PolyU Design collaborates with travel essentials and lifestyle brand LOJEL on sustainable design challenge

A travel essentials and lifestyle brand founded in Japan has approached our Master of Design (Innovative Business Design) (IBD) programme and invited our master's students to be strategic design consultants in a sustainable design challenge.

At LOJEL, sustainability is a guiding principle that informs the company's daily decisions. They believe waste or something no longer in use is a secondary material and can be given a new purpose in new products, product-services, experiences, and even art.

In IBD's Innovative Lifestyle and Culture subject led by Professor of Practice Benny Leong, the project teams were guided to research into the customer base whose lifestyle has been built around travel and sustainability, and based on the research insights, to develop a product/ artefact using secondary materials and including a service/ system that improves the customer experience at LOJEL stores.

Project teams also entered a competition if their design used at least 70% defective materials provided by LOJEL and other recyclable or recycled materials. The LOJEL team and judges Jose Munoz, Nataly Hau, Hilda Fung and Dipti Paryani joined the final review held at LOJEL's Hong Kong headquarters.

Congratulations to the "Gaia Travelers" project team for winning the Sustainable Design Award and the "Emotive Voyage" for the Green Innovation Award. Looking forward to the possibility to realise our project teams' design concepts!