Purpose Driven Design with Todd Bracher

Aicila: [00:00:00] In this episode of Business As Unusual, I'm joined by Todd Bracher,

, the founder of Better Lab, to delve into the world of purpose-driven design and innovation. Discover how design impacts our daily lives in ways we might not even notice and why aligning business goals with sustainable practices is crucial for future success.

Todd shares insights from his extensive career and offers advice for entrepreneurs and designers alike. , whether you're in business design, or just curious about how things work,

You're in for an engaging conversation that will leave you thinking about the purpose behind everything we create. Stay tuned.

 Welcome to Business Is Unusual. I'm here today with Todd Bracher, the founder of Better Lab, and we're gonna talk a little bit about purpose-driven innovation and probably a couple of other things. Welcome to the show, Todd.

Todd: Hey, thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Aicila: Is there anything else you wanna mention about Better Lab or what you're up to?

Or should I just dive right into

Todd: No, let's just dive right in.

Aicila: So I was [00:01:00] reading through your bio and your website and I'm a comparative literature major way, way back in the day. So I love geeking out about English and it looks like you used purpose in two ways, both functional and meaningful. Is that does, do you think that tracks.

Todd: That's interesting. Yeah, absolutely. I have. It's a way of seeing design in some ways the world or life which I call contextual based design. And which what I mean by that is if take an example of a tree, I don't think, we look at a tree in the park and I, we're walking there and I don't think you'll see, that tree's got too many leaves or it's the green is just not right or it's too tall, or like, I think these sort of comments would be kind of funny because we accept.

The tree to be a result of an ecosystem, you know? So, to me its purpose is controlled by the environment and whatever the conditions are. So the work I do is very much in that logic. So I try to design the ecosystem essentially and let the [00:02:00] I object if you wanna call it that, kind of be inevitable.

So that's how these two sort of align for me,

Aicila: , is there something that you wish more people knew about? Design?

Todd: That's a great question. I think for me, I mean, design's everywhere, right? Your menu and the restaurant the food that you're eating, the, the cherries sit on, of course it's, it's all designed your, the text the font that you're looking at when you're typing your, your friends.

And so it's it's everywhere. And I think we tend to not, it's becoming a little cliche to hear this, but I think it's true. We tend to not notice design when it's, when it's, right. Really good design. I think we can notice really bad design. I think we can notice, but when it's, when it's right, I think it just sort of is transparent.

So people don't really give it as credit as design. It's just, yeah, it's just there, but that to me is a good sign when things are not that noticeable. I.

Aicila: Yeah, I my daughter sometimes calls me when she's leaving her Pilates class, and last time she said, this parking lot reminds me why we have civil engineers, and that no one was consulted on [00:03:00] this design. I just like laughing so hard.

Todd: I mean, I, whenever I walk up to a door handle and it's like round and I'm carrying things and I say, yeah, who would design these things? Like, I run into a lot of things like this in my life. I'm sure it sounds like your daughter and where you question how these things come about.

Aicila: I love that about her. So how would you define success for yourself?

Todd: So it seemed really evolved over the years and I think because as a designer. As a young designer, you don't have a whole lot of strength. You become kind of at the very tail end of the food chain. Just make it look good. That's your role. Very cosmetic. And over the years I've scratched up the ladder a bit to be able to influence decisions that are really happening behind, used to be behind the closed doors, the business meetings.

And so I think for me, really the success is now trying to help companies really operate with a sustainable understanding, really at at scale that helps humanity. [00:04:00] And less just about their bottom line. And you'd be surprised how often you hear, well, we don't wanna do things that are sustainable because it, it costs more money.

And and now I'm in positions where I could say, well, then we won't help you. Or good luck because you will be dead. Your business will die. And there's a lot of reasons to, I think it's a bad decision for companies to do that, not just because of the environment. So I think for me, yeah, I measure success just in now being able to make the help companies make the right decisions.

Aicila: Do you have a sense of how your success would impact the industries that you're engaged in?

Todd: My individual success Meaning like the, like this, this,

Aicila: this, thing that you're talking about, like that ability to.

