Design Conversation: Cheryl Heller

Join us for a Design Conversation in which Cheryl Heller discusses her book, The Intergalactic Design Guide: Harnessing the Creative Potential of Social Design.

Social design is a new kind of leadership. It offers innovative approaches for increasing creativity, strengthening relationships, and developing our capacity to collaborate—with the potential to transform everything from corporate cultures to cities. It pushes us to become comfortable with uncertainty, to design ourselves for change.

“The Intergalactic Design Guide is a call for entries to design our way out of the civilization we have created, by using our collective creativity to change the human condition. Readers will come away transformed by the realization that we can use the invisible forces of social design to create a future where we live in a state of mutuality with one another and nature. This is one of the most critical design books of our time.”

— Ivy Ross, Vice President of Google, Hardware Design

In The Intergalactic Design Guide, business strategist and designer Cheryl Heller explains eleven common principles, a step-by-step process, and essential skills for successful social design. She illustrates the social design process with in-depth examples—from the CEO of the largest carpet manufacturer in the world to a young entrepreneur with a passion for reducing food waste. While change-makers like Paul Farmer and Oprah Winfrey have instinctively practiced social design for decades, Heller organizes concepts applied by leaders in diverse fields so that they become accessible to all of us, no matter the focus of our work.

From start-ups to global NGOs, The Intergalactic Design Guide provides both inspiration and practical steps for designing a more resilient and fulfilling future. Thought leader David Orr wrote, “If our industrial civilization was entered into an intergalactic design competition, it would be tossed out in the qualifying round.” This book points the way for us to change how we relate to our world, and to each other.

Tickets to this talk are $15 / $10 for MODA and AIGA Members / $8 for Students. You can also purchase a copy of Heller’s book for pick-up at the Design Conversation.

About Cheryl Heller

Cheryl Heller is the Founding Chair of the first MFA program in Design for Social Innovation at SVA, Founding Partner of the design lab CommonWise and President of Measured.design. She was recently awarded a Rockefeller Bellagio Fellowship, and is a recipient of the prestigious AIGA Medal for her contribution to the field of design.

Heller founded the first design department in a major advertising agency and as president, grew the division to $50m in billings after it was spun off as an independent entity. She has helped grow businesses from small regional enterprises to multi-billion global market leaders, launched category-redefining divisions and products, reinvigorated moribund cultures, and designed strategies for hundreds of successful entrepreneurs.

She is the former Board Chair of PopTech, and a Senior Fellow at the Babson Social Innovation Lab. and is enrolled in a Ph.D program at RMIT University in Melbourne. Her book, The Intergalactic Design Guide, will be published by Island Press in 2018. She created the Ideas that Matter program for Sappi in 1999, which has since given over $13 million to designers working for the public good. She also partnered with Paul Polak and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum to create the exhibit, “Design for the Other 90%.”

This Design Conversation is co-hosted by MODA and Miami Ad School at Portfolio Center.

When & Where
Tue, Nov 13, 2018 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Hill Auditorium
1280 Peachtree Street NE
Atlanta, GA 30309