Do-good design
All over the world, individuals and small organizations alike are trying to do more with less: figuring out how to stretch a small budget to cover their basic needs and make progress possible.
The answer to a lot of the challenges they face is good design — smart, creative solutions that make the most of materials at hand. Some very clever, simple, functional approaches to solving big problems around the world include:
The Embrace Infant Warmer: At birth, many infants need incubators, which are often prohibitively expensive and not available in developing countries. The Embrace Infant Warmer (shown above) costs $200 to produce, is designed to provide six hours of stable warmth after charging for 30 minutes, and can ship easily to many parts of the world.
GiraDora: In a developing country, doing a load of laundry often means hand washing each piece of clothing individually, which can take five to six hours (for a full load) and lead to wrist injuries and infections. The GiraDora costs under $40 and reduces washing time to a fraction of what it once was. The washer is pedal-powered and uses significantly less water than traditional methods since items can be washed together.
PapaMaji Ceramic Water Filters: To help people in Kenya access clean water, students at Penn State’s Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship program modified a water-filtration system made of clay that removes 99.9% of bacteria. Their system, which uses locally sourced materials, is based on a design created by Potters for Peace and can be built in two days for $200.
It’s fascinating to see the way good design can improve lives, but it’s not surprising: “form follows function” has been a core principle of good design since the turn of the 20th century. Good design combined with clever thinking can help solve many tough problems — whether the problem at hand is filtering your drinking water or gaining visibility for a worthy social cause. As a branding and design firm, Thinkso also tries to find smart ways to solve our clients’ problems, making sure to work within their resources and keep in mind their big-picture organizational goals.
Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation
When designing materials for the Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation’s annual fundraising gala, Thinkso faced a challenge: As an organization dedicated to helping sick children, CBTF felt that showing images of their patients would be exploitative. And, although professional photography services fit CBTF’s mission, they didn’t fit their budget.
Our solution? We came up with a clever — and inexpensive — way to tug at donors’ heartstrings without showing sick kids. We asked friends and family to donate photos of their happy, healthy children for inclusion in the CBTF materials. The photos we received felt authentic and down-to-earth, and they reminded our target audience about the importance of childhood unhindered by illness, which was the perfect way to visually reaffirm CBTF’s goals.
S’well
Another client came to us with a great product and a laudable goal: To sell a sleekly designed water bottle that maintains its contents at a consistent temperature for hours and get those who purchased it to commit to no longer buying water in disposable plastic bottles. Additionally, a portion of her revenue would go to improving access to safe water, hygiene, and sanitation in developing countries.
But there were a lot of do-good water bottles out there, and she needed our help to set hers apart.
We started with the bottle’s name. Inspired by the idea of a gathering force, and of course, the focus on water, we named the bottle “S’well.” To make it more distinctive, we added a twist. An apostrophe shaped like a water droplet created a conjunction that stood in for the organization’s core beliefs: “Sip well. Serve well. Sleep well.” Thinkso also designed the website and packaging for the bottle. As a result of our singular branding — and the client’s PR prowess — the S’well bottle has risen to the top of green movement products.
