25 years’ experience of evidencing, designing and evaluating public policies, strategies, programmes and projects. He has worked in consultancy his entire career, working closely with clients from a range of organisations and across many disciplines to improve economic outcomes for places and sectors.

Andrew brings a wide range of skills – technical, analytical and process – to assess the economic performance and potential of places, sectors, and markets, and to develop solutions for delivering increased competitiveness, productivity and economic resilience.

In 2015, the Design Council UK commissioned Andrew and Ortus to deliver new insight into the skills held by designers across the economy and how these link to productivity, innovation and economic performance for the UK economy. In 2017, MA!, the organizer of Atlanta Design Festival commissioned Ortus to conduct a 1st phase of research on the economic impact of design and creative industries in Atlanta with plans for a full study to be completed by Q1 2022.

Elayne DeLeo speaks with Jason James, VP of Design for Instacart about his path to a career in design and the reality of "imposter syndrome" when success comes early. He also shares his insights on how businesses need to leverage design to build culture and foster collaboration, what he does to spark creativity in his team and for himself, and the design thinking and principles underlying Instacart’s approach to COVID and how they continue to guide their design into the future.

Bio:

Jason James (he/him) is VP of Design at Instacart, a grocery delivery and pick-up service. He leads the evolution of products and brand, along with research.

Previously, he served as VP of Design at Thumbtack, a marketplace for connecting homeowners and local professionals to get projects done. He developed brand and product design across their marketplace. He also was an early design leader at Earnest, Intercom, Kin, and DoneDone.

Jason is currently a mentor at Made in the Future, a program for emerging under-represented designers. There he helps mentees build their careers and get to the next level. He studied Design & Visual Communications at Northern Illinois University and studied Graphic Design abroad at Akademia Sztuk Pięknych in Poland.

Jason shares time between Oakland and Chicago with his wife and two cats – Whiskey and Ringo.