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Stephen Burks is an icon of industrial design. He leads Readymade Projects, a studio with offices in Brooklyn and Barcelona. He is in the business of creating beautiful things and winning awards for his endeavours. His partners and commissioners read like a who’s who of design: Missoni, B&B Italia, Cappellini. You get the idea.

But Burks has another string to his bow. As he says in his mission statement, available online:

There is a lot to consider in that small statement, so let’s take it step by step.

The Aid to Artisans of which he speaks is a social movement that has been around for decades. In that time it has helped manufacturers and designers build relationships with workers from Africa to Asia, helped to reframe the marketplace for their wares and elevate their livelihoods thereby.

Burks has been one of their best-known supporters. He had been serving a long apprenticeship in design, in the US and in Europe, when he and Aid to Artisans crossed paths. At the time he was well on his way to becoming one of the premiere US industrial designers at the time, and then a piece came out about him and his art titled ‘Puff Dada’.

“They were referring to me, I was Puff Dada,” he said, suppressing a grimace during a talk in 2016, which he shared with me. Burks is of African-American descent. When he gave that talk he cut a languid, lean figure with a buzz cut, a Dries Van Noten suit and a soft, sophisticated patois. He was every inch the trope of the worldly design guru and nothing like the stereotype of the blingking implied by the headline, and one can’t help but think that it was a vulgar nod to Burks’ heritage.