As he told me in a recent interview: “My definition of design is the ability to envision a future and systematically execute the vision.” His book thoughtfully gathers examples of this creative determination, from the novel economic model that Aravind Eye Care System in India instituted in order to treat an overwhelming cohort of poor patients to the empathetic observations that led to inventor Dean Kamen’s stair-climbing wheelchair.

Mau has long been a champion of expanding design’s perceived role: He sees doctors and entrepreneurs as designers, whether they define themselves that way or not, when they use innovative thinking and tools to create new, better outcomes. And his two dozen principles – each a major mind-set challenge, like “Design Your Own Economy,” accompanied by a discussion on the seemingly impossible realities inherent in such a task and examples of people who have risen to it – attest to his unwavering commitment. Mau is a self-described radical optimist. election, the most innocuous and simple life-saving and democracy-upholding solutions – wearing a face mask and voting by mail – are political lightning rods that daily threaten to divide the country.īut could it also be the best of times for designers? One of the 24 principles of Massive Change – the name of Mau’s design network and the M and C of the tome’s title – is “Always Search For the Worst.” As Mau writes, “The greater the problem, the worse the crisis, the harsher the experience, the bigger the design opportunity.” He states that practically everything we need to do has to change. Bruce Mau’s latest book, MC24 (Phaidon), arrives in the midst of a ravaging global pandemic and an anti-racist movement inspired by the death of George Floyd that has continued for two months now, as the American government has responded by deploying federal agents to violently clash with protesters in some cities. Please consider whitelisting our site in your settings, or pausing your adblocker while stopping by.

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Massive change inetwork