Summer is a time of Joy and Celebration and we have fully celebrated this at MA Service Design!
Hello, I am Dr. Hena Ali, the Course Leader for MA Service Design at London College of Communication. I hope you enjoy our Newsletter

In this newsletter you will find:

• Graduation’23
• Curriculum (Live) Projects
• Extra Curricular (Live) Projects

Also in this newsletter:

• Professional Round table Talks and Panels
• Student-led Panels
• MA Service Design Summer Picnic
• Where our 2021/2022 students are now
• Upcoming events and workshops

Graduation’23

Please let me present our MA Service Design LCC-UAL Class of ‘22 ! (Missed those who couldn’t make it to the ceremony)

We are so proud of Class of ‘22  for your achievements, talent, hard work, proactivity and support for each other. We are sad to see you go but excited to see you as our peers, taking the Course’s ethos into the world. 

#changingtheworld one project at a time!

Remember that will always be part of our #masdlcctribe. As we did on the course ll we will continue to be there for post graduation as well. Onwards and upwards with lots of love and pride from your MASD LCC tutor team

See the onine showcase here https://graduateshowcase.arts.ac.uk/c/london-college-of-communication-ma-service-design

CURRICULUM (LIVE) PROJECTS

Design Futures MASD+Gov.uk Collaboration
Lead Dr. Lara Salinas; Tutor Marion Lagedamont

This year Design Futures Unit team collaborated with The Cabinet Office’s Government Digital Service (active until September2023). . The brief for this year was ‘Beyond thePresent: Anticipatory Design with GOV.UK’, Show and Tell, exploring alternative futures and GDS role. This is the first time first time GDS collaborated with a university.

In this unit the students  learn about two fields that claim expertise in exploring and realising futures: future studies and design. Taking (participatory) and collaborative foresight as a starting point to open a window into the future, the students conducted research-through-design. They drew on speculative critical design approaches to prototype future service concepts that will create engaging and accessible experiences of alternative futures. The students worked with extensive experimentation informed by foresight, public engagement, constructive design, speculative critical design and service design methodologies. They critically reflected on assumptions about the future, its role in the present, and they can design a better course of action now towards the collective realisation of preferable futures.

The project were presented the Cabinet office through a show and tell event curated by the tutor team.

Proposal Development
(Dissertation) Lead Dr Hena Ali – Tutor Dr Keir Williams

The Design School at London College of Communication is committed to ecologically and socially responsible design. During major project Unit the students refer to the ResponsibleDesign Framework and discuss with tutors about how their research and practice can follow sustainable processes and have positive impact.

Proposal development unit sets the foundation for the dissertations that the students handover in November as their final submission on the MA Course. This unit is designed to be creative, experimental, exploratory, innovative, and future focusing.  

From creative imagination to innovative practical Service Systems Design.

Do look out for the next News Letter if you are interested to see our projects’ show case covering areas from Designing Futures, to Health Innovation, to Tech Innovation, to Sustainable Design practices in the Urban & Rural realm, Global North and the Global South and more.

Extra Curricular (Live) Projects

The 12th SADI-LCC GLOBAL SERVICE DESIGN | SADI Project Korea 2023

MA Service Design students have been invited to take part in a Workshop in Korea for a week in partnership with the SADI (Samsung Art and DesignInstitute), and supported by the Seoul Design Foundation. SADI Workshops will be running from 5th -9th June 2023 in Seoul, South Korea. Students from the MASD were invited to collaborate in the workshop together with SADI Communication Design students. The aim of this project was to explore, through Service Design  methods, how DDP and the Universal Design Centre (UDC) as  services, can facilitate and support social innovation in Seoul and  broaden its audience. The overall purpose was to enhance the service offer of DDP and the UDC by building on local knowledge, with hard-to-reach audiences, of design’s transformative potential for creating a city for all MA SD has a strong relationship with SADI and is looking forward to the experience for the students. This will be the 12th year that we’ve grown this collaboration.

Service Design Challenge

Kangaroo – Play, connect, and explore

The jury awarded an ‘honourable mention’ to team Bond (University of Arts London, UK) for their service solution Kangaroo. The Jury commends their ability to connect the dots, and tackle fundamental human needs by providing a service with resources that already exist. Their grounded research narrows down the locality and population of single parents, and proposes a solution that goes beyond the more obvious digital platform solutions and really contributes to people’s wellbeing, both children and parents, within the urban environment.

MA Service Design Student Team

Sourabh Srivastava,  Aniruddha Mahanta, Junxiao Wu, Rui Zhang, Alex Rabinovich, Loretta M

JURY STATEMENT
“We found the idea of a rental pop-up childcare service that not only provides support for single parents but also serves as accessible and judgement-free spaces for connection and networking very innovative and relevant. By repurposing existing locations, they have created a unique environment where single parents can share their experiences, challenges, and successes, and foster opportunities for mutual aid. Their combination of technology and physical solutions enables the creation of flexible spaces that facilitate the development of meaningful relationships. Furthermore, their approach serves as a valuable blueprint for the establishment of similar spaces in diverse communities and for different target groups in need of support and connection.”

