Life-Centered Design
For decades, design thinking has centered on users; their needs, behaviors, and experiences. But as our climate crisis deepens and resource depletion accelerates, user-centered design alone isn't enough.
We are life-centered designers collaborating to build a framework that expands design thinking to include all living systems. By integrating biomimicry's Life's Principles into the design process, we're creating practical methods for designers who want their work to regenerate rather than extract.
Project Origin Story
Inter-twined was born from a simple question: What if designers learned from 3.8 billion years of evolution instead of just human behavior?
Agota brings formal training in both biomimicry and industrial design, translating natural patterns into practical design principles. Treasure brings over 20 years of award-winning product design experience and a belief that sustainability requires fundamentally rethinking how we design.
Together, we're building a framework, educational resources, and a community for designers ready to create products that work with living systems, not against them.
Meet the Founders
Agota Jonas is an educator, designer, and biomimicry specialist. She holds a master's degree in industrial design and a 2nd master’s degree in biomimicry. She began her career in San Francisco designing for such world-renowned firms as Astro Studios and frog design. Today she teaches life-centered design thinking in industrial design programs at the Academy of Art University.
Agota’s work bridges the gap between biological science and design practice, making biomimicry's complex principles accessible to designers and students. Agota is also the creator of the fruitbridge and founder of luckyroundavocado.com.
Treasure Hinds is an industrial designer and fine artist with 25+ years of global experience. Her career has taken her around the world, living and working across the US, Europe, and Asia, and designing for major companies including Microsoft, Siemens, and frog design.
For the past 15 years, Treasure focused on building Anvil Studios, a boutique industrial design consultancy based in Seattle. Through Anvil, she worked with global clients, sponsored student projects, juried competitions, and curated exhibitions. She has helped bring over 50 products to market, and her designs have been recognized with over 40 patents and more than 100 international design awards. treasurehinds.com
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that Agota lives on the land of the Acjachemen Nation, also known as the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, and Treasure lives on the Indigenous Land of Coast Salish people specifically the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe (sdukʷalbixʷ). We honor with gratitude the land itself and pay our respects to elders past and present.
Contact us
We'd love to hear from you! Whether you have a question, need some design advice, or want to share a product or story of your own, please reach out to us anytime.