Grain at Design Within Reach's M+D+F Exhibition!

We just found out that our new chair, Cafe America (designed by James) was selected to be shown at the DWR Presents: M+D+F 2009 exhibition in Seattle on May 7th! The above image is of an early prototype of the chair which uses chain-link fence as its main structure. We are so lucky to be working with the amazing 12th Avenune Iron custom forging and fabrication shop on the final piece. We are hoping to engineer it for flat-pack shipping as well as re-use old chain-link. Very exciting!

Read about our work in the DWR Presents: M+D+F 2008 exhibition here and here where we won the Green Award. 

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Ty at Greenward

We are thrilled to have our Ty Recyclable Shower Curtain at Greenward in Cambridge, Massachusetts! Greenward is a locally-owned shop run by husband-and-wife team Scott Walker and Simone Alpen who "strive to be responsible citizens of the planet and our neighborhood." Their specialty is eco-modern goods which they define as "always elegantly designed, attractive and funtional." If you can't make it to Cambridge, check out their great web shop here. 

> shop

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Calling all designers...

Our dear friend Erika Carmichael is looking for submissions for an underground independent design exhibition that she is co-curating called Model Citizens in New York this May 16, 17 and 18.

The exhibition space is around the corner from the Jacob Javits Center during the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. The goal is to celebrate young up-and-coming designers who are not represented at ICFF.

The deadline is April 12th. For more info contact Erika at info@modelcitizensnyc.com. 

PEVA vs. HDPE

We have had a few questions about Ty - specifically how it is different from the PVC-free Polyethylene Vinyl Acetate (PEVA) shower curtains already available at many retailers such as Target and Ikea.

Here's what we know and why we developed Ty...

While PEVA claims to be both PVC-free and recyclable, we've found it difficult to locate information on how to recycle PEVA curtains. Being #2 High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) plastic, Ty is PVC-free and readily recyclable all across the U.S. (even curbside in many locations).

If your local recycling program does not pick up #2 plastic, you can mail Ty back to the material manufacturer or use one of these sources for HDPE recycling.

Currently, it is not recommended to machine wash PEVA shower curtains and they are just as likely to develop mold and mildew as vinyl. Ty is mold and mildew resistant, extremely durable and even machine washable. We expect Ty to have a much longer lifespan than existing alternatives.

We also make and source Ty right here in the U.S., so there is less transportation in the process.

Hope this helps!

> shop

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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!!

> shop

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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!

> shop

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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...

More on Ferry Terminal Walkway

Here are a few quick images of our model for the Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal Walkway:

Day.

Detail.

Night.

Video.

Cellipack - Better Cell Phone Packaging by Grain.

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.

Bainbridge Ferry Walkway Proposal

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.

Design for Local Sustainability

Check out the final projects of Sami's Design for Social Entrepreneurship class at RISD on their website! Amazing work!

New York Bicycle Rack Design

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.

Cool, now lets ride...

New Material for Blu Homes

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.

Grain also did the logo and branding work for Blu prior to their initial launch back in July. So far, so good for this excellent young company. We'll keep you blogged.

> Blu - Flex Media
> Blu - Origin
> Blu - Retreat
> Grain

Social Entrepreneurship Workshop at A Better World By Design

Over 60 participants showed up for the Social Entrepreneurship Workshop led by Grain at the A Better World by Design Conference in Providence last weekend. The workshop asked participants to think about the many un-met design opportunities that could service communities here in the US. Content for the workshop was based on Sami Nerenburg's current studio at RISD, Design for Social Entrepreneurship. It was great for us all to be back at RISD/Brown. 

Sami ended the workshop with an inspiring quote from President-Elect, Barack Obama, that I would like to share again here:

"I ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."

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.

Thanks to everyone who participated and to A Better World By Design for inviting us!

Grain Workshop at A Better World By Design

Grain will be leading a workshop as part of the A Better World By Design Conference this weekend in Providence. The following is a description of our workshop. It is based on the curriculumn of Sami's current design studio, Design for Social Entreprenuership, at RISD: 

Design for Social Entrepreneurship 

Grain Design: Sami Nerenberg, Brittany Kleinman, James Minola, Chelsea Green

Grain Design will travel with you to introduce and explore the meaning of the UN Millennium Goals and how these as a framework can be used to uncover overlooked design opportunities. After jumping into the world of design you will walk out of this workshop filled with entrepreneurial ideas as well as a process to consider how the power of design and design thinking can be used to address some of the leading problems of our day – internationally and domestically.

Grain Announces Deep Energy Concept

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)

Sami at Better World By Design Confrence!

Grain's Sami Nerenberg to be speaking as a panelist for the Better World by Design Conference going on next month at RISD/Brown Univeristy in Providence, RI! Sami will be one of dozens of world-class professionals and academics in this milestone conference that will change the way you think about global crises and push the limits of user-centric, affordable design. It looks like it will be quite an event. Sami will be speaking on the Social Entrepreneurship panel (see information below). To attend, pre-register via their website.

Social Entrepreneurship (Sunday, November 9, 11:15-12:00pm)
How can business strategy and technology work together to better the world? What is the relationship among social entrepreneurs, designers, and other experts?

> Better World by Design Confrence
> Grain

Design for Social Entrepreneurship (DeSE)

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:

"A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change."

You can follow their work all semester on their class blog. It is sure to be an innovative course!! Good luck Sami!!

Re+Vision featured on Worldchanging Seattle!!

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.