Final Business Plan "Re-Salvage" - Marketing analytics component
Sustainability Focus and Project Objective:
To Create a sustainable business plan and business model for an own-created / designed business. The proposed business from this exploration, Re-Salvage was designed to be a business that focused on increasing community engagement and cultivating a "maker" community, with an emphasis on sustainable creation and craftsmanship. As my focus professional is heavy around textiles, there was also a component to Re-Salvage that dealt with repurposing textile waste in the community as well as a focus on sustainable raw material procurement and manufacturing. This particular portion of the business plan focuses on the marketing component of launching a sustainable business, a critical component of understanding and "selling" sustainability in the professional world. Throughout the MCAD MASD program I have learned the power of effective visual communication - although this project in particular called for a traditional paper format, It could have benefited greatly from better visual interpretation and explanation (a "side-skill" I picked up throughout the program).
Semester:
2015 - SPRING
Class:
Innovation Tools and Techniques
Project Name:
Eco-Develop Tool
Sustainability Focus and Project Objective:
The Eco-Develop Tool is a mock-up of an interactive database focused and design to give better visibility to sustainable materials and sourcing. The objective of this project was to create an innovative and easy-to-use tool that could help artisans and craftspeople find environmentally conscious materials on a local level, reducing cost and environmental impact without compromising quality. As someone who works in the textile industry, this type of tool has the potential to be scaled up, expanded and explored to provide more transparency and understanding to environmental, social as well as financial impact.
Semester:
2015 - FALL
Class:
Practice of Sustainable Design
Project Name:
Design Project: Designing solutions to reduce the impact in a textile-based product's lifecycle
Sustainability Focus and Project Objective:
The specific objective of this project was to understand areas of high impact in a garment's lifecycle, and to propose a solution to improve on these different social and environmental opportunities with a sustainable design and lifecycle thinking lens. The area of high impact that was discovered and ultimately focused on throughout this specific project was related to the home laundering that occurs in the consumer use phase. The proposed solution had emphasis on creating a product that would require less washing and encourage smarter and more sustainable use by the consumer as s opposed to making a change in the actual manufacturing or material process.
Semester:
2015 - FALL
Class:
Introduction to Sustainable Design
Project Name:
Frameworks in Motion: "Biomimicry and Ugo"
Sustainability Focus & Project Objective:
For this particular project, as a class we were given a variety of pre-determined business scenarios to select from and were tasked with applying biomimetic design solutions to the prescribed problem. At that time, I was assisting a company (Ugo) from a materials perspective, as they were looking to an iPhone case / Purse that was completely waterproof. Thus, I was given permission by my instructor to explore applying biomimetic design solutions to a real life business problem for this assignment.
Semester:
2016 - SPRING
Class:
Systems Thinking
Project Name:
Project III (Final) - Increasing Sustainability in the Apparel Industry
Sustainability Focus and Project Objective:
The aim of this project was to look at a structure and apply various systems-thinking approaches to develop more sustainable design solutions within that organization. More specifically this project is a high-level glance at the fast-fashion system as it exits today and where areas of opportunity could exist for improvement, and what changes / shifts in the system could look like in the future.
Semester:
SPRING - 2016
Class:
Collaborative Product Design
Project Name:
Sustainability Focused Redesign - The North Face Men's Paramount Peak II Convertible Hiking Pant
Sustainability Focus and Project Objective:
The objective of this project was to brainstorm, investigate, analyze and propose valorous types of design solutions to help reduce the impact of The North Face Men's Paramount Peak II Hiking Pant. This project was completed collaboratively with Jillian Schultz and Emily Simnam. As a team we were able to combine our unique experiences and professional focus areas / expertise to come up with various ideas related to user experience, materiality and the physical design of the pant itself - all to help promote sustainability.
Semester:
2017 - SPRING
Class:
Biomimetic Design
Project Name:
Biomimetic Design Project
Sustainability Focus and Project Objectives:
Prior to collaborating with and partnering with classmates, we were required to execute and propose a design solution to help solve the Biomimicry Global Design Challenge's current call to action: Climate change. Throughout the semester my group was focused specifically on shelter as a solution for those displaced by the impacts of climate change. This was the last individual assignment and solution proposal for this class and the biomimetic design challenge before team collaboration.