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: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 6th 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...
Regular cellular phone packaging is excessive. As phones themselves continue to shrink in size, packaging does not. Phone buyers don’t even see the packaging until after they have bought their phone, as most point-of-purchase displays feature tester phones. The process is akin to buying shoes.
Considering packaging and shipping is vital to designing greener products. By re-evaluating the material, form, and content of traditional cell phone packaging, Cellipack is able to reduce shipping costs while minimizing waste, improving recyclablity, and putting twice as much product in the same amount of space. 
Cellipack features two layers of formed wire mesh which form an impact absorbing package without the need for additional padded materials or inserts. A recycled content paper band holds the mesh layers together while providing space for product identification and barcodes. The modular, nesting design separates the phone and A/C adapter into separate packages to maximize space savings in shipping. Multilingual digital manuals can be downloaded to the phone or computer, decreasing shipping weight, printing costs, and waste.
Highly efficient and recyclable, Cellipack also reduces the cell phone’s embodied energy from worldwide shipping.
Update: We've been chosen as one of three finalists! More info will follow soon.
Grain submitted the above sketch for Bainbridge Island's Ferry Terminal Walkway artist call organized by the Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council. The concept is to drape laser cut sheets of Tyvek from the ceiling forming a fluid structure evoking low hanging clouds or gentle waves.
The structure would use the long perspective of the space as an advantage, providing a fluid experience that changes as the viewer moves through the space. There will be multiple scales of interest to the piece, allowing viewers who spend a longer period of time waiting for the boat to discover new details with each visit. A series of iconic Bainbridge images will be used to cut a pattern throughout each drape. These icons will include emblems such as the ferry, strawberries, fireworks, bicycles, deer, and more! We see these playful icons as an opportunity to honor Bainbridge – both past and present – for Islanders and visitors alike.
The decision to use Tyvek is many. It is actually the same material used for Fed-Ex envelopes, so it is durable, scrub-able and weather proof. It can be easily laser cut and sewn. It is relatively inexpensive. It is light weight and somewhat translucent. It is heat and fire safe – often used for residential insulation. Most importantly to us, it can be taken down and re-used after the installation period. For example, it could be cut and re-used as street banners or made into bags. Finally, once it has seen its last use, Tyvek, as a #2 plastic, is among the most easily recyclable plastics.
Check out the final projects of Sami's Design for Social Entrepreneurship class at RISD on their website! Amazing work!
Grain recently entered a competition sponsored by the New York Department of Transportation to design a new bicycle rack for the streets of New York. Our design - dubbed The Milton - was intended to increase the use of bicycles for transportation by creating something iconic, inspiring, fun, and practical for cyclists to use. Watch a video (bottom of post) visually describing our entry, and check out some pics (above & below). It comes in two sizes and reads like 3D text.
Grain recently created a series of seven informational packets for Blu Homes (links to three examples below). The packets cover their entire line of environmentally conscious prefab homes and are available via the Blu Homes website. They of course do custom design and architecture as well for those us who so desire. It's the way we like it: built small, built green, & built easy.
Sami also participated in a panel discussion entitled Social Entrepreneurship with Alan Harlam, Director of Social Entrepreneuership at the Brown Swearer Center, Caitlin Cohen, Co-Founder of Mali Health Organizing Project, and Marina Kim from Ashoka's Global Academy University Program. To read more about that check out her guest blog on NextBillion.net here.
The Deep Energy (DE) concept opens up a new category in renewable energy. Sustainable electricity is generated utilizing deep ocean pressures by a process that produces no pollution or waste of any kind DE is the first example of what we’re calling baropelagics because the process relies on the compression of air under deep ocean pressures to generate electricity. Amazingly, this clean technology has the potential to meet or surpas the output of a nuclear power generator!
Unaffected by season or climate, DE can be installed in almost a limitless number of ocean locations worldwide. Additionally, the ability to store compressed air for later use will maximize the income generating potential of DE. Our hope is that DE will inspire companies and engineers to make this green energy concept reality. Please contact Grain for more information.
> Grain
> Deep Energy Baropelagics (bigger video)
Tomorrow marks the start of the semester for Rhode Island School of Design's new advanced studio Design for Social Entrepreneurship (DeSE) led by Grain's own Sami Nerenburg in the Department of Industrial Design. What is social entrepreneurship, you ask? According to Sami's syllabus:
Big thanks to Julia Steinberger for her amazing post "Teens Envision New Spaces For Seattle" on Worldchanging Seattle regarding the Seattle Art Museum's Re+Vision: Design Your (Neighbor)hood led by Grain's Chelsea Green. Final teen projects from the program are still up in the Alvord Art Lab at the Olympic Sculpture Park.
Come check out the Re+Vision: Design Your (Neighbor)hood final designs at the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle. The reception/presentation is August 7th from 6:00 - 8:00 pm.
The Rhode Island School of Design has asked our Sami Nerenberg to develop and teach a new course in RISD's industrial design department! Her answer? An innovative new senior studio: Design for Social Entrepreneurship. Reading the course description (below) it sounds like it will be an amazing and inspirational experience for the lucky RISD students who get to take her class. Makes me want to go back to school! We'll keep you posted as the course develops.
Our friends over at Blu Homes have just launched their new website! 
Grain's tireless adventurer and market guru, Brit, will be spreading the word on global markets for wejetset - a truely modern travel magazine. Check out her first post Market Culture: Chichicastenango, Guatemala.
We are up and running - trekking across the city taking in art, design, and sunshine!! We are entering our third week tomorrow!! Check out our blog to see what we have been up to...
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