What You Probably Didn’t Learn in Design School

Leyla Acaroglu

What You Probably Didn’t Learn in Design School...

Filmed on October 11, 2013, at “Head Heart Hand: AIGA Design Conference”

Design is an amazing profession that like any other has its ups and downs. What is incredible about designers is their power to influence and affect the people that we work with and the big wide world—whether we intend to or not! Simple choices can lead to amplified impacts and the unintended consequences of our actions can have positive or far-reaching negative impacts as well. In this compelling and humorous talk Leyla Acaroglu shares stories of design impacts (both intentional and unintentional) and illustrates a new narrative of design-led change.

Leyla Acaroglu is a sustainability strategist and leading proponent of systemic life cycle–based sustainability. She is the founder and director of Eco Innovators and a designer social scientist communicator researcher and educator with specialist skills in life cycle thinking and behavior change strategies. She lectures at RMIT University in Melbourne Australia where she is also undertaking her Ph.D. Acaroglu’s work spans a range of fields and projects including the development of “Greenfly ” one of the first online life cycle assessment tools. She was creative director of the award-winning design for sustainability education project “The Secret Life of Things ” and she was an artist in residence with Autodesk in 2012. She spoke at TED2013 was named one of Melbourne’s Top 100 People of Influence has presented on radio and television and wrote an op-ed for The New York Times. Acaroglu has also been nominated for—and won—several awards highlighting her contributions to sustainability and design.