RIGHT: IMAGES FROM WHAT IF GREENLAND WAS AFRICA’S WATER FOUNTAIN? PROJECT | DESIGN: WORK WORTH DOING, IN CONJUNCTION WITH BRUCE MAU DESIGN

When it came time for Alejandro Quinto and partner Lorraine Gauthier to name their studio, these designers simply described the kind of work they intend to pursue. “My studio, Work Worth Doing,” Quinto says, “has a mission to articulate design projects that have a positive social and environmental impact.” This unique firm is fully committed to solving social, environmental and economic challenges on both a local and global scale—through good design.

Collaboration is an essential part of the vision. “By starting Work Worth Doing, we found we could collaborate with other people and projects that are trying to do [similar things] and initi­ate projects that we care about,” explains Quinto. “When we saw that the common denominator in all these projects was design in the broad sense, we got excited about doing something as design­ers and communicators.” Recent collaborations have included projects with architects, engineers, urban planners, economists and political scientists.

Denise Gonzales Crisp, associate professor of Graphic Design at North Carolina State University, worked with Quinto when he was designer-in-residence there and describes him as “remarkably adventurous, yet unassuming.” She continues, “Alex is not con­strained by traditional definitions of the graphic designer’s role. His commitment to larger social contexts and underserved needs dictates the projects he chooses to take on.”

Born in Mexico, Quinto studied in the U.S., England and Canada and is now based in Toronto. He has a BFA in Interactive Mul­timedia from Minneapolis College of Art and Design and worked at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and with Laboratory of Architecture in Mexico City. Work Worth Doing was launched in 2004. Prior to starting his own firm, Quinto worked with Bruce Mau at his Institute without Boundaries. “Bruce Mau is a very optimistic person,” says Quinto of the experience. “The Massive Change project is really an expression of that optimism. When you work with an optimist on a project in which you’re mapping all the new ideas, inventions and practical design solutions that are changing the world, you begin to see things that way, too.”

Currently, Quinto is working on a major project for the Royal Bank of Canada and the Toronto Atmospheric Fund. He has also done work for ICOGRADA, Starbucks and AIGA; has written for Dwell magazine; and has had his projects published in design books all over the world. In the not-too-distant future, Quinto says he would like to pursue a Masters or Ph.D. in design, ecolog­ical economics or business. “Design is increasingly understood as a discipline that can articulate possibilities, no longer confined solely to aesthetics or usability issues. A wide range of profession­als in business, politics and social enterprise are benefiting from the way designers think.”

www.workworthdoing.com