What if the way we made things, made things better?

We can re-root making in the ecosystems that sustain us.

Modern manufacturing mines non-renewable mineral resources, over harvests biological resources, and depletes communities for their human labor. What would it look like if manufacturing something had a side effect of making a local ecology more vibrant, and a local community more resilient?

What if anyone, everywhere, could make anything humans knew how to make?

We can give more folks a voice in defining "good" products.

Centralized manufacturing is sold on a promise of lower prices - but what are the costs we assume when we no longer make our own things, or know the people who make them? What if it were possible to affordably make the things we need, with the features we want, while maintaining control of what production consequences we will and won't accept?

What if we don't have the answers, because we're asking the wrong questions?

We can educate designers and critics to better direct us.

Design education has long been about preparing students for innovation in industry, without much regard for magnetizing their ethical compasses, disusing them of the lie of technological "progress", or diversifying their mythos of design possibilities. How can the things we teach and stories we tell make for more capable future designers?

What can we work on together?

Get in touch at dmuren@humblefactory.com