The scale, speed, and diversity of New York City has earned it many names: Melting Pot, City That Never Sleeps, and Metropolis, to name a few. This dense urban ecosystem is in constant transformation. Along with its many social, environmental, and economic advancements, new challenges have surfaced that require New Yorkers to find solutions that make the city more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. An ever-increasing number of people and organizations have risen to meet those challenges, and anticipate the new ones. The lists that follows offers only a peak at the landscape of designers and innovators who are actively working to make New York City better for everyone.

City Ambassadors

Andrew Shea

Andrew has an eclectic background and has managed to stay active in three of the things he loves the most: designing, writing, and teaching. He is Partner at MANY, a design studio that focuses on the craft of visual storytelling and design that adds value to civic, cultural, and educational organizations. Andrew wrote Designing for Social Change, which provides graphic designers with strategies to help them work on community-based projects. His work has been featured by outlets like Fast Company, Slate, Print, and 99 Percent Invisible, while his writing has appeared in publications that include AIGA, Core77, and Design Observer. Andrew teaches design classes on topics like creative placemaking, design for social change, and visualizing urban policy at Parsons The New School for Design and Pratt Institute and speaks regularly about design. Website | Twitter

Good is:
People and organizations who strive to be more socially, environmentally, and economically responsible. They identify, initiate, facilitate, and create solutions to the problems around them and put people at the center of those solutions. They look for ways to improve their community.

Ansley Whipple

As the Programs Director for Worldstudio Foundation, Ansley Whipple oversees all aspects of Design Ignites Change—a program that supports creatives who want to use their talents for positive social impact. Ansley works to strengthen the field of social impact design as a connector, producer, strategist, communications expert, storyteller, researcher, and fundraiser. In 2012, she received a Masters in the History of Decorative Art and Design from Parsons The New School for Design. As a design historian, Ansley values a deep understanding of the ways in which design shapes social structures—and vice versa—and the importance of using this knowledge to create a more equitable and just society through design practice. She has taught design theory and history at Parsons, volunteered for desigNYC, and also for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s Sustainability committee. Prior to moving to New York, she was the Director of Operations at the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA). Ansley graduated in 2004 from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a B.S. in Industrial Design. Twitter

Good is:
Good is in the eye of the beholder; my eye is attuned to ways in which creativity, design, the built environment, and products at all scales either help our lives or hurt our lives. Beauty helps and justice helps–the combination of the two is good!

 

Header image: Sean Davis

© HWGI? 2017 | Created and designed by Marc O’Brien.