Design for Social Innovation: Case Studies from Around the World

The United Nations, Australia Post, and governments in the UK, Finland, Taiwan, France, Brazil, and Israel are just a few of the organizations and groups utilizing design to drive social change. Grounded by a global survey in sectors as diverse as public health, urban planning, economic development, education, humanitarian response, cultural heritage, and civil rights, Design for Social Innovation captures these stories and more through 45 richly illustrated case studies from six continents.

From advocating to understanding and everything in between, these cases demonstrate how designers shape new products, services, and systems while transforming organizations and supporting individual growth.

How is this work similar or different around the world? How are designers building sustainable business practices with this work? Why are organizations investing in design capabilities? What evidence do we have of impact by design? Leading practitioners and educators, brought together in seven dynamic roundtable discussions, provide context to the case studies.

Design for Social Innovation is a must-have for professionals, organizations, and educators in design, philanthropy, social innovation, and entrepreneurship. This book marks the first attempt to define the contours of a global overview that showcases the cultural, economic, and organizational levers propelling design for social innovation forward today.

Mariana Amatullo

Mariana is an Associate Professor of Strategic Design and Management at Parsons School of Design; she is an affiliated faculty member with the Parsons DESIS Lab and the university's Graduate Minor in Civic Service Design. Since joining The New School in 2017, Mariana has served the university in various administrative roles in the Provost Office. In 2021, Mariana was appointed Vice Provost for Global Executive Education and Online Strategic Initiatives with a mandate to lend academic strategy and leadership to develop these priority areas of innovation and expansion for The New School. Previously, Mariana co-founded and led the award-winning social innovation department, Designmatters, at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. Mariana brings two decades of expertise conceiving, fundraising for, and managing a portfolio of international and national educational projects and research initiatives at the intersection of design, design management, and social innovation. Mariana's academic research and publishing bridge the design and management fields and examine the role of a design attitude as a cognitive approach to social innovation and organizational learning. Her editorial projects include LEAP Dialogues: Career Pathways in Design for Social Innovation as lead editor and the open-source LEAP Dialogues: The Educator's Guide. A Global Fellow with the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) and Salzburg Global, Mariana is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Inaugural DELL Award for Outstanding Social Innovation Education (2012). Mariana lectures internationally about design and social innovation and serves on several juries and executive and advisory boards, including the Vera List Center for Arts and Politics.

Mariana was elected President of Cumulus, the international association of colleges and universities of design, art, and media, in 2019. She holds a Ph.D. in Management (Designing Sustainable Systems) from Case Western Reserve University, an M.A. in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of Southern California, and a Licence en Lettres Degree from the Sorbonne University, Paris, where she also studied Art History at L'Ecole du Louvre. A native of Argentina and the child of a diplomat, Mariana grew up around the world.

Bryan Boyer

Bryan is co-founder of the architecture and strategic design studio Dash Marshall where he runs the studio's strategic design practice, working with clients such as Google, Sidewalk Labs, IKEA, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Museum of Modern Art to envision future cities and urban experiences. The studio was named a Next Progressive studio by Architect Magazine (2020) and Top 50 firms by AN Interior magazine (2020). In addition to practice, Bryan is a founding Director of the Bachelor of Science in Urban Technology degree at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and Assistant Professor of Practice in Architecture. He joined the University as an Eliel Saarinen visiting professor 2019-2020. Previously, Boyer was a co-founder of Helsinki Design Lab at the Finnish Innovation Fund, one of the first design teams working at a national level inside government. His editorial projects include LEAP Dialogues: Career Pathways in Design for Social Innovation (2016), Brickstarter (2013), Helsinki Street Eats (2012), Legible Practices (2013), and In Studio: Recipes For Systemic Change (2011).

Bryan serves on the board of directors for Public Policy Lab in New York City and is based in Detroit, MI. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Architecture degree from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Jennifer May

Jennifer May finds innovation at the intersections of design, art, education, and social change. Jennifer is currently the Executive Director for Designmatters, the social innovation department at ArtCenter College of Design, where she oversees a dynamic portfolio of external partnerships, curricular and extracurricular programs, including the Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation, and an active slate of special initiatives and publications exploring how design and art can effect change in the areas of sustainable development, social entrepreneurship, health, public policy, and social justice. She serves on the advisory committee for ShineLA, a cross-sector initiative led by Cedars-Sinai Research Center for Health Equity, focusing on raising physical activity levels among Angelenos over the next ten years. Jennifer was Managing Editor of LEAP Dialogues: Career Pathways in Design for Social Innovation, an award-winning publication on new practices in social innovation, and editor of the open-source LEAP Dialogues: The Educator's Guide. She was named an Impact Maker to Watch in Los Angeles in 2020 and was part of the inaugural LEAD LA cohort for Coro Southern California. Jennifer earned her M.B.A. with honors from USC Marshall School of Business, where she was a Society and Business Lab Graduate Fellow and Forté Fellow.

Andrew Shea

Andrew founded and is the creative director of MANY Design, a studio that designs strategies and artifacts that support progressive social agendas, sustainable economic endeavors, and the environment. MANY's work has been featured by Fast Company, Slate, Print, How, 99% Invisible, Communication Arts, and AIGA, among others. Andrew is Associate Director and Assistant Professor of Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design, The New School. He has also taught at Pratt Institute, Maryland Institute College of Art, and the City University of New York. Andrew was an editor of LEAP Dialogues: Career Pathways in Design for Social Innovation (2016), and he authored Designing for Social Change: Strategies for Community-Based Graphic Design (2012). His design writing has also appeared in Core77, AIGA, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Design Observer, who included one of his essays in Culture Is Not Always Popular: Fifteen Years of Design Observer (2018). Andrew regularly speaks about design at schools, conferences, and events like TEDx Transmedia. He has served on juries organized by AIGA, Worldstudio, the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and Sappi. He received a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from Maryland Institute College of Art and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics & Philosophy and Creative Nonfiction Writing from the University of Pittsburgh.