As people around the U.S.—and the world—struggle to process the result of last Tuesday's presidential election, many are wondering what they can do to combat the negative impact that Donald Trump's rise to power is expected to have on a wide range of issues, including civil rights, women's rights and climate change.
The founders of Brooklyn product design company Breakfast, for their part, have chosen to do what they do best—design a product.
In this case, it's a simple blue ring, made from aluminum and meant to symbolize peaceful resistance and social justice, that supports major causes that chief creative officer Andrew Zolty says we need "to protect for our families, friends and children."
In other words, at $20 each, the rings aren't just a fashion statement. They're meant to raise money for key advocacy organizations. All profits from their sale, via an Indiegogo fundraising page, will go toward five nonprofits whose areas of activity are threatened by the incoming Trump administration—the American Civil Liberties Union, the Environmental Defense Fund, Everytown for Gun Safety, GLAAD and Planned Parenthood.
The political stance is a departure for Breakfast, a small independent firm that has created work for the likes of Google and Major League Baseball. The ring is also a significantly less technologically complex product than most of its previous projects, which have included a giant screen that recreated Instagram photos using spools of colored thread for Forever 21, and an Internet-connected street sign that Breakfast created as part of its own intellectual-property business.
The fundraising effort has a fixed goal of $10,000. Breakfast expects to be able to deliver the rings in January.