What if an elephant really wanted to use a playground? Could that work? Would anyone try to make it work?

At some point in life, everyone–even make-believe elephants–loses the drive to play, create, and try new things. Instead, we live by what we “should” do. We maintain the status quo. But what if we did more?

In her debut picture book and follow-up to her bestselling design thinking manual, Reframe: Shift the Way You Work, Innovate, and Think, author and Motivate Design CEO Mona Patel walks us through the design process with a curious elephant.  The elephant discovers how a swing re-inspires curiosity, vulnerability, and persistence to go for “crazy” ideas, even when a skunk keeps saying it can’t be done. Patel hopes that The Thing About Swings will inspire children to learn to question, dream, and design a better world and encourage adults to do the same.

About Mona Patel, Motivate Design:

Mona is the CEO & Founder of Motivate Design, a user-centered design agency based in New York City. Motivate Design helps clients discover customer needs and designs solutions to meet those needs. In recent her book, Reframe: Shift the Way you Work, Innovate and Think, Mona demonstrates how her 8-step creative process can help companies innovate and design simple, beautiful experiences. In addition to helping clients and other Fortune 500 companies become unstuck, Mona is also a teacher at Parsons, the New School for Design.