I'm not sure where the nickname ‘Sustainability John’ came from but both it and John Thorne's talks seem to have stuck with us ever since he first sat down with us over a year ago. This one of his presentations, the second we had ever had, was particularly geared towards the relevancy of sustainability within our current undertaking: a project centered around designing a nominally ‘Off-grid’ product manufactured from, of all things, plastic.

I particularly like John's talks. I think of all the speakers we've had over the course of our 4 years, his are both the most honest and humble of all the talks we've listened to. John never feels like he's telling you to do anything, rather informing and often commiserating us about the current state of the world, and occasionally voicing but by no means ever enforcing his own opinions. I come out of John's talks feeling as though I know how I should change what I'm doing but by no means feeling pressured or forced to do so; feeling positive about the way certain things are going and the ways I can change whilst slightly petrified about the impending doom of our planet.

Within this particular talk, my main takeaway with regards to the project was to do with slightly shifting my focus on the type of product I wanted to make. John talked a few times about ‘connection’ and ‘community’ and this almost reminded me that the product I make doesn't necessarily have to be a tool. I can make something focused on human connection and wellbeing and bringing communities together. This product could even be about accessibility to the outdoor world, allowing those who aren't able to go off grid and connect with nature the opportunity to do so.

This is starting to link in with a couple of my blogs in the ‘Great Design’ series, specifically the blog ‘Cas Holman: Design for play’ (feel free to take a read here). Constructive and imaginative open ended play and how we enable it with design is something I'm particularly interested in, especially in the modern smartphone era. The outdoors is one of the easiest gateways for this kind of play and development, one that I was frequently exposed to as a child, and this could be an interesting route to take with regards to the project. I could create something for aiding off grid play, or making the off-grid world more accessible to those who cannot access it.

There's quite a lot to think about here. This is a topic I'm actually very passionate about and want to read up on more. The book “The Trespassers Guide” is something I've had on my reading list for a while so I'll be interested to see how that might alter my views; maybe it'll warrant a blog post! More importantly, I think the modern issue of the deteriorating quality of children's play under the looming oppression of smartphones and lack of accessibility to the outside world might be something broad enough that I would want to choose it for my D&T project title? I mean the title’s a bit of a mouthful but I'm sure we can work on that.

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5th Jan