The founder of THIS – a small design company that is distributing a contemporary version of the Miswack, an organic, biodegradable, all-natural toothbrush that could potentially render both toothpaste and toothbrushes obsolete – is launching a Middle Eastern chapter of the AIGA design hub at the upcoming Beirut Design Week.
Leen told Albawaba that the Miswack project was initiated during graduate school at New York’s School of Visual Arts.
Her instructor encouraged Design Entrepreneurship MFA students to re-design the very first thing they threw away after class.
Leen panicked when she first set about the task of reconsidering the way we clean our teeth until she happened upon an article about the history in Islam of using a twig from the Salvadora persica tree to prevent tooth decay.
The Miswak is an elegant, portable, and natural solution to the problem of toothbrushes landing up in landfills and potentially harmful fluoride in mainstream toothpastes.
Now Leen is in the manufacturing stage of launching her product in the Middle East. But in the meantime, she is also striving to make the Middle East a friendlier place for like-minded designers to support one another.
To do this, she is launching a Middle Eastern chapter of AIGA – the oldest and largest membership association for design with over 23,000 members worldwide.
The launch will take place on 25 June, 2013 during the second Beirut Design Week. This informational celebration event will be held at Coop D’Etat from 7pm to 10pm.
So if you’re a designer and you’re keen to meet your peers, this is definitely the place to be.
:: Albawaba
Author: Tafline Laylin
As a tour leader who led “eco-friendly” camping trips throughout North America, Tafline soon realized that she was instead leaving behind a trail of gas fumes, plastic bottles and Pringles. In fact, wherever she traveled – whether it was Viet Nam or South Africa or England – it became clear how inefficiently the mandate to re-think our consumer culture is reaching the general public. Born in Iran, raised in South Africa and the United States, she currently splits her time between Africa and the Middle East. Tafline can be reached at tafline (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
Hi, how do i order for the Miswak casing?