IDEO.org and Scout Books proudly partnered to create a custom pocket notebook inspired around the theme of building empathy. This custom pocket notebook will only be available as part of IDEO.org’s latest Kickstarter campaign to launch Design Kit Travel Pack, a deck of 32 design exercises to bring more empathy, creativity, and experimentation into your work.
Below is our interview with the IDEO.org designers behind the campaign!
So…. what exactly does IDEO.org do?
IDEO.org is a mission-driven design organization. We partner with nonprofit organizations, social entrepreneurs, businesses, and governments around the world to design products, services, and programs that improve the lives of people living in poverty. We’re proud to say that the solutions we’ve designed—from low-cost solar lanterns to teen-friendly health clinics—have reached over 5 million people around the world to date.
In addition, IDEO.org has developed a suite of tools to spread human-centered design in order to help other people and organizations fighting poverty to become more creative problem solvers. Over the past few years, we’ve created interactive courses, The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design and our online platform Design Kit. The Design Kit: Travel Pack is the latest design tool to join the family!
What inspired the creation of Design Kit: Travel Pack?
We’ve been teaching human-centered design to social good organizations for years, and we’ve heard over and over again how challenging it can be to incorporate the tools of design into day-to-day work. In speaking with our nonprofit partners and the Design Kit community over the past year, it became clear people needed tools and exercises that would fit into their busy lives.
The Design Kit Travel Pack was created to help anyone bring more empathy, creativity, and experimentation into their work – whether they had a few minutes or a few days to spare. Designed specifically with busy professionals and social impact organizations in mind, the exercises it contains can be used alone or in teams to push beyond usual ways of working and uncover more creative, impactful solutions to whatever challenges they’re tackling.
How does Scout Books custom notebook fit into all this?
We believe that having the right tools when you’re on the go can make or break a design project. Therefore, we asked our designers what tools they considered “must-have-items”
Together, our design team carefully selected the best on-the-go accessories for Building Empathy, Unleashing Your Creativity, and Getting your Hands Dirty and came up with the Designers Travel Toolkit! This Toolkit contains a collection of our 7 favorite tools when designing in any situation from New York City to Nairobi.
Given that Scout Books are so pocket-friendly and portable, we knew they’d be perfect for quick notes, sketches, and observations when trying to build empathy in your work. And of course, being able to create a custom illustrated version for IDEO.org was a lovely bonus!
We’d love to learn more about the notebook design! Is there a story behind the illustrations?
The cover of our Scout Books notebook is a collection of illustrated drawings done with brushes, pens, and ink by Anna Zylicz, one of IDEO.org’s communications designers. The illustrations and lettering were inspired by IDEO.org’s work around the world and represent the tools and methods we use when designing products and services to improve the lives of people living in poverty.
In the field or in the studio, we often use post-it notes and Sharpie markers to brainstorm, collaborate, and communicate our ideas and that hand-drawn element also helped to inspire the illustration style and type found in the Travel Pack.
On the inside cover of our Scout Books notebook there is an explanation of the importance of Empathy. We hope our notebook will become a new home to your sketches and observations of how to design a better world.
How might people order their own Design Kit Travel Pack?
Get over to their Kickstarter page before December 22!
Thanks so much to the team at IDEO.org for partnering with us on this project!