Many of us pursue design partly because we wanted a life of creativity, and partly because we had our dreams of being a doctor crushed out of us by the first chemistry class in college. That nagging desire to do good in the world doesn’t have to go unfulfilled just because we chose to push around pixels and prototypes for our professional career. These organizations do a good job of helping designers find out how to do the right thing, by connecting them to causes and people in desperate need of a little design. Check them out, then use your creative powers for good.

http://www.designcanchange.org
http://www.design21sdn.com
http://www.themightyodo.com

A recent NY Times article highlighted CNN Shirt, a Beta test offering from CNN.com Videos that provides t-shirts with “popular“ headlines printed on them. I have always been fascinated with t-shirt societies, and more and more lately, I find myself returning to the BustedTees.com site. It’s my culture shot at how news events are impacting the college crowd. If you track the site, you can get a pretty timely playback of significant events and trends–nicely digested in printed t-shirt form. But now, you can get your personal wearable belief statement directly from a trusted news source. I am glad that headlines are getting the second life they deserve–that is some of my favorite copywriting that just seems to go to waste after the news cycle is over.

My wife recently gave birth to our second baby. Because I was not a basket case about the imminent arrival of this child, as I was with baby number 1, I had the clarity of mind to take it all in. So, instead of going into the experience as a new dad, to the chagrin of my wife, I went into it as an observer. My biggest takeaway was how the delivery room changed modes over the course of the delivery and how this can minimize levels of anxiety.

When you enter the delivery room for the first time, it almost feels like a hotel room. As the the delivery begins, doors and slots start to open to reveal the apparatus of delivery. One cabinet slides open to offer all of the anesthesiologist tools, the other opens up to show a heart rate monitor. A seemingly ambiguous cart opens up to reveal the tools of the obstetrician trade, and then the bed transforms and lights drop from recessed panels on the ceiling. The transformation is impressive, and if we had walked into the room in this mode, I don’t think my wife could have gone through with it.

Overall, the design of the room was a great way to use modal transformation as an anxiety reducing tool.

I’m a few weeks behind but have been letting all I saw at ICFF fully soak in and am finally ready to report. This was an odd year, I thought. Unlike the strong and new themes that emerged last year, 2008’s crop felt a bit more mild-mannered, honest, retrospective. It lacked some of what I interpreted as bleakness last year, and I appreciated the positive, straightforward quality to the work I saw.

Among the things I noticed were:

• A hyperactive take on craft. DIY is far from new, but the – shall we say – enthusiasm with which I saw designers embrace it was notable. Embroidered wood chairs, popsicle stick lamps; it was just shy of a ceramic ashtray to bring home to dad for Father’s Day.

• Wood love. Sure, wood’s been around for a while, but it made quite a showing this year. The wood radio has been a popular and extreme example, but there was also plenty of end grain to be ogled in chairs, headboards, lamps, credenzas, calculators…My favorite was actually a hefty wood coffee table coated in silver. It’s taken a lot of flack for immodesty of concept and price, but my feeling is this is just two years ahead of the curve. They’re so far over wood, it’s metallic.

• Muted colors. That hot pink keeps sticking around, if only to keep Karim from needing a new wardrobe, but the colors that caught my attention were not so eye-popping, namely flat grays, moderate purples and a putty here or there.

• The big reveal. Lots of furniture was unabashed in sharing details of its construction, from leather chairs that took their form from simple perforation patterns, to more literal examples of exposed screws, joints or actual construction materials.

• My long shot is what I’ll call global localism. This is a thin thread, but I have a hunch it’s worth commenting on. When two of the big guys cross brainstorms, something may be happening. Tord Boontje showed Witches Kitchen at Artecnica, a reinterpretation of South American cooking vessels. Meanwhile on the glam side of the aisle, Tom Dixon added to his spectacular repertoire of lighting with a series of beaten copper pendants with a sort of Moroccan mid-century flair. First-world fabu but for me the shapes had that we-love-the-(rest of the)-world vibe of Paul Simon in the 80s. We’ll see what comes of it.

FedEx announced Monday that it is changing the name of Kinko’s to FedEx Office. Since acquiring Kinko’s in 2004, FedEx has been struggling with how to integrate this brand into its business. This is a common problem many companies deal with, when acquiring a brand with considerable recognition and equity.

“Kinko’s was primarily a copy and print-service provider when it was acquired in 2004,” said Brian D. Philips, president and chief executive officer of FedEx Office. “The name FedEx Office more accurately represents our broader role of providing superior information and services through our company-owned, digitally connected locations around the world . ” (FedEx Press Release)

Finally, they are integrating the brand into their existing architecture nicely: FedEx Office, FedEx Ground, FedEx Custom Critical and less we forget FedEx Express. There is a lot to learn here, and I am sure there is an HBS case in the works, but it always seems that the simplest brand models work the best.