Episode 028

Life after Launch: Sustainable Design with Baillie Mishler

If you get into a conversation with industrial designers about our impact, it doesn’t take long for sustainability to come up. We work in a field that produces a lot of physical goods and as such, our role in products entering the waste stream is a challenge. Luckily, Dr. Prochner, our first guest of the season, helped us see that challenging areas in design have the greatest room for positive impact if they’re addressed. Our guest Baillie Mishler has shown that to be true. At the firm PROWL that she co-founded with close friend Lauryn Menard, they help clients dig deeper into their product development to understand details like end-of-life for products, social impact, carbon impact and how to make smart manufacturing choices with the help of material scientists. Baillie shares with us how she made the decision to start PROWL, the alignment with values that running your own studio provides and why she still wouldn’t rush into that before working in industry for a while. Joined also by guest host and podcast favorite, Lindsay Malatesta, we have a vulnerable chat about the challenges we face and why all of us still believe that design is the best tool we have.