Mint Design Studio

We practice engaged, community-based, people-centered design. By making others visible, we make design visible—including its research and process. Through this, we are catalysts for change. 

Our Vision

We see Florida and the city of Gainesville as a laboratory for our students, working in partnership with stakeholders, to develop and implement innovative, sustainable solutions to mutually understand problems. We are able to respond to the changing field of design through interdisciplinary collaborations, partnering with people in their communities to co-design responses to mutually important issues and challenges.

Process

Working first with clients as partners to articulate the problem and project objectives, we then work collaboratively to explore the questions/challenges and co-design appropriate responses that will work in context. Since Mint is also a course, one of our main goals is learning how to apply what we learn. Therefore, our projects always have a pedagogical function for students. All of our client-partners are supportive of mutual learning for growth and positive change.

What Mint Does

• Communication design (i.e., visual, multimodal outcomes, including artifacts)
• Design research to understand context and opportunities
• Services, strategies, processes
• Professional partnerships
• Professional development
• Fieldwork and asking questions (exploring in context)

A Very Brief History

Mint is a faculty-supervised, student-run graphic design studio we established in 2002 with the goal to provide advanced design students the opportunity to apply design in real-world contexts. We began working with partners at UF and then quickly branched out to work with nonprofit organizations locally and abroad (México and Costa Rica) and national corporations. In 2015 we moved into Infinity Hall and began working on socially-oriented projects in Gainesville, including with 352 Creates; on our own entrepreneurial projects including The Fridge, a pop-up art and design shop, and on several opportunities with the City of Gainesville government to support their people-centered government initiative. Some, but not all, of our projects are featured on this site. 

Research

Alongside our partners, design researchers thoroughly study human experiences and behaviors in regard to the needs at hand, in order to mutually understand problems.

Strategy

We strategize alongside our partners to produce design with impact and purpose.

Design

With our students, we implement human-centered design that happens in three phases. First, we learn directly from the partners we design with as we immerse ourselves to deeply understand their experiences and behaviors. Next, we analyze our insights, pinpoint design opportunities and begin iteratively prototyping ideas until we reach the right fit. Finally, we bring our solution to life with our partners. We can be confident our solution will be successful because we’ve kept our partners at the center of our process.

Production

Our process of making ideas come to life is backed by research and strategy.

Location

Infinity Hall

978 SW 2nd Ave,
Gainesville, FL 32601