Todd: percent. We, we, we came with a sort of a short story, a, a, a task chair, an office chair. The type of chairs sit in front of a computer. Those chairs are historically known as terrible offenders for the environment. They're made of, 70 something components.

They're the means to 40 factories or shipping parts and assembling things, and it becomes really a [00:05:00] mess. And, and so it's just environmentally a, a catastrophe. And they sell tens of thousands of these chairs a year. And then companies either downsize move go to business, you name it. And these chairs end up in landfills.

What we did is design the world's most sustainable chair, in fact, and it happens to be a work chair because we know they're horrible offending chairs. And and by doing that, in the very beginning, folks thought, well, why would you do that for an office chair? But when you start to understand the story, then you realize, oh, it's really at scale now.

That's like a meaningful change. And we're seeing now a lot of other companies are starting to chase. Target because they realize, we set a bar and I think folks really want to match it because it's the culture of, of the buyers of these products expected now. So I'm seeing that shift, so I'm happy to see that happen.

Aicila: Now that, that I, I've, I've seen that in different industries. I came up through nonprofits and just oftentimes. The humane decision is also

Todd: Hmm.

Aicila: cost effective and [00:06:00] functional, and people have to get out of a, a rut of thinking right to, to get to that understanding. So that's awesome.

Todd: right.

Aicila: Is there something that you were part of designing that you were most surprised by the impact or the result?

Like you didn't think it was gonna be anything, or, or maybe you did. I'm always going to the positive, but you're, you're welcome to provide any story you, we find interesting.

Todd: I think I'm pretty optimistic, but I always feel like it's never gonna. It's never gonna resonate. I don't know why, even though I feel like I'm pretty optimistic. Yeah. So I guess it's like, why would any, it's funny because this conversation I started with the tree, this idea of design in context, the whole point is to take my personality out of the equation, right?

The tree, the, the leaf is what it has to be. It's not some opinion, and so I always feel like if it's my opinions in there, no one cares. No one cares what Todd thinks. Like they need something to work. And so therefore I always feel like the more I can remove myself from it, the better likelihood things are gonna succeed in the market.

So specific [00:07:00] examples, things succeed for strange reasons, but we did a lighting product that was very, very simple and. Believe it or so, when the LED started to really take off like 10 years ago, eight years ago it's very glaring. Like it's, it's incredibly difficult to look at. Even today, folks don't really manage the LED light very well 'cause it's a point light.

It's like really bright dot. So we created with this company 3M. A way to use physics that sort of hides the LED, but it still delivers the light. So it looks like an empty glass of water. Like it's a clear, clear, solid tube, but light just comes out at the bottom. So it's really kind of magical and that's why people love it.

And to me it was because there's no glare. The light's really even it works perfectly in any environment, but, but folks loved it 'cause it looked magical. It was just mysterious. Technology, but it's just physics, so, so you never know what people are gonna really gravitate to,

Aicila: Magic is anything we don't understand. Right.

Todd: I suppose. Yeah, I suppose,

Aicila: [00:08:00] I say, the magician is following pretty practical principles. We just don't, we don't understand how it works, so

Todd: I think that's, I think that's why I love magic and like it's so much fun. 'cause you're just like, how did I, there's no way. This is actually magic. So, but it's incredible how they can convince you,

Aicila: yeah. It's an interesting I love that too, that sort of. You know, it's not, and yet It feels like it is. it's a

Todd: It feels like

Aicila: of wonder and curiosity, right? Like there are a

Todd: hundred percent.

Aicila: isn't as much of that as we get older in life,

Todd: Hundred percent.

Aicila: older. So purpose-driven design can you break that down a bit or what does it mean to you or in general?

I don't know if there's like a, a specific definition and why care about it.

Todd: Yeah.

I don't know. There probably is a specific definition, but I would go to, you know, I'm, I'm 25 years in the business now, and I go to these shows in Milan and I've been part of them and, Hey, a new sofa you made, congratulations. And everyone's thrown a party for you. And I look around and I say, you know, there's hundreds [00:09:00] of.

