Portable Light

The Portable Light is a good example of a project from the exhibition, Design for the Other 90%, that has succeeded because of its integration into the lifestyle of its projected users. The Portable Light is designed to be used by people from a number of different cultures who need a light source for cottage industries, education and healthcare, or it can be used in the daytime to charge mobile phones and medical devices. All aspects of the design from manufacture to possible uses have been considered, and always with the designer taking Papanek’s “modest, minimal and sensitive”(1) approach. In the exhibition the Sierra Portable light was shown, this is a bag that has the solar technology on one side and the light on the other. These bags not only provide light for the women of the San Andreas region on Sierra Madra, Mexico enabling them to earn enough extra money for their family to live from through “sandal making, repair work, weaving, and beading”(2) but are also are made by these women, helping them further their small income. The light is sold to people through a micro loan that is paid back through the earnings the Portable Light has helped provide. This design works because it is being integrated into peoples lives with respect and fits the needs of its users. It has not been designed with pity but with “dignity and optimism” an approach, according to Cameron Sinclair, that is essential for the “most successful projects”(3).


1 Papanek. V, P . 251, (1985) Design for the Real World, Lopndon: Thames and Hudson
2 http://www.indexaward.dk/print_nomination.asp?id=423 21.3.2009
3 Sinclair C, P. 17, (2006) Design Like You Give A Damn, New York: Metropolis Books