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Connecting great ideas and humans It’s 2020 and innovation and technology are growing exponentially. Today, we cure ailments with lasers, soar over oceans with ease, and have endless possibilities at our fingertips. Design breakthroughs have propelled us into an exciting and unpredictable future, with the last two decades alone marking some of our biggest advancements in human history. We saw the emergence of smartphones and the rise of the Googles and Facebooks - bringing connectivity to a place we never could’ve envisioned. Energy production entered a renewable direction, and we finally recognised how to use nature without comprising our ecosystems. Health technologies upgraded, downsized and even took to the skies to reach even the most remote corners of the Earth. AI broke through, robotics entered our workforce, and digital currencies coded their way into our pockets. And, most notably, this millenium marked the birth of ‘design to improve life’ a humble concept that grew into a global
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movement. A movement recognising the power of design and how to use it, in all forms, as a force for good. We’ve come aeons forward in intelligence and growth, but we’re now at a critical junction. Wicked problems plague the world, from cybersecurity to climate change, species extinction to social inequality. While we’ve progressed, consequence has followed. The Index Project is a global project driven by a broadened perspective on progress and a new set of priorities. And now, more than ever, we’re calling for optimism and ingenuity. The future isn’t just about seeing in AR, feasting on lab-grown steaks and touring the galaxy on our civilian spaceships. Sustainability and equality are at the core of many of the problems we face collectively and must be our driving motivation. As we dive into the design trends of today, how will they shape the world of tomorrow? Welcome to a new age of design to improve life and the beginning of designing world 2.0.
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The Index Award The Index Award biennale celebrates people, from far and wide, who use design to solve the problems that matter. Plastic pollution, gender inequality, food supply you name it. Since 2005, we’ve recognised some of the world’s most impactful and iconic solutions. From tiny tools that diagnose disease to environmental moonshots saving our most vulnerable ecosystems. The Index Award isn’t just about upholding great designs but about celebrating diversity, inspiring hope and acting as a catalyst for groundbreaking innovation.
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Categories
Body comprises all designs that aim to keep us physically and mentally healthy. This can include wearables, devices, apps and all care-related products and services.
Think of the products that make life at Home better. Solutions might include appliances, gadgets and furniture, as well as new kinds of housing or cohabitation.
Work is all about making our jobs safer, fairer, more accessible and sustainable. Solutions in this category include tools, machines, systems, services and more.
Learning isn’t nearly as effective, and fun, without play. Think of solutions like games, toys, cultural activities and educational materials or services.
Community represents large-scale solutions that we all share. This can include architecture, infrastructure, public spaces, transport, energy solutions and more.
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Body
Woman is the word! Female-first initiatives to create more equality in a man’s world
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For too long, much of the design world has been shaped by the patriarchy. We even saw NASA infamously cancel an all-female space trip due to ill-fitting space suits, originally designed for men. While female issues, like periods and pregnancy, may seem trivial to some, we’ll never achieve true equality if we don’t design inclusive products that accommodate society. Here are some examples that make sure women’s reproductive health, which can influence all aspects of life, isn’t left in the middle ages.
Fertility testing for women can be invasive and highly costly. Not to mention, difficult to access if you live in remote areas or can’t afford to visit clinics. Modern Fertility aims to reinvent and simplify this process for all women planning on children. The service allows patients to order a personally customised fertility test without the costly doctor’s visit. Women can then take the test in the privacy of their own homes and send the samples via post. After results are received, Modern Fertility provides options for the next steps for family planning.
Let’s face it, periods aren’t fun. They’re inconvenient, costly and most of the products are a burden to our environment. That’s why THINX is re-thinking how we manage them. THINX is the world’s first period-proof underwear that can be worn as a replacement or backup to traditional period products. The special four-layered design makes sure they’re leak-resistant as well as perfectly hygienic. These could not only make life easier for millions of women and girls but, are a great sustainable and cost-effective alternative to disposable products.
While motherhood is a gift, it doesn’t come without its sacrifices. Juggling a baby and a job isn’t impossible but, to date, there’s a distinct lack of innovation to make it easier. One major challenge is breastfeeding. Today, many working mothers are forced to stop despite its benefits to both baby and mother. This is often due to unfavourable conditions in the workplace. DEVOTED, by Sin Bing Celian Wong, is a discreet breast-pumping device that can be used at work. It’s designed to fit comfortably under the shirt and fosters a private, comfortable and convenient experience that allows its users to pump milk without having to retreat to the bathrooms.
