MARIANA PRIETO

The Design for Wildlife Collective

There are some projects that require a larger team with broader skill-sets in order to solve a large, wicked problem. For this, I've established the Design for Wildlife Collective, a group of creative professionals equipped to take on large and complex wildlife-related challenges. By partnering with wildlife organizations we can all create innovative, long lasting and economically viable solutions to conservation problems.

What you need to become a Design for Wildlife Partner:

1. Have a big challenge you want to solve.

Examples: “How might we reduce retaliation rates of elephants in Kenya”, “How can we increase local population engagement with their own wild animals in an economically sustainable way?”, “How can we redirect the current spending on animal parts (ie. ivory, pangolin scales) toward a different product that is equally valued?”, etc.

2. Be open minded about implementing new and radical ideas to solve complex conservation challenges.

3. Work together with us, as partners, to produce the necessary documents for fundraising. Yes, we help fundraise to cover the costs of the programs once we have established the problem that we want to solve.

Once we agree on a challenge to solve, we become partners and search for the appropriate fundraising channels to support our work.

All Design for Wildlife Collective members are widely experienced in doing field research for developing communities across Latin America, Africa and South East Asia and have worked on projects related to poverty alleviation, disaster relief, refugee crisis and/or conservation. When the project calls for it, we're able to assemble a 'dream team' of designers, researchers, storytellers and experts suited specifically to the challenge at hand.

CORE TEAM MEMBERS

Matthew Wilcox
Behavioral Insights Lead

Matthew is founder of The Business of Choice, a choice architecture and behavioral insights consultancy. Prior to setting up The Business of Choice, Matthew was Executive Director of the Institute of Decision Making, a think tank that served as a bridge between marketing practitioners and scientists who study behavior and choice.

With more than 25 years of experience in understanding brands, brains and behavior, Matthew consults in both the commercial and social development spheres. As well as advising organizations such as Levi’s, Novartis, AT&T and Unilever, he has brought insights from behavioral science to smoking cessation, energy conservation, clean air vehicle adoption and school cafeteria design programs in the U.S., and to reproductive health initiatives in East Africa. Matthew is a frequent speaker at business schools and at marketing and communication events, including giving a keynote address to the 2016 Global Social + Behavior Change Communication Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

His is also author of the award-winning book “The Business of Choice” which was named Marketing Book of the Year and winner of the American Marketing Association’s prestigious Berry Book Prize in 2016.

Matthew grew up in Ireland, is married to an Italian, and lives in San Francisco.

Stacy Barnes
Human Centered Design Expert / Graphic Designer

Stacy is a systems thinker who uses graphic design throughout her process to quickly bring ideas to life and continue iterating on them until they reach the highest resolution. She has worked across for-profit and non-profit sectors for over a decade bringing new brands, businesses and strategic offerings to life.

Beginning work at IDEO New York as a senior graphic designer, Stacy then followed her passion to serve vulnerable populations through design by joining IDEO.org in San Francisco. At IDEO.org Stacy led teams through myriad complex issues to create innovative strategies and tangible solutions. In her role as creative and co-strategic director for the Youth Reproductive Health Program, she conceptualized, led, and often physically produced innovative offerings that have positively impacted thousands of people.

Her work spans sectors such as sexual reproductive health, water and sanitation, maternal child health, nutrition, and more. Stacy currently works with for-profit and non-profit organizations to help them better serve existing clients and reach new audiences at home or abroad.

Salma Mousa
Quantitative Social Scientist

Salma Mousa is a quantitative social scientist based in Stanford University’s political science department. Her passion is applying statistical methods and data analysis to human problems. What does the evidence base say about a given social problem? What attitudes and behaviors can we use as outcomes? How can we attribute outcomes to a particular program? These questions drive Salma’s research as a fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Stanford University’s Immigration Policy Lab, Center for Global Development, and Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society.

