My Year of Hopefulness - Social Designer

"I feel illiterate," my friend, Brian, said to me on Saturday night as we talked about how the age of design has emerged in a big way. Instead of studying business, we should have become designers. There are all kinds of amazing ways that design is changing our human experience for the better, and a lot of new ways that we can take part. One of my favorites is an organization called Social Designer.

With a tag line of "Goods for the Greater Good", Social Designer sponsors design contests and then runs a e-store with the winning designs that supports a variety of nonprofit organizations. "Buy stuff, design stuff, vote on stuff and be an agent of change." There are ways for all of us to take part in supporting Social Designer: create designs and enter them in the contests, vote on the submitted designs, purchase the finished goods with the winning designs, and tell other people about these efforts.

My favorite things about Social Designer is that it opens up the possibility of developing design to everyone. It's not some torturous Request for Proposal process. You don't need to send in your resume or portfolio. And you don't need to be famous or have an agent. You just need to submit a good design that supports a good cause. It's such a logical and simple process that I have to wonder why it took so long for it to be created - a sure sign that Social Designer is really onto something.