THINX THINX Super can hold up to 4 regular tampons of fluid, which is 40 ml 15
Body
DEVOTED Milk pumping on-the-go to that benefits both mum and baby
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Modern Fertility Results will be reviewed by a doctor and then appear on your dashboard
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Home
Consumption reinvented Eat, relax and upgrade your home the green way Designers like Index Award nominee Tobias Trübenbacher know that nothing lasts forever – especially when it comes to water, fossil fuels and livestock. Like him, a lot of this year’s nominees are addressing the excessive consumption happening in our society. Apps like The Darwin Challenge App is a hub for a community of change. It encourages users to stop eating meat with small virtual rewards. Every day you go meat-free, you see an increase in areas such as lifespan, flowing water and living animals. Meanwhile, a barren landscape on the design interface grows more fruitful to show the impact of your plantbased days. The app also showcases the online community where users can share and discuss their achievements. Tobias Trübenbacher’s project Inner Values challenges us to find appreciation in the animals we slaughter and throw away. By creating benches out of tanned and further processed cow-intestines and pig-bladders, he invites guests to value these often discarded objects.
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Looking ahead, Tobias sees issues yet to be addressed or solved within the area of responsible consumption. A largescale alternative to plastic, long-distance travelling but, also the claim of reducing consumption in itself: “It’s a contradiction in terms since innovation always means to produce more. I’m convinced that in some issues we have to distance ourselves from the illusion that design and innovation could always solve all problems and simply focus on renouncing instead”. The design Smartians from FROLIC Studio is equally aware of our non-stop consumption and acquisition of, in this case, home appliances. Instead of practising ‘out with the old, in with the new’, Smartians’ breathe new life into your ‘old’ objects. The small cloud-connected motors, controlled through an app, can push, press, pull and turn on appliances to control lights, feed your fish, water plants or brew your morning coffee.
The Darwin Challenge App The app is named after Charles Darwin, referencing that the population needs an ‘evolution’
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“Our present throw-away society mustn’t continue if we want to have a future worth living in.” - Tobias Trübenbacher, Designer of Inner Values
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Home
Inner values The intestines were cleaned, pickled, refattened and tanned for several weeks
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Smartians Add-ons can customise the Smartians so they fit very specific needs
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Work
Bee positive Weird and wonderful solutions to save our yellow fuzzy friends While we’re not entirely sure why bee populations are on the decline, experts agree that climate change, urbanisation and diseases all play a role. One thing we know for sure is that we can’t survive without them. These small but mighty creatures are imperative to all our natural ecosystems. In fact, one in three bites of what we eat is made possible by pollinating insects, like bees. If we have any hope of keeping them off the extinction list, we have to act now. Due to temperature increases in certain regions, flowers are blooming earlier in Spring. This means they’re producing pollen too early for the bees to feed. Populations are dying out simply because there isn’t a food source at the right time. The Bee Hospital, by Shau Heng Li, aims to help remedy this problem with a trio of objects designed for instalment in urban areas. The project includes a bee-detecting device, a supplement centre and a mite guard dispenser. These provide a safe haven for the bees and dispense beneficial probiotics and vital nutrients to help supplement the lack of available pollen.
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BeeFlow aims to create a stronger generation of bees by providing them with feed to enhance their immune systems. This would make them more resistant to changing climates. To help address the food security problem, the Argentinian startup also aims to teach the bees to pollinate specific crops, including almonds, blueberries, kiwis and apples. To lure bees to their intended target, BeeFlow feeds them organic molecule compounds that replicates the chemical composition of the less-tempting flower in the hive. Once outside, the bees remember that specific odour and seek it out. This would mean less of the bees’ energy spent on non-fruiting plants, increased fruit and vegetable yields and farmers avoiding to use pesticides. Should our bee populations continue to drastically decline, we might need to look at alternative pollinators. The Synthetic Pollenizer, created by Michael Candy, is a conceptual project designed to help increase the dwindling bee population. The robotic canola flower (or rapeseed) provides a safer method of artificial pollination using 3D-printed robotic flowers. Candy’s flowers, while not infected with pesticides, are all equipped with pollen and nectar and are designed to be installed alongside real plants.
