Design your products and business to do less harm and more good
About the course
You’ll redesign a product of your choice to do less harm and more good with ecosystem mapping, circular and inclusive design, non-human personas, and Sustainable Development Goals.
Course Details
AUD$950
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6 interactive sessions to expand your design powers
Week 1—Map your ecosystem
After learning the scope, principles, and tools of life-centred design, you’ll dive straight into active learning by zooming out from your design subject to map the greater ecosystem it belongs to and see the people, animals, and planet it impacts.
Week 2—Do Less Harm
Learn circular, sustainable, and inclusive design strategies to optimise your design subject’s durability and usability to reduce what it takes and who it might exclude.
Week 3—Give All Life A Voice
Create personas for the vulnerable people, animals, and environments your subject impacts, including creating multi-media versions for engaging and influencing shareholders.
Week 4—Do More Good
Use your non-human and non-user personas to innovate your subject’s product and business to shift from just taking from the planet to caretaking that which it takes from.
Week 5—Align with world
Connect your design subject to global goals and innovate ways to set metrics.
Week 6—Forge ahead
Presentation night! After compiling your innovations into a cohesive life-centred redesign, you’ll share your presentation with the group before reflecting on your learnings together on how to take them further into the world.
Take a sneak peek inside the course platform!
For designers, product and business owners, and innovators who want to do less harm and more good
This course spans design and business innovation, and how they are co-dependant, so it is suited for both designers and business decision-makers, of all ages and experience levels.
🧑🏻🎨 Industrial designers, urban designers, architects, service designers, researchers
The design strategies include systems thinking and behavioural design to help designers zoom out to see the bigger picture and innovate solutions from new business models, non-human/non-user needs, and enable supportive user/citizen behaviour
🧑🏽💼 Product owners, Business Owners, Decision-makers
The innovation strategies include exploring new business models based on giving back to the systems they take from and collaborating with others to shift from being just takers to becoming inspiring caretakers
🧑🏻💻 Digital Designers
While this course doesn’t go into sustainable digital design, Digital Designers who want to become more generalists and understand how their work connects to global issues will also benefit from this course.
Meet your teacher
Damien Lutz
A veteran UX/UI Designer, researcher, and writer, Damien has spent over a decade in design and has taught UX, futuring, and life-centred design.
Since 2017, he’s scouted the fringes of design to develop ways to fully realise it as a superpower for good. He produced three design guides—Future Scouting, The Life-Centred Design Guide, and The Non-human Persona Guide—along with two online hubs, various toolkits, courses, and workshops to empower designers and decision-makers to be more sustainable, regenerative, inclusive, and future skilled.
Join Damien to learn new ways to design a thriving existence for all life.
FAQs
This course spans design and business innovation, and how they are co-dependant, so it is suited for both designers and business decision-makers, of all ages and experience levels.
🧑🏻🎨 Industrial designers, urban designers, architects, service designers, researchers—The design strategies include systems thinking and behavioural design to help designers zoom out to see the bigger picture and innovate solutions from new business models, non-human/non-user needs, and enable supportive user/citizen behaviour
🧑🏽💼 Product owners, Business Owners, Decision-makers—The innovation strategies include exploring new business models based on giving back to the systems they take from and collaborating with others to shift from being just takers to becoming inspiring caretakers
🧑🏻💻 Digital Designers—While this course doesn’t go into sustainable digital design, Digital Designers who want to become more generalists and understand how their work connects to global issues will also benefit from this course.
The course is best for anyone with some basic design or business knowledge, but all our welcome and will be inspired.
The 6 weekly classes are 2.5 hours, over 6 weeks, with 2-5 hrs of homework each week. How much time you put in is up to you, but the more you put in the more you will get out of it.
Each week, you will learn a new life-centred design tool and way of thinking, that you’ll apply to a subject of your choice.
Each lesson includes homework, which everyone presents back at each following class for group feedback and discussion.
By the end of the course, you will have redesigned your subject and have prepared a presentation which you’ll present at the final lesson to also receive feedback.
Before the course starts, you’ll choose a product to redesign as your design subject for the course.
You’re welcome to redesign any type of product, but learning life-centred design can be easier if you start with products that are:
- Fairly simple with a few parts and different materials, but not too many and not too complex
- Have some packaging you can redesign
- Are common and used by many
- Could be reusable but are thrown away after one use (like cleaning products in spray bottles)
Examples:
- Common furniture like mattresses, a set of table and chairs, etc.
- Multi-pack of underwear
- Pack of disposable shavers
- Gift box of luxury chocolates
- Bottle of wine
- Bags or luggage
- Products in disposable spray bottles
I’ll also have options as back up.
Yes! The course is completely online, based on the Sydney, Australia Timezone, so as long as you can make that time, you can attend from anywhere in the world.
Yes! You will be automatically sent a certificate to the email in your account after you have completed all course lessons and have shared your completed persona in the community.
The course instructor is the Sydney-based designer, researcher, and writer, Damien Lutz, founder of lifecentred.design and futurescouting.com.au, and author The Life-centred Design Guide, The Non-human Persona Guide, and Future Scouting.
Damien created the first framework for life-centred design and published the first guide on life-centred and non-human persona design based on project work, interviews with other practitioners and experts, and research.
The Life-centred Design Lab is committed to providing equitable access for designers around the world by offering scholarships at our own discretion.
Yes, we also offer customised training for life-centred design and non-human personas. Contact us for more details or email at info@lifecentred.design.
AUD$950