New sofas here and there's hundreds of designers getting celebrated for making a new sofa. After. Don't get me wrong, in the beginning I thought that was like the goal. But as when you zoom out, you start realizing like this is some of the world's top talent, like focused on making like soft things to sit on.

They're not really focused on actually solving real world problems. So, so for me, purpose driven, I. Design is really to take that type of mentality of like problem solving, but really putting it to where it's gonna help folks and really help folks at scale. And that's really an important distinction.

And so for me that's the purpose of Better Lab is really to, to focus on those types of things and not, not these kind of nice cool objects, those things that they'll exist and they should exist. And it's great designers that do that stuff. But the purpose driven aspect, I really wanna see more folks leaning to.

Aicila: I'm fully supportive of that. I Do you have any tips you can talk about with the practical application around that? I don't know if that totally fits for what you're up

Todd: Yeah, no, totally. [00:10:00] I mean, this is another thing to mention, I guess to to one of your earlier questions around what, what should few people maybe know about the design. I think everyone also is a designer, which is cool. There's no license to be a designer, right? Yeah, okay. You go to design school, I guess, and, and you call yourself a designer, but that's doesn't really mean anything ultimately.

What, what I think sort of the tips are that there's a lot of folks that are tinkerers and kind of makers and sort of doing things on their own and in the garage and, but they have a day job of who knows what, of anything else, school, teacher or whatever. And and I don't think. A lot of folks see what they are exploring as, okay, I'm not a designer so I can't really, or I'm not an engineer, and I think that's not a fair way to look at it.

I think they know as much as any of us and they're exploring something that might actually help folks at a larger scale to consider what taking steps to moving those things forward. And it's not a mystery to it. It's yeah. So I think my sort of advice in some ways is. For folks to really be open-minded about how they see themselves.

And if [00:11:00] they've really got some ideas that they wanna see in the world there's no reason why they can't bring it out.

Aicila: Seconded. Here's another. What advice would you ask or give? Sorry? What advice would you give your 18-year-old self?

Todd: I think take more, and this kind of is a global response, but take more risk. I.

Aicila: Hmm.

Todd: I was having a conversation actually just yesterday around, you know, Hey, would you have a bungee jump? And I asked this woman and she said, yeah, I have. And she goes, I went to New Zealand, the highest pot spot in the world, and I bungee jump.

And I'm looking at her like, I'm getting anxiety, just hearing it, I, I am like very careful with my like, physical self, and and she said it really changed her life 'cause it gave her like understanding of her limits. She says, you really think you're going to die and then you don't.

And it's incredible. And so all this kind of experience. So I think it sounds sort of cliche and it's not design focused, but I guess it does relate to it, the idea of taking more risks. 'cause even with design or [00:12:00] with any kind of creator activity. I think there's a lot of fear and I think there's we don't, I have less fear in cr creating than I do physically.

That's a separate conversation, but, but I think don't fear so much just get things out there and, and see and I think that's when I was 18, I was less fearful. Maybe I've grown more fearful, but I think still fearful and I think I, I could've really learned more faster if I was out there being a bit more fearless.

Aicila: Yeah, Do you think there was a, in terms of the design piece. The question that came up for me is, was there sort of a, a perfection thing? Like, I have to get this right or that the fear of taking that risk because there's a quote unquote right way, or was it.

Todd: Yeah, it, it's interesting if you're. I equate it to being a, a singer or something like this. You make your first album and it went pretty well, and there's like 10 songs on the album and they [00:13:00] all sound adjacent. And then album two's coming out, you're like, okay, I guess it's gotta be a version of version album one.

You can't be all of a sudden the country singer if you were a, a jazz musician. So you, you end up finding yourself in a lane. And years and decades go by and you're like in that lane and people expect you to still be in that lane. And, and some point you realize like, Hey, there's other things I wanted to have tried and you never did.

So I think and I don't really know why, and I guess there's some argument to say for a singer, it's why is to stay in a lane? I don't know. But but I think. I'd be more interested. It's, I don't think designers, it's that delicate. I think you could afford to be a variety of things that I don't think it's gonna destroy your career, but I, I, I never really did that.