Salma’s research combines data science, fieldwork, and human-centered design. She worked with political scientists at Stanford’s Immigration Policy Lab and human centered designers at the International Rescue Committee to design a set of interventions aimed at boosting the socio-economic integration of refugees. Her doctoral research similarly leverages experimental methods and insights from the field. Most recently, Salma has been designing and implementing inter-faith soccer leagues to re-build social cohesion in Iraq.

Before starting her PhD at Stanford, Salma worked as a research consultant for Aljazeera, the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, and the International Rescue Committee. A lifelong animal lover and allergy sufferer, her only pet is her Swedish fiancé.

www.salmamousa.com

Danny Alexander
Human Centered Design Expert / Designer

Danny Alexander is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Who Gives A Crap, the world’s most delightful toilet paper company. He oversees the creative, product, and marketing teams, and as an avid toilet user, is also passionately involved in guiding the direction of the company’s donations (over $1,250,000 donated to help build toilets to date!).

Prior to Who Gives A Crap, Danny spent several years as Senior Designer at IDEO.org, the non-profit sister company of the acclaimed design consultancy IDEO. While there he led the organization’s sanitation portfolio and developed his deep love of toilets and for working with communities around the world. He's led projects with organizations such as Marie Stopes Zambia, PSI Tanzania, Sanergy, Unilever and others, working primarily in East Africa and Asia.

In previous lives, Danny was a designer at Method, founded a design consultancy in Argentina and a Direct Trade coffee company in the Dominican Republic, and won a ping pong tournament in his high school.

He now lives in New York City with his wife, a dog and two energetic cats.

Luisa Ruge
Human Centered Design Expert / Postgraduate Researcher in Animal Computer Interaction

In her current undertaking of a PhD in Animal Computer Interaction at the Open University, Luisa has found a way to combine her expertise as adesign researcher, with her mobility assistance dog training experience. Her research aims to design optimized interactions between mobility assistance dogs and the built environment.

Prior to this, Luisa worked as a Lead Business Designer at Polymath Ventures, where she co-lead multidisciplinary teams in the design of billion dollar businesses across Latin America.

As an independent design consultant, her projects ranged from collaborating with the US State Department and the James Beard Foundation in creating the exhibit strategy for the US Pavilion at ExpoMilan 2015; to defining a brand strategy for Sansaire, a small appliance start-up.

Previously Luisa helped create and establish the design research team at Chamberlain, leading projects across multidisciplinary teams, international markets and product lines. As an adjunct faculty member of the Design Department at the Illinois Institute of Technology, she co-taught Research Planning & Execution.

In addition she was Lead Color Finish and Material designer, at Whirlpool Corporation in both their US and Italian offices. Among her projects, the one she holds most dear was leading the re-design of the 90th Anniversary Candy Apple Red edition of the Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer.

www.luisaruge.com

Rebecca Calder
Cultural Anthropologist

Rebecca Calder is a cultural anthropologist and social impact specialist who has spent the best part of 25 years researching, designing, implementing and evaluating development programs that aim to achieve social impact for the world's poorest and most excluded populations. She started her career as an anthropologist focusing on issues of deforestation in Nepal and trying to develop a deeper understanding of how gender, power, poverty, exclusion and other social issues influence how people manage and mismanage forest resources, and what the implications are for community management of forests.

In the course of her work, she lead multi-disciplinary teams in Africa, Asia and the Pacific and trained staff from a wide range of NGOs, bilateral and multilateral organizations and the private sector. Her client partners include UNICEF, DFID, DFAT, Irish Aid, USAID, Mercy Corps, Plan, ActionAid, Comic Relief, ODI, Hewlett Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Girl Hub, Nike Foundation, Girl Effect, the Unreasonable Group, and Women Moving Millions.

Rebecca is particularly passionate about working with adolescent girls and young women, and on economic empowerment and shifting social norms. She has in-depth experience working with creative teams, including serving as Technical Director for the SPRING Accelerator.

Rebecca is married with two teenagers, a dog, a cat and a Leopard Gecko. She lives on a small island off the coast of Vancouver, Canada.

