LCD Weekly Issue - 048 Exploring Non-Human Personas in Vermont

Mar 17

⛰️ Words from the mountains

Exploring non-human personas as an essential element in design strategy, is a meaningful tactic to analyse insights.

The Life Centered Design School is taking its Non-Human Persona Workshop next month to an in-person experience across the Atlantic Ocean, and into the western part of the world. This time around, we will be facilitating a four hour session in the little green mountain state of Vermont, USA.

Why a Non-Human Persona Workshop?

In our modern life, we seem to constantly be doing something. Tapping on our phones before bed, getting stuck in traffic, skipping physical activity, not taking enough breaks during the day, making impulse shopping purchases online, etc. Whatever the case may be, many of our modern day habits are simply not centered around our own needs, the needs of nature and the needs of our communities. How might we make the shift in our daily lives to make our mindset, habits, work, life and leisure centered around our experiences into healthier and more joyful experiences?

The Non-Human Persona Workshop was designed to reconnect. This actionable workshop brings design approaches to professionals, creative professionals, leaders, makers, teachers and more, and invites a new mindset, new opportunities, the ability to include all life forms in their work, and advocate for biological ecosystems and invisible communities. Through a holistic lens, we will explore next month, insights on:

Can nature also be a user of design?
Can invisible communities also be users of design?
What mental concepts can we explore to create holistic and joyful experiences?

We invite our friends in New England to visualize the wholeness, iterate on your designs, and release them into the wild. This experience will be an opportunity to learn approaches to how and why we can identify, create, and execute regenerative strategies.

🐅 LCD In The Wild : Rethinking a New Rurality

Italian theorist and curator Leandro Pisano, and Australian sound artist Philip Samartzis collaborate to present ‘A Manifesto of Rural Futurism’, a lecture supported by series of recordings exploring the sounds of remote southern Italian communities. The Manifesto provides a critical perspective in which multiple points of view converge to afford new and striking ways to rethink ‘rurality’.

🐅 : The Island of Missing Trees - Book

Our fellow LCD School volunteer Yağmur Güngör recommends Elif Shafak’s novel: The Island of Missing Trees.

“I’m reading this novel which has fantastic chapters through the perspective of a Fig Tree that was carried from Cyprus to London. It’s making me think about Non-Human Personas”.

–Yağmur Güngör

🐅 : The Future End of Design Work: A Critical Overview of Managerialism, Generative AI, and the Nature of Knowledge Work, and Why Craft Remains Relevant - Article

Great read found on She Ji journal exploring creativity, design work, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), knowledge work, managerialism and the notion of “nourishing designers” as a means to understand why craft remains relevant to the future end of design work.

Read article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405872624000960#bfn69

🔥 Hot in the School Non-Human Persona Workshop in Vermont!

Join us at the Non-Human Persona Workshop as we engage in life-centered & regenerative design and skill sets, creating a shift from human to life-centered design, promoting positive impacts for nature, communities and organizations.

Empower nature’s voice in your design journey by creating your unique Non-Human Persona. Embrace flexibility and, awareness, navigate ambiguity and uncover the most impactful ways to breathe life into your design mindset and projects.

What: Life-Centered Design School - Non-Human Persona Workshop

When: Saturday, April 26th 2025, 10-2 pm (in-person event)

Where: Specs, 7 W Canal St, Winooski, Vermont, USA

Non-Human Persona Workshop - bundled package

4hr design + skill set workshop
Life-Centered Design Guide to Slow Down | 14 Exercises | Frameworks | Ecosystem Mindmap
2 speciality coffees + Catered lunch
Full access to our nurturing Life-Centered Design online community

$175 Get your ticket here :)

Discover our global community of life-centered design practitioners committed to creating a better future for all.

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Big thanks to our amazing volunteer, Catherine Bianca Lima, for writing this week’s newsletter!

Until next Monday!

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