I mostly stayed in the lane and I'm, I like the lane, but I, I would've explored other aspects. I think

Aicila: Yeah, I, mean, you could get into a whole philosophical thing in terms of art, like who is it for? 'cause I think an audience gets, they get an expectation and is it, do we get to have that? I mean, theoretically, I don't think so, but with certain [00:14:00] artists I'm like, oh yeah, oh yeah.

I get to,

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. And you wanna see more of it? Yeah. You wanna see the evolution of it in a relationship to the past in a way, but not just complete 90 degree turn. And I know when Michael Jordan, when he went from basketball to baseball, and I remember it was like, I. Anyone who's like roughly my age would recall, like he was really looked down upon, 'cause he wasn't like hitting home runs or whatever, he wasn't the greatest ball player.

And to think of being the greatest basketball player to pivot to baseball. And he was still better than like 99% of the world in baseball. And and folks gave him hell for it. And it sort of disappointed me because that was quite a risk and. What a thing to do in some ways and to me there's a lot of respect I have for him for doing that.

Kind of would've been easy to avoid, sort of public shaming or taking that risk. And in my opinion, there was no shame at all.

Aicila: Yeah. That's a great, a great example. What's something coming up that you're excited about in your business?

Todd: Boy, there's lots of things going on that's [00:15:00] fun. I have one thing that I'm excited about and 'cause I never really thought about it. It's probably not the answer I should come with, but it's there's a book I have coming out next year and and it's my a monograph and I never really thought about it being something that is an interesting thing to do, but it's like having kind of your, your museum show in a way.

And, and I feel honored to have the opportunity. So we're in the process of writing it and organizing it and, and so that's really fun exercise because it helps me. It's, it's like. Codifying all the thoughts they've had for 25 years and experiences and stories and everything that's happened.

And but I'm trying to write it from a lens of, without like time, actually it's, I'm not trying to, it's not trying to be a rear view mirror. It's really meant to be how I understand design, how I understand the world of design, and hopefully as a kind of transfer of knowledge to younger designers. So for me it's a really nice yeah, chance to, to share that experience.

Aicila: I [00:16:00] will have to look for that. And for folks that are listening how do they learn more? Follow you, get in touch. Get on a waiting list for your book.

Todd: Oh yeah, sure. I have my website is two websites, so better lab.com, and then my studio, which is todd bratcher.com, and there is the latest information I. Ways to get in touch. And of course anything related to the book will of course be there. Feel free to drop a note and I'm always happy to chat with folks.

If folks feel free to reach out.

Aicila: Anything that you would be excited to share on a podcast or talk about before we sign off?

Todd: Anything besides to share about a podcast? No. I think just to be able to have these types of conversations. It's not normal for me or most designers to have a conversation outside of the sort of design bubble. And I think it's really nice to have a kind of plain English chat around. You check your ego to have like a really nice normal conversation around what is, how to, how to folks see design.

And I think that's really refreshing. So I appreciate the opportunity [00:17:00] to have that.

Aicila: Thank you for joining me. I really appreciate you coming on the show

Todd: Thank you.

Aicila: and thanks everybody for listening 

Thanks for joining me on my journey through the realms of purpose driven design. From designing a groundbreaking, sustainable office chair to exploring how design intertwines with daily life, it's helpful to remember it's good business to align functional purpose with meaningful impact. You don't have to just design, you can innovate with purpose.

I especially appreciated the reminder that design is often at its best when it's invisible. And I also really appreciated Todd's advice to take risks in pursuing, in pursuing your ideas. It's a good reminder for all of us.  

Next week, join me as I explore the early signs of burnout, some hidden causes, and offer some practical strategies to rep, prevent, and recover from it. 

Thank you for tuning into business as unusual, remember, in this ever evolving world of modern business, it's not about fitting in.

It's about standing out. See you next time. Stay curious, stay [00:18:00] curious, stay innovative, and always keep it unusual.