Ty in the blogosphere...

We want to send a HUGE thank you to everyone who blogged about Ty last week. It made our launch especially exciting and brought a lot of visitors (and buyers) to our site and shop. 

See Ty on Core77 here. We love you Core, thank you for your support!

Read about Ty on Apartment Therapy's Re-Nest here. Thank you Maxwell + Cambria!

Check out Ty on the HOW Magazine blog here. Thanks Megan!

Thanks to Matt Grisby of Rhode Island's Industrial Design Society of America (and Ecolect) for including Ty in their newsletter last week. 

We would also like to thank all our family, friends (and strangers!!) who got online and purchased their own Ty last week. We are excited to process all your orders as well as get your feedback. 

Keep the word spreading!!

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Ty - Recyclable Shower Curtain

We're celebrating the launch of our new online shop and our first in-house product, the Ty Recyclable Shower Curtain!  

Ty is a simple plastic shower curtain. Unlike other shower curtains made of vinyl, Ty will not off-gas in your home (learn more about the problems with vinyl here). Also unlike vinyl, Ty breathes, making it less likely to grow gross mold and mildew. To clean, use soap and water or even throw Ty in the washing machine and air dry (no dryer please). Ty is stronger than vinyl. Ty will last a very long time and then can be recycled. 

Ty is made of 100% high-density polyethylene (HDPE) #2 plastic. Often used for milk jugs, HDPE is the most commonly recycled plastic and is PVC free. 

There is more info available on the shop page.  Tell a friend!

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What is Good Design Now?

This months issue of Metropolis Magazine is a special product issue titled What is Good Design Now?. We were happy to see our Sami Nerenberg quoted in the Products for a New Age article (p.96-99). When asked about her recent studio Design for Social Entrepreneurship at RISD Sami said:

"There is a real hunger to work on these projects. Two years ago I was part of a minority at RISD interested in these issues. Today students are looking at our economy, looking at where consumerism has led us. They want to shift away from producing excess and do something that makes them feel useful."

It was also cool to see (in the same article) the Baby Incubator by Design that Matters that James worked on with Mike Hahn while at RISD. See his contribution on the Grain website here.

Hello Intern!

In partnership with Brown’s Environmental Justice outreach group and RISD, Grain is developing an illustrated book depicting Rhode Island stories of Environmental Justice. The final result of the project will be used as an educational tool for afterschool programs on environmental health and possibly used for the upcoming Community Environmental College. 

To work on this project, Grain has adopted an intern! Please welcome Bee as we introduce her here. Bee will be working with Sami Nerenberg to illustrate the RI stories throughout the Spring semester.

 

Bee (Beeyun Sally Jo) is a senior in graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design. Originally from South Korea, she moved to Germany when she was in 6^th grade. She considers herself a balanced by-product of this global epoch and as a designer believes it is her responsibility to create projects of socially redeeming purposes. With her core interest in e-waste management, in partnership with Brown University, she is currently developing her Degree Project to create an active e-waste collection system on the RISD campus.

Bee’s experiences include interning at SIEMENS (Frankfurt), INNOCEAN advertising company (Seoul), and Teaching Assistant in RISD's foundation classes. She is also a part of RISD’s Respond|Design group, a community of artists and designers to create better solutions to environmental and social problems.  

As a small taste of what is to come, below is a quick sketch Bee did to visually depict the term "environmental justice." Stay tuned for more...