I’m a strategist, educator & researcher in the field of design justice, with a strong focus on sustainable product, service, and business model innovation. I use my skills and lived experience to guide the design process using a deeply sensitive and human-centered approach to create diverse & inclusive climate-positive products, businesses, and experiences.
Hello, I’m Quynh!
Research & Strategy
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Systems thinking is is a great tool to make sense of complex issues, such as prison reform and mental health, and offers us holistic way to investigate factors and interactions to influence your social impact strategy.
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Service design affords us a way to unpack how maximize your company’s effectiveness in pursuing the impact work you wish to achieve, creating operational coherence for the macro- and micro-level for your organization.
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For organizations who are passionate about aligning your product and services with ESG objectives, sustainable design considers the environmental, social, and economic impacts from the initial phase through to the end of life.
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Design thinking affords us a starting framework when we design something new, to deepen our knowledge of the nuances of your market opportunity and uncover holistic ways to answer your customer needs.
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With social impact strategy, we will step through planning, measuring, and attributing positive social change to an organization's work and actions. My skills in this area also include business design, planning, marketing, and identity.
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Using an integrated approach to designing new products, we’ll take a systematic look at all aspects relevant for the design of your new product. My focus is primarily in industrial design, where topics such as function, form, use, life-cycle, production, sales, and sustainability are crucial.
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For organizations who have solid strategies and product offerings, a design justice lens can offer new pathways for your products to meet customer demand, helping businesses attain goals and solve problems for their shareholders with empathy and respect.
I am an avid student of the ways we as a society shape and build our reality. I constantly ask myself, how can good products be tailored to meet the needs of customers? Is there a business model in place to ensure viability? How can these products be marketed? And further - how can products become a vehicle for social innovation?
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Design Research & Strategy: Eat Street Revitalization
Ethnographic and community research for the Minneapolis neighborhood Whittier, investigating ways that design can chart ways to revitalize the neighborhood’s rich restaurant history in South Minneapolis.
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Design Strategy: TAO Collective
A community proposal seeking to monetize and incentivize membership for social and monetary support for fine artists. This proposal examines alternative business models using systems thinking to analyze financial flow through the arts and conceptualize a new regenerative and stable way to secure funding for the arts.
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Design Research: TDNDY
Design research proposal for a non-profit seeking to create new avenues of support and community-building for survivors of sexual assault. This case study uses design-thinking to uncover ways to look at the human-centered issues, such as persona, body storming, and empathy mapping, and culminates with life cycle analysis to ensure products proposed align with sustainable development goals.
Designs & Experiences
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I operated as a design consultant & fabricator for organizations such as urban agriculture education non-profit Spark-Y and smart building systems startup 75F, and lighting design powerhouse Hennepin Made. I held key roles in strategic execution of custom product development, championing great design and problem-solving skills to create beautiful modern and handmade solutions that support organizations meeting their goals.
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I led my own design/build endeavor focused on community storytelling in social justice, offering design and construction services for theater, film, trade shows, and corporate events. I’ve collaborated with organizations including Mixed Blood Theatre, Theater Mu, The Illusion Theatre, Ten Thousand Things, and TEDxMinneapolis.
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I collaborate with artists, lending my product design experience for large scale site specific installations. Recent collaborations feature work highlighting the sustainability crisis, with Big Animal Productions, located in Minneapolis.
Stemming from a deep appreciation for local communities, I specialized in slow manufacturing, storytelling, craft-based processes, and sustainable product development in furniture, lighting, and performance taking into consideration people, planet, and profit.
Academia
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*NEW* Offered at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Fall 2022
From raw materials to finished products, students will learn to identify and understand the materials and processes used to make familiar products. In particular, the course will focus on how to design for each material and manufacturing processes (design for manufacturability). The class includes field trips to local manufacturers, and independent research.
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*NEW* Offered at University of Minnesota Product Design, Fall 2022
This class is a hands-on introduction to physical model making, as well as interactive prototyping tools and techniques. Through a series of projects students will gain experience of building product models with different materials and tools, and learn principles of form and function, 3D design, interactive prototyping with Arduino, and design critique.
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Offered at University of Minnesota for Product Design, Spring 2022
This is the second studio course for Product Design majors at the University of Minnesota’s Product Design Program, and is a required course for the program. Studios for the UMN Product Design program work with industry partners on contemporary problems. This studio will focus on physical and digital prototyping, craftsmanship, form, human factors/ergonomics, functionality, feasibility, and presentation skills. Students will be applying skills developed in PDES 3706 - Designing for Manufacture, and PDES 3704 Computer-Aided Design Methods.
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Offered at Minneapolis College of Art and Design for Product Design, Spring 2021
How are today’s environmental, social, and economic demands conditioning and shaping today’s product design mindset? With a component of readings/discussions and a small component of prototyping different ideas into 3D sketches, students will generate their own questions and individual perspectives on materiality in the context of socially responsible product design.
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Offered at Minneapolis College of Art and Design for Continuing Education, Summer 2016
This is a hands on class that will give you the basic understandings of metalworking as it applies to sculpture and furniture. It is expected that upon leaving the class, students will have a foundational understanding of welding, sculpting, and fastening, as well as an education that will allow for informed decisions about materials relevant to outdoor and light industrial applications.
Current and previous courses I’ve taught for the University of Minnesota & Minneapolis College of Art and Design.