Tippy Tippens
About tippy
Tippy Tippens is passionate about creating things that benefit social change and a healthy planet. She is a designer, environmentalist, educator, social entrepreneur, Gandhiwarmer, ice cream flavor experimenter, and a great fan of the Canadian tuxedo. She was named to the GOOD 100 as 'one of 100 people pushing the world forward.’
After over two decades of intersectional, creative work, Tippy has cultivated a deep portfolio of professional experience, including: designing faucets for Kohler; freelancing for lighting, furniture, graphic, architectural, and wayfinding firms; creating home furnishings for individual clients; and founding a creative studio for social change.
With the ability to cover a range of social and environmental topics, Tippy teaches, keynotes, and serves as a panelist at conferences and colleges around the country, including: Association for Community Design Conference, Tulane's Taylor Center for Social Innovation, Tulane’s Green Business School, Loyola's Social & Political Design Department, Syracuse University's Design & Entrepreneurship courses, New Ventures Accelerator Program, Adobe Creative Jam, Pecha Kucha, and TEDxTU. She is also delighted to collaborate on creative exhibitions, public space projects, and multi-media productions.
Tippy holds a Masters of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus in furniture design from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is an alumna of the 2011 Propeller Fellowship and is a frequent advisor to social entrepreneurs. She is based in New Orleans as the Chief Eternal Optimist at Goods that Matter, a design company that she founded in 2010 and the founder of The GOOD Shop/Kind Hearted Goods.
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Professional Experience:
Goods that Matter, Chief Eternal Optimist/Founder
September 2010 - Present, New Orleans, Louisiana & Richmond, VA
Tippy Tippens Design + Research, Freelance & Consultant
2008 - Present, New Orleans, Louisiana; Richmond, Virginia; New York, New York
Loyola University, Adjunct Professor, Social & Political Design
January 2016-May 2017, New Orleans, Louisiana
Kohler Company, Industrial Designer II , Faucets & Water Delivery
November 2005-April 2009, Kohler, Wisconsin
Freelance Industrial Designer
July 2003-November 2005, New York, New York
Furniture Designer & Maker
1996-2002, Richmond, Virginia
Education:
Pratt Institute, Masters of Industrial Design
May 2005, Brooklyn, New York
Virginia Commonwealth University, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Focus in Furniture Design
May 1996, Richmond, Virginia
Selected Awards, Honors, & Talks:
Guest Speaker, Tulane University, Environment, Society, and Capitalism Course, Spring & Fall, 2016-2025
Impact in Local Culture Nominee, Love Your City, New Orleans, LA, January 2021
How I Built This Fellow, NPR, Yerba Buena Arts Center, San Francisco, CA, October 2018
Guest Lecturer, Loyola University, Social/Political Design, September 2015
Guest Lecturer, Tulane University, Design Thinking & Social Entrepreneurship, April, September 2015
Guest Speaker, Adobe Creative Jam at Propeller, Design, Creativity, & Entrepreneurship, April, 2015
Guest Speaker, Association of Community Design Conference | Detroit, June, 2014
Member of the GOOD 100, GOOD Magazine, Named as ‘One of 100 people helping to push the world forward’ April 2013
Guest Speaker, Pecha Kucha New Orleans, Creativity & Entrepreneurship, 2013
Invited Presenter, Pipeline Pitch Summit in San Francisco, Golden Gate University, 1 of 10 female entrepreneurs invited to present, December 2012
Guest Lecturer, Syracuse University, Design & Entrepreneurship, Fall 2012, Fall 2009
Guest Speaker, TEDxTU, Tulane University, ‘Obsessing over what Matters’, 2011
Fellow, Propeller, Incubator & Accelerator Program for Social Entrepreneurs, 2012 - 2011
Panelist, Secondline Conference & Delta Regional Leadership Institute, Social Innovation, 2011
Best in Show Award, Design Within Reach, ‘M+D+F’, Adams Morgan, Washington DC, 2009
