My design work varies from the poetic to the pragmatic. With self-initiated projects, I tend to design for the domestic sphere, at the scale of the individual, and often without a lot of technology. My academic projects involve greater ethnographic research and participatory methods and tend toward systems-, service-, and strategic-design. The images below represents the "making" aspect of my design practice, often in collaboration with Stephanie M. Tharp and our studio, materious.
This project joins two symbols of corporate America: the briefcase and the paper shredder. We are living in an age where trust is extremely low; the pillars of capitalism are standing on soft ground. How does a society that is founded upon belief in the corporation reconcile its failures? What happens to the social capital that once accrued to the successful business person? Are greed and dishonesty a necessary cost of a system that has afforded so much for so many? And who all are implicated, as Nobel-Prize-winning economist, Milton Friedman emphasized, the successful corporate bottom line benefits employee salaries, shareholder dividends, and is often a consequence of fair, if not lower prices paid by the consumer?
JUST IN CASE
Briefcase with integrated, hand-cranked paper shredder
2010
NEXT PROJECT
This project was created in the wake of the Enron scandal. The papers shredded are copies of the court-disclosed documents.