Bruno Taylor, Vincenzo Di Maria and Aldo de Jong

Service design is used to improve or create better services. It can transform environments, enhance communication or improve experiences. Service designers use people-centred approaches and co-design methods to create meaningful user experiences and deliver effective and sustainable solutions. This course is meant as a practical and useful introduction to the discipline. It will suit non-designers working in service industries as well as creative professionals looking to move into this emerging discipline. In fact, anyone interested in creative problem solving approaches and applied design thinking would also benefit.

You will be working individually and in small teams to respond to a design brief. You will engage with a specific challenge and design a service-based proposal, which will be presented at the end of the course. Visiting service design practitioners from leading agencies will share their professional experience with the course participants. Last year saw designers from thinkpublic, live|work, Participle, Engine and Design Against Crime. The programme follows a successful summer course, which had a highly positive feedback.

Bruno Taylor and Vincenzo Di Maria are co-founders commonground, the place where design meets positive social change. Bruno and Vincenzo met while studying MA Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins and have been working together for the past three years at Design Against Crime Research Centre. They have been working with Age Concern Hackney, Camden Council, Nesta and the Design Council on a number of different projects that aim to generate positive social change through co-design. Bruno believes that design is multi-faceted and maintains a holistic approach to his work. Vincenzo is an Italian multidisciplinary designer and he has a playful and people-centred approach to design. www.gotocommonground.com

Aldo de Jong will be hosting a one day workshop during the summer course on the design of participatory service networks. He is a founding partner of Claro Partners. Aldo is a strategist with a strong analytical capability and business acumen, coupled with creativity and passion for understanding people. He understands what it takes to take an initiative through the organization to the marketplace. Aldo previously worked in business development and strategy, as a founding member of the European office of Smart Design. Claro Partners is a business innovation firm that balances capabilities from social science, experience design and business strategy to translate deep insights into meaningful and relevant solutions that serve people’s needs and drive real business growth. Claro works in close partnership with clients, to ensure a lasting impact and transform the organisations they work with.