{"id":156237,"date":"2025-11-24T01:05:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T01:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/156237\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T01:05:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T01:05:14","slug":"industrial-designer-brings-a-hankering-for-a-sustainable-lifestyle-to-new-york-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/156237\/","title":{"rendered":"Industrial designer brings a hankering for a sustainable lifestyle to New York \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a student of product design at National College of Art and Design (NCAD)<\/a> in Dublin, Laurence MacDonald was always fascinated by how things were made, and at his most comfortable working in a hands-on way. Those skills and knowledge proved invaluable when he embarked on a journey to New York<\/a> in 2022 to follow his dream of working in industrial design.<\/p>\n

Having initially secured an internship with Smart Design, where he worked on major brands, MacDonald is now the industrial designer at Light Phone, a small company committed to providing a consciously stripped-back alternative to smartphones for those seeking to be less addicted to their mobile devices. <\/p>\n

The company launched its first phone in 2015. Its third generation, the Light Phone 3, launched earlier this year, with MacDonald having a major input into its development alongside the firm\u2019s two co-founders, Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang. The Light Phone, which is sold online, is compatible with many networks across the world.<\/p>\n

Work on this latest model involved collaboration with teams in Taiwan and China, where the phone is manufactured, with MacDonald spending time in Asia as the phone moved from design and prototype to finished product. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a small minimalist phone that has no browser, no social media and no email, but all the basics. It has a phone, a camera, a directions function, and can play podcasts. There\u2019s no planned obsolescence, and our phones are designed to have a long life. There are replaceable batteries, which users can change themselves, and repairable components.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Irish business grandee Gary McGann on working with Michael Smurfit, the fall of Anglo Irish and the current state of the Irish economy<\/p>\n

MacDonald says there is a movement of people who want to be less on their phone, less on social media, and more present. \u201cSome people will go all-in and use it as their main phone, while others will use it occasionally, say at weekends, or they might swap their Sim card and go light. Our tagline is, \u2018Designed to be used as little as possible\u2019,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

MacDonald\u2019s first year in the Big Apple was hectic. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018In New York, everything has to be done yesterday\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I came to New York was to be around people who are smarter than me and who inspire me,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

He immersed himself fully in life in the city initially, but now finds the need to pace himself. \u201cI\u2019ve been here three years, and I\u2019ve made it work. There was a lot happening quickly and I was thriving off that \u2013 that\u2019s how you make things happen \u2013 but I am pretty good at saying \u2018no\u2019 now and am aware of the need to recharge my batteries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been quite the journey. I moved here on my own and rented a small apartment with very little money, and just made it happen. I live near a park in Williamsburg [Brooklyn], which is good as, living in New York, I find I need to be near nature. I cycle 10 minutes to the company office.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fortunate to have made a lot of friends and to have immersed myself in the design and engineering world. Much of my friend network is American, whereas a lot of people who come here tend to hang around with Irish people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis summer I bought a road bike which is one of the best purchases I\u2019ve ever made. I can get a train from Grand Central to places in upstate New York, get off and do 100km on the bike, and then either get the train or cycle back, which is a great experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018In New York, it doesn\u2019t matter what you know, it\u2019s who you know\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Before he moved to New York, MacDonald started a project called Coffee & Repair in Dublin. Providing a valuable service to locals and a sustainable alternative to replacing broken items, he has brought it to New York too. It\u2019s not a commercial venture, but provides him with a lot of satisfaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically a pop-up repair shop in cafes and now a cart that I bring to a park. I serve coffee, and repair items, and have conversations about repairing things with the community in New York. It\u2019s all free, and I started it because I was tired of throwing things away that just needed a little attention.\u201d <\/p>\n

While MacDonald has settled well in New York, there are a few things he hankers for. \u201cI do miss my family. I miss a good pint of Guinness and the nature, especially the barren landscapes that you get in the west coast of Ireland, which I think is one of the most beautiful places in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a student of product design at National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin, Laurence MacDonald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60,10970,88125,4320,115,27079,1962],"class_list":["post-156237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-abroad","tag-national-college-of-art-and-design","tag-new-york","tag-united-states","tag-wild-geese","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}