Naturally Designed

[Texting]

Jonah: Yup, I know design is what makes Nova Scotia the cool place to be these days and it's what made specialty manufacturing possible. And sure it's the main reason you and I both drive a Tesla Eos and not a Google Micro, but if I have to sit for another minute in a dining room with our noisy colleagues frantically sketching flat pack housing and solar tractors on the table cloths I’m moving to the Republic of Alberta.

Ray: Cool? Did you say cool? That's very retro of you—sorry pal, there are no waves in the Republic of Alberta. You're supposed to be planning the official 8th Nova Scotia Design Industry Awards show for the glory of us all, or have you forgotten?

Jonah: I'm trying hard to forget. I could be surfing some post-hurricane heavies right now with that new board I printed at work.

Ray:  There's plenty of hurricanes to go around these days. Any solar tractors or instant house designs worth prototyping? That last deep ocean dive Bashara made for the International Nature-Inspired Design Institute to research deep water marine organisms off  Georges Bank brought up some  amazing new structures and materials no-one’s seen before, things that we can likely use for inspiration. I must call him. There's one fish membrane that holds whatever shape its inflated to make by electrical pulses until you reverse the polarity then it flattens out again. The UN Open Source Technology Network has a call for new ideas. Afghanistan is in trouble again and there’s talk of Google Help and Amazon Aid funding relief and new design work.

Jonah: Ready for silence right about now, dessert and a new tablecloth. Why can't people use their Apple Visions anyway and save on table cloths? Sharpies are so 20 years ago.

Ray: Very vintage/nostalgic I'd say. Hard to get Sharpies these days. I've heard there are some in Seattle. Underground market. Domestic Productivity Index is out, have you seen it?

Jonah: No, no time. Besides I'm interested in new products not how economical and effective our daily lives are.

Ray: Fifth year of the Design Guild's complexity plan for government and the investments are paying off big time, District solar/geothermal heating, switch learning, modular brick roads, urban farming, underground infrastructure, offshore tidal lagoons, flexible buildings, earth sheltering, cradle-to-cradle products, and winter gardens. Lots more innovation. So much waste eliminated the deficit is gone this year. The new products coming out of NSCAD Design and the Design Guild Research Forum are shifting GDP like never before.

Jonah: Design is excellence, man. Nothing more. It's all just living well.  Slipping out now with a radical board under my arm, three inches shorter, three fins, front weighted, new sharkskin texture. See you in the old atelier on Monday.

Ray: Ah, did I tell you we finally booked the Stephen McNeil Auditorium at the Design High School for the Awards Show? While you're off on a wave somewhere, all those fresh young designers will be there at the event looking for your job with their Sharpies sharpened. Cowabunga.