THE STORYTELLERS

James Dunphy
Graphic Designer

James Dunphy is a Queens-born / Portland-based graphic designer who partners with organizations who have passion and purpose.

With a focus on branding and typography, he uses design to engage, empower, and educate across print, screen, shirt and space. While working with Nike, he found authentic stories at the edges of culture and sport. As the Art Director of Brooklyn-based clothing company Outlier, he lead and elevated the cult brand's visual presence and product strategy. As a design fellow at the Center for Urban Pedagogy, he collaborated on projects to educate vulnerable populations in New York about their rights.

When he's not pushing pixels, he can be found searching for the perfect pepperoni slice or petting a dog.

www.jjmdjr.com

Tony di Zinno
Photographer / Camera Man

In the grand tradition of the Magnum photographers who were his role models, Tony is as comfortable on Hollywood studio back lots as he is in the foothills of the Himalaya. He made his bones as an assistant working for a Rolling Stone photographer. He later broke out on his own shooting portraits and action of iconic sports figures for Adidas, Nike and The North Face. As a concerned photographer he has worked with Mountain2Mountain in Afghanistan and the Lakota Sioux in the Black Hills on projects of 'giving voice'.

Tony has taught visual narrative at the Art Center College of Design and Brooks Institute. He is also the special guest speaker at masterclass workshops for Idube photo safaris in Africa, Alaska and Antartica.

Tony is a master of storytelling through video and photo and approaches his work with a remarkable understanding of cultural sensibilities. He is able to transform seemingly mundane experiences into works of art.

Ceridwen Tallett
Creative Copywriter

Having once described what she did for a living to her grandpa as "the one who puts the words to the pictures", Ceridwen has written everything from packaging copy to adverts, books, scripts and the inside of toilet rolls.

After spending six years as the voice of innocent drinks, where she won a Yellow Pencil in Writing For Design, Ceridwen now splits her time writing, naming and coming up with ideas for all sorts of brands and companies.

She's mentored young creative writers at both the 826 project in San Francisco and the Ministry of Stories in London and has yet to draw anything that didn't make designers cry with laughter.

Ceri's ability to draw people in with the right use of words make her Design for Wildlife's secret weapon when it comes to motivating people, engaging large audiences and supporting fundraising strategies.

Erik Anderson
Film Director

From Erik: "Moving pictures are a universal language that can win hearts, change minds and ultimately, behavior. Compliment that mentality with visually arresting imagery and you’ve enabled stories to evolve both authentically and honestly.

To date, I've had the pleasure of working with the likes of the Yamaha, Firestone, Ohio Lottery, Microsoft, Ford and that of multiple non-profit organizations and have been honored with awards from the Clios, Effies, YDAs and AICPs to which I'm enormously grateful.

In short, I love telling stories with heart. I'm also currently working on that of several feature and television projects, in addition to that of two feature length documentaries:

OUR FISTS ARE BLACK, a timely story about what some consider the Jackie Robinsons of the Martial arts, the inimitable B.K.F. (Black Karate Federation) and a second entitled STILL HISSIN', a rags to riches tale about legendary dragster racer, Don "The Snake" Prudhomme." — Erik

www.andersonerik.com

And our secret weapons. Who are our network of local Zambian, Tanzanian, Kenyan and Latin American experts that join our teams as well. They are a large network that are chosen based on the location of the work to be done and the necessary expertise. Many of them are business designers*.

*What’s a business designer? A very creative, open minded MBA willing to model crazy ideas to find economically sustainable solutions to our work)

You may be wondering where all the wildlife experts are. But we don’t have them, because that's where you come in. We are experts at finding ways to solve complex social problems that are impacting wildlife conservation, but we make the strongest team when paired with your wildlife organization that has the knowledge, experience and vision of the problems on the ground. 

With your background in wildlife conservation and our expertise on the changes of human behavior through design, together, we can work toward new long term solutions for human-wildlife conflict.
 

CONTACT US