Designers hold the office of priests in our culture. In the days of the pharaohs and kings, the priests had the magical ability to read and write. Literacy was a closely guarded secret of the intelligentsia and the elites in the courts of the ancient monarchs.

Radical changes are required within our social, economic, and political systems that can be the legacy that we leave to the next generation: organizational biomimicry that more efficiently uses resources while understanding the biological and ecological limits of capitalist consumption.

Why am I making this such a big deal? Because it is on the same level of deciding whether we will side with the Nazis or not. If we ever wanted to know what we would do in that situation, well, we are deciding right now.

The words “design influences” can be understood as both a plural noun and as subject and verb. The plural noun speaks of those who have come before us and paved the way. The verb speaks of the responsibility of design to lead the way.