User Centred Design Project Continues…

EPQ: Design for future neighbourhood activists’ accreditation

Camden Council+MASD+Public Collaboration Lab, OpenBook

Lead Cordula Friedlander -Tutor Professor Alison, Marion Lagedamont + Professor Adam Thorpe

UserCentred Design Project from term 1 continued as extra curricular live industry project iin collaboration with Camden Council to project delivery in July

In Term1& 2 as part of the User CentredProject unit, students worked on an extensive stakeholder partnership live project titled: Future neighbourhood activists’ accreditation in partnership. This project involved a wide variety of stakeholders to develop innovative services and was in partnership with Camden Council, Public Collaboration Lab, OpenBook.

This project was led by Cordula Friedlander, Professor Alison Prendiville, Professor Adam Thorpe and Marion Lagedamont incollaboration with Open Book, Rebel, and Camden Council as project partners.The proposals generated were grounded on a future scenario that propose a future model of ‘EPQ’ accreditation & future models of service delivery that meets the partners aspiration for the future.

Four months into the course our MA SD presented their design proposals to Camden Council officers and service providers, as well as charities working locally in this space. They presented their work to receive extensive feedback consisting primarily of overwhelmingly positive and strong suggestions.

Due to the interest of the project partners project has continued as an extracurricular project with paid opportunities for the students who continue to further develop the EPQ service system. Four students were recruited to further the development of the Design-led Social Action EPQ, funded by the Future Neighbourhood 2030 programme, initially intended to accredit climate action projects in Somers Town. Since then, the curriculum has gone through extensive iteration and evaluation. The project outcome will be delivered end July.

Thank you to the below partners who supported the project:

Prof Adam Thorpe, CSM, UAL
Jasmine Holland, Open Book, UAL
Paul Haywood, REBEL UAL
Jahnelle Hutton Parr, Principal Participation Officer, CamdenCouncil
Ruth Craven, Partnership lead, Camden Council
Dominic Murphy, Principal Participation Officer, Camden Council
Ziaur Rahman, Job Hub manager, Somers Town and St PancrasCommunity Association
Sarah Ellie, chair, Somers Town Community Association
Ellie Rudd, youth leadership and community champions Regent’sPark, Fitzrovia Youth in Action
Jeff Baites, officer, Metropolitan Police

Collaborative Unit Project Continues…

AI Ethics Project

MASD+IsITEthical+Trilateral+Science Museum

Lead Dr Maria Escalante -Tutor Dr Silvia Grimaldi

Come all ! MA Service Design will exhibit works from  Ethics Through Design Unit at the  Science Museum, Kings College London on 6th October 2023.

The students worked on the AI Ethics ThroughDesign project brief led by Dr Maria Lujan Escalante and Dr. Silvia Grimaldi in collaboration with isITethical. The project explores the role of service designers in AI ethics, engaging the students in learning by doing, informed by ideas and concepts of Co-Design, Systemic Design and DesignJustice. The students co-designed tools that facilitate and support AI ethics among participants from different disciplines and backgrounds. The unit challenged the students to unpack debates, concepts and ideas of AI Ethics within the frame of human centred and more than human centred, as well as co-design insights inspired by Design Justice and Systemic Design frameworks.

Project partners: isITethical? Exchange 

Home

All researchers from different institutions who came are researchers associatedwith IsITethical?Exchange. 

https://www.isitethical.org/collaboration-unit/
Trilateral Research 

https://trilateralresearch.com/
Science Gallery London 

https://london.sciencegallery.com

ServDes Rio; Course Team Participation

Course team Dr. Silvia Grimaldi, Dr. Maria Alejandra Lujan Escalante and Dr.Lara Salinas presented the collaboratively written paper by the course team at ServDes, Rio de Janeiro. Link to paper that is in the online repository.

SoRA is a reflexive assessment framework created for innovators, researchers, local authorities and community action workers to recognise their innovation’s societal readiness and their responsiveness to strengthen the same.

Asa Social Readiness Assessment for green mobility solutions,  the project is developed in partnershipbetween Lancaster University and Service Futures Lab. Dr. Lara Salinas and ateam of alumni Maitreyee, Namita and Sofia are transforming robust social scienceresearch led by CeMoRe at Lancaster University into a service for publicauthorities and innovators to ensure green mobility solutions that are sociallyjust.

