LCD Weekly Issue - 007 - Let Design Ripen

Feb 26

🏔️ Words from the mountains

We have a new Life-Centered Design Mindset course, which is 90% ready. It has been like that since last December. We planned to launch it in early January. And we didn't push through. We purposefully put it on a figurative shelf to let it ripen.

Sometimes, your design needs time to mature, just like good wine and cheese. You can put it away for a while and then look at it again with a fresh mind. This can help you see if any changes are needed, whether you're still enthusiastic about it, and if your design is mature enough to be shared with the ecosystem.

In the past, I have obeyed the deadlines when I should have pushed the pause button. With each project, I am learning to be more patient with my design.

We made 'Let Design Ripen' one of our design principles, inspired by one of my favourite YouTube makers, Laura Kampf.

Laura makes excellent, functional, playful creations and is a skilled craftswoman. It is a pleasure to see her create a magical world. Each time Laura glues two things together, the bonded pieces get a big metal block as a weight with the text 'LET GLUE DRY.' Brilliant!

Let Glue Dry is a very simple and powerful message to us all. If we want quality, we need more patience, post-pone judgment and let time do wonders. Hence 'Let Design Ripen.'

Sometimes, ripen means an hour. Other times, it is a few days, weeks or months. Sometimes, you have to decide to start over again.

We miss valuable information and insights that go against our environment and society during the need for speed and fast results. Ultimately, we deliver lesser quality to our clients and them at their clients.

What project deadline do you have coming up? Are you ready to deliver, or do you have to let your design ripen a bit more?

🐅 LCD in the Wild - Earth.fm

I am currently listening to Earth.fm while writing this newsletter. It feels like I am waking up in a lush rainforest. So, what is this project all about?

"Earth.fm is a non-profit, free repository of 800+ pure, immersive natural soundscapes from around the world. Based on empirical evidence as well as numerous recent studies from all over the world, listening to natural soundscapes (particularly mindful listening) has a great positive impact on our wellbeing, and potentially on our respect for nature. However, these soundscapes are increasingly scarce as we humans continue to destroy the natural ecosystems which produce them.
That's where Earth.fm comes in: as well as sharing a new natural soundscape every day, we're actively helping the community to go out in nature more often and discover a deeper, more direct connection with the wonders around us, which can lead to more well being on individual and collective levels."

This website is an excellent tool for creating Non-Human Personas; imagine you are doing a NHP of rain; close your eyes and listen to it here. What do the drops tell you? Can you give them a voice?

🪄 Inspiration- Laura Kampf

It might not be a surprise, but this week's inspiration is Laura Kampf. I invite you to look at her videos and get inspired to make new things from old and new materials. Her work has love and a lot of personal value. I leave you with one of my favourite videos. How do you push a tosti maker to the next level?

🔥 Hot in the school- Shifting from Human to Life-Centered Design Online Course.

🐝 The countdown has officially begun!

In two and a half weeks, we will start the fourth cohort of our online course: Shifting from Human to Life-Centered Design. Only a few spots are left, so take your chance to register now.

We have two groups for different time zones and two scholarship opportunities covering 60% of the tuition available! You can check all the course details here.

Over six weeks, you will participate in six online sessions where you will work on a design project of your choice. During the sessions, you will apply life-centered design attributes, such as ecosystem mind mapping, making non-human personas, and co-designing with life and regeneration. We will collaborate using Zoom and Slack/Whatsapp Community, and you will receive your own Mural board.

The time to shift is now!

👋 Until next Monday,

Jeroen.

Jeroen Spoelstra

I am a passionate designer and mountain biker focusing on bringing people forward using a human centered approach. As a designer you could call what I do Social Design, but nowadays there are hundreds of different design names. So for me I am a designer and try to be humble to the world. I like solving issues together with other people in co-design and I love helping people reach there goals.

I find inspiration in mountain biking, traveling and in my current home the Spanish Pyrenees. I use sports, traveling and being outside to get inspired for my work as a designer.

Design to me is constantly shitifing between making meaningful products to creating impactful and real solutions/ approaches/ business that can make a difference.

The Design profession shouldn’t solely be reserved for the designer (in developed world), but for everyone! I design for impact and help people bring out their little designer in himself or herself. I am not saying everyone should become a designer, but I do think people can use a little bit of design to help themselves forward in their personal/ professional life.

https://www.unbeatenstudio.com