Happy new year! Here is a recap of our top blog posts from 2011. Susan Crow, MCAD SDO alum, shared what it's like to build a sustainable luxury brand from the bottom up in her piece Eco=Lux Jewelery. Published October 2011. "Real luxury is knowing the jewelry you are wearing is as ethical as it is beautiful. Creating a metamorphosis of change, East Fourth Street honors our environment by using recycled metal, conflict free diamonds and responsibly mined stones. This process of creation offers jewelry that is sustainable and original—not to mention stunning." Read more... Cindy Gilbert, MCAD MASD director, learned through physical pain what Freedom From Stuff really means. Published September 2011. "As I sat drinking my single-serve soda, I thought about how much stuff I have waiting for me at home. How much energy and resources did my stuff embody? Where would it all end up? What of it did I really need versus simply want? I thought about the potential freedom I would feel to not have, want, buy, care for, protect, and use as many things. I think I am starting to understand why the retired folks in my life are offloading their stuff on me. Physical and emotional freedom from stuff costs nothing and it weighs nothing. Now that’s something I am prepared to carry with me." Read more... Dan Halsey, MCAD MASD faculty, gave us the permaculture lowdown in 12 Sustainability Principles of Permaculture. Published in June 2011. "Nothing exists outside a relationship. Everything is related in the working systems of nature, economics, or package design. A designer that does not take into account the effect delivered works will have on users, resources or society, depletes the designs potential and future viability. Systems thinking requires that we develop the awareness and skills to define and design the functional relationships, which reduces waste and enhances, yield from existing relationships. Permaculture is a practice that uses a set of principles to assure the long-term viability of self-sustaining systems in agriculture and offers sustainable design lessons. Permanent plus agriculture is Permaculture." Read more... Rita Penrod, MCAD SDO alum, told us how she was able to Get a Career, Get a Life in one fell swoop. Published May 2011. "About midway through the double-zero decade I decided that I needed to enhance my skills and move in a direction that would give me a possible edge over other designers and creative directors. What I got was a life AND career changing experience." Read more... Denise DeLuca, MCAD MASD faculty, showed us an alternative business model in Nature's Business Plan. Published March 2011. "What is nature’s alternative to the old plan-and-execute model? Nature, actually, has many alternatives to that, one of which is to sense and respond. Nature’s organisms and systems are full of feedback loops constantly operating at all scales of time and space – feedback loops that are composed of perfectly matched sensors, receivers, and responders. The sense-and-respond approach allows appropriate positive outcomes to emerge in nature rather than pushing pre-determined goal forwards, regardless of changing conditions." Read more... Categories About the MA Program Published on January 16, 2012 Tags cindy gilbert Citizen Design MCAD sustainable design Rita Penrod Susan Crow Sustainability