What if we were comfortable talking about grief? What if we had the words, the common language, the signals? Unfortunately, in today’s culture of commodification, grief doesn’t sell — but we desperately need to talk about it. Which made me wonder — what would it look like if we branded grief? What if grieving was normalized?
Those questions led to A Round Grief, a brand born from my own grieving experience but built to challenge the way U.S. culture treats grief: awkwardly, privately, and like it has an expiration date. Through self-reflection, interviews, and design exploration, I imagined what it might look like if grief had its own product line — and if it wasn’t hidden, but shared.
The result is speculative objects like Mourning Lights (a signal in your window that tells neighbors you’re grieving — and maybe need a casserole) and Grief Balloons (that inflate and deflate as your emotions shift). They’re absurd products that use humor and design to make grief visible and start conversations we usually avoid.
A Round Grief is not really about selling these objects. It is my way of challenging cultural norms and taboos around grief, using humor, discursive design, and the familiar language of consumer branding to open up a dialogue about grief. What if, instead of ignoring it, we gave it form, visibility, and language? What if we invited people to question why we hide it at all.