National Design Competition Award, Conduit Group, NYC, ‘Rear Window Shades,’ August 2005
Graduate Fellowship, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2004 - 2003
Graduate Fellowship, Pratt Institute, Spring 2003, Fall 2002
Gianninoto Graduate Scholarship, Industrial Design Society of America, Fall 2002
Selected Publications:
“Keep on Giving: 11 Gifts that Give Back to the Community,” U.S. & Canada B Corporation, December, 2023
“This B-Corp offers a Model in how to Sell Goods that Matter”, Triple Pundit, July 2022
“Earth Day: 5 Modern Gifts that Give Back to the Planet,” Design Milk, April 2020
“In the Business of Change, How Social Entrepreneurs are disrupting business as usual,” by Elisa Birnbaum, GTM is discussed on pages 41-43, 156-157, New Society Publishers, April 2018
Selected Goods that Matter press, 2010-Present, see more on goodsthatmatter.com/press:
Architectural Digest, Inc. Magazine, Vogue, Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company Design, West Elm,
Quickbooks Intuit (Video Features), CNBC, HGTV Gift Guide, NPR/WWNO, West Elm Featured Maker & City Guide (Video & Catalog), National Geographic, Nat GEO Traveler, Makers who Made It: 100 Stories of Starting a Business, The Everygirl, People Magazine, GOOD Magazine, Whole Living, Dwell, PSFK, Treehugger, Springwise, Martha Stewart Show, Shopify ECommerce University, New Zealand Herald, Design Milk, TBD, Kickstarter Blog, Audubon, Huffington Post, American Craft, Coastal Living, Daily Candy, InvadeNOLA, WWOZ, News with a Twist, Invader’s Guide to New Orleans, Trendhunter, Times Picayune, New Orleans Magazine, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide Blog, GoNOLA, New Orleans City Business, MTV Act!, Goodlifer, Design Milk, Daily Candy, Trend Hunter, Sassy Magazine / Hong Kong
“Community Helps Burnell Cotlon’s Lower 9th Ward Market,” Ellen DeGenerous Blog, March 2016
“Ode to New Orleans Creatives,” One of Many, Wesley Verhoeve, May 2015
“The House of the Future is Open and Adjustable,” PSFK, ‘August 2011
“Altruistic Celebrate Gandhiwarming’ 11 (Yes, Really),” NBC Washington D.C., January 2011
“Architecture Review: Beyond Art,” Washington Post, photo credit, VMFA expansion, pg. C2, May 1, 2010
Dezeen design blog, UK, May 10, 2010, Building Design, UK, VMFA photo credit, May 7, 2010
Gothamist, High low & in between, Streetsy, Modern art notes by Tyler Green, gandhiwarmer,
January / February 2010
“What’s Fresh Now,” Core 77, Biz Bash Media, Pisa Bookshelf at ICFF & Brooklyn Designs, May 2005
core77.com, mocoloco.com, interiorINsight.com, Turf Collective, a Mobile ICFF Exhibition
(in a U-Haul truck), May 2005
Reviews of Cielito Lindo’s Interior, Electronic Clock, Style Weekly, March 2004, September 1999
Review of Functional Diversity Exhibit, Chair Design, Art Papers, pages 44, 45, July/ August 2000
Selected Exhibitions:
The Pavilion, The Feast + Social Innovation Week, New York, New York, October, 2012
The Front, Group show, New Orleans, LA, 2011
gandhiwarmer: MLK Center, Atlanta, GA, 2012’; DuPont Circle, D.C,. 2011; Union Square, New York, 2010
Schindler Satellite Gallery, Landscape Photographs, Richmond, VA, January & March, 2010
Assemblage: An evening of Art, Architecture, and Music, SMBW Architects, Richmond, VA, 2010, 2009, 2001
Design Within Reach, ‘M+D+F’, (Best in Show Award), Adams Morgan, Washington D.C., 2009
Design Within Reach, ‘Modern Milwaukee’ I and III, Milwaukee, WI, 2007, 2006
John Michael Kohler Art Center, Artspace, ‘One and Only,’ (Photography) Kohler, WI, 2007
Vitra, ICFF, Living Spaces, Turf Collective, New York, NY, 2005
Brooklyn Designs in DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY 2005
i Saloni, Salone Internazionale del Mobile, Milano, Italia, 2005
Eggspace, Landscape photographs taken by car, train, and foot (solo show) Richmond, VA, 2004
Acconci Studio, Schafler Gallery, Pratt Artists Respond, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY 2003
International Contemporary Furniture Fair, Jacob Javitz Center, New York, NY, 1995, 1994, 1993