Bee hospital The design investigates solutions to issues like Colony Collapse Disorder
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Work
BeeFlow Field trials in California with Beeflow showed a seven-fold increase in bee activity
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Synthetic Pollenizer The colour and form of the unit are important to the bees’ attraction to the flowers
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Play & Learning
Rainbow respect & rights Protecting the LGBTQ+ community fiercely Feeling different from the heteronormative narrative is something most of us consider normal by now. Still, 70 countries in the world consider sex with the same gender a crime. But designers are trying to make things better for the community: “Young people understand that they have the agency to shape the future and that they will have to do it if they want to enter a world in which they can safely exist,” says drag performer and activist Chantal al Arab. And so there are designs spreading awareness and creating tangible tools for a safer environment. #UntilWereSafe is an ongoing digital campaign that shares important stories on violence against LGBTQ+. 24 visual stories are shared across social media, billboards and digital platforms to let community members know they’re not alone. These were encouraged to share their own stories and be a part of Pride Month 2018 in Toronto, the initiators behind this campaign. With its analogue look, it pays tribute to the beginnings of fighting for LGBTQ+ rights. “It warms my heart to see campaigns that I can mirror myself in” says al Arab, who hopes to see industries adapt a holistic diversity policy in everything from people to products.
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STICKS & STONES may break my bones but also give you a job. This digital platform offers career and job opportunities to the rainbow community. Their job offerings stem from LGBTQ+-friendly employers and the site itself offers counselling, coaching and networking. STICK & STONES have also been hosting Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ job and career fair in Berlin for over 10 years. There are places all over, where homosexuals and transgender people aren’t safe. Now, the historic pride flag itself can educate LGBTQ+ travellers on their destination. Destinationpride.org is a digital platform developed by PFLAG Canada in partnership with FCB/SIX, where each bar of the flag tells the status quo on a country. The visualisation is based on six metrics: marriage equality, sexual activity laws, gender identity protections, anti-discrimination laws, civil rights and social-media sentiment. When it comes to the future, al Arab is excited and feels empowered by the growing amount of allies. “If businesses manage to develop practices that represent and include us and if they work to support us, I feel confident that life will be better for many of us.”
#UntilWereSafe Bruce Mau Design developed the visual identity of the campaign
#UntilWereSafe Something smart
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Play & Learning
STICKS & STONES The company also aids networks for LGTBQ+ lawyers, tech nerds, leaders etc.
Destinationpride.org More than a thousand cities around the world are included in the database
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“It’s not enough to have a fancy logo or a catchy tagline to be truly inclusive.” - Chantal al Arab, Drag Performer and Activist
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Community
Biodesign - it’s alive! Combining the creativity of designers with the knowhow of biologists Ever since humans have been designing, we’ve mimicked those who do best. And who’s the master of design? Nature, of course. We’ve designed buildings like termite mounds, bullet trains vehicles like kingfishers and protected ourselves with sharkskin-inspired suits. But, today, the genre has slowly emerged into a partnership - now we’re not only replicating nature but using it as a co-creator. The fashion industry, specifically, textile dyeing is one of the most polluting commercial processes. Not to mention, a huge consumer of water. That’s why French company PILI is creating clean colours using bacteria. Their dyes are created by fermenting sugar and other nutrients to create colour-producing enzymes. This process is similar to those used in large-scale productions of other products, like insulin and even beer. These sustainable pigments can be easily replicated, with low costs and high accuracy, and used in a wide range of industrial applications.
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Wildlife poaching is a global problem that needs to stop. But, sadly, many rare animal parts are still seen as ‘essential’ for traditional medicines. While education can help, many argue that we need alternative solutions if we want to save our wildlife. The Tiger Penis Project, by social designer Kuang-yi Ku, explores the idea of growing these sought-after animals parts in the lab, merging elements of Asian traditions and Western technologies. Our digital footprints generate an insurmountable amount of data. And by 2025, the world will generate 160 zettabytes of it. That’s more bytes than there are stars in the observable universe. A data doomsday is on the horizon but Catalog has a solution. DNA is the digital storage medium selected by nature that has been perfected over three billion years of evolution. Now, Catalog is building the world’s first DNA-based platform for massive digital data storage. You could store the whole Wikipedia in the size of a pinhead!
PILI Pili are appendices that some bacteria use to communicate with other bacteria
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”If we divest from fossil fuels for energy, we’re going to have to divest from fossil fuels for our materials.” - Natsai Audrey Cheiza, Founder of Faber Futures
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Community
Tiger Penis Project Eating the tiger’s penis is considered eating its strength and to enhance virility
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Catalog The company describes its storage method as a printing press with movable typefaces
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