More information on the project here https://www.isitethical.org/sora/

PANEL & TALKS

Bridging the Gap roundtable talks and panel talks series is designed as public platform that brings together MA Service design team, design academia from UAL and around the globe, design industry professionals, public sector professionals, design students and multi sector stake holders to come together and generate an actionable discourse on how Design can be a problem solving force for a positive social impact.

The series is designed to be on a rolling basis. Please do get in touch if you would like to contribute in adding your voice to the conversations, actions and collaborations.

We would love to host you at this platform

Bridging the Gap:Design for Climate Adaptation(Rolling Series)

The first Roundtable in the series Bridging the Gap was organised by MA Service Design and SFL (Service Futures Lab, LCC, UAL) on 6 July 2023. It focused on the recent floods in Pakistan and their connection with Climate Change in the Global South.

The roundtable was hosted by Dr Hena Ali, Course leader MA Service Design, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. The discussion explored the on-ground situation in Pakistan and how design can be a systemic catalyst for positive change. As an initial stage in the conversation, the roundtable series explores on the ground situation post 2022 floods. How might we identify design innovation opportunities in Pakistan that can help improve contextually sustainable risk management, infrastructure and community resilience.  The esteemed panel of experts from Pakistan and UAL scoped what the priorities should be now and in the future. The the panelist connected on the idea of Climate emergency in the present not future. It has to be climate adaptation as a strategy in the now/present.Sector need to collaborate for a systemic solution.  The long-term aim is to build a multidisciplinary think-tank that can explore design-led Climate Adaptation interventions to address wicked problems (Rittel and Webber 1973) from a multi-lens strategic perspective around the globe.

See the talk https://youtu.be/PfamRP6RCeM

Bridging the Gap; Service Design Industry, Public Sector and Academia(Rolling Series)

Bridging the Gap Series: Hosted by Dr Hena Ali, Course Leader MA Service Design, and associate Service Futures Lab at London College of Communication. It brought together MA Service Design team, Service Design Industry, Public Sector and Academia to brainstorm how to collaborate and produce positive social impact whilst retaining individual values.  The discussion explored how might we foster a symbiotic relationship between design industry, academia and public sector to enhances and support values across sectors.

Some of the questions explored were; Is there a Gap or not? Should it be maintained or not? How do our values interact, intersect and are interpreted?

The panelists consisted of industry experts, MA Service Design tutor team, and MA Service Design alumni to discuss what the priorities should be now, and in the future.

Host: Dr Hena Ali

Panelists:
Laura Duarte – Senior Strategic Designer at the Scottish Government
Elmer Zinkhann – Head of Design, Digital Catapult
Marion Lagedamont – Lecturer, MA Service Design, UAL :LCC
Dr. Silvia Grimaldi – Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Service Futures Lab, Reader in Service Design and Collaborative Futures at UAL:LCC
Delina Evans – Senior Service Designer at London Borough of Camden
Will Shaw – Chief Design Officer at EY Seren
Nick Edell – Experience Design Lead at Infosys Consulting
Lawrence Richards – Senior Service Designer at Ministry of Justice UK
Dr. Lara Salinas – Co-Director at Service Futures Lab, Senior Lecturer at MA Service Design UAL:LCC

See the talk https://youtu.be/837BzYCwEWk

Student-led Panels
Sustainable Design and Social Impact  

Our student organised global design panels exploring themes around Design for Health and Wellness, Design for Urban Living, Systems Thinking & Design Futures, Design for the Planet: Nature as Codesigner.

Experts from around the world as well our MA Service Design tutor team took part in the discourse. Recordings available on MA Service Design Blog

Design for Health and Wellness

See the talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLn5CN3lvC4

Design for Urban Living

See the talk https://youtu.be/dXiykpEOrgk

Systems Thinking & Design Futures

See the talk: https://youtu.be/Nqs2NdmINgg

Design for the Planet: Nature as Co-designer

See the talk https://youtu.be/TppC0asTzRk

MA Service Design Summer Picnic

Design is fun for us but we do have fun otherwise as well !

Sunny London, Yummy food, Rose Garden Regents Park and MA Service Design LCC Tribe (current students, alumni and MA SD Staff) , what more can one ask for!

Where are this year’s graduates?

our fresh batch of graduates from December 2022 are going places!

Madiha Hussain Senior Service Designer HM Land Registry

Yiner Zhou Service Designer Barclay

Yini Zheng Service Designer NESTA

Namita Manohar Service Designer Hounslow Council

Joseph Durrant Service Design Hounslow Council

Chia-chi Ming Facilitator Cambridge House

Eri Hirose Service Designer West Hampshire Council

Yashwanthi B.S. Service Designer Westminster Council

Mandish Kalsi Service Designer Waltham Forest Council

Best Chalisa Service Designer Brent Council

Ricardo Jose Arango Chasi Service Designer Aldi

Sofia Kallimasioti Service Designer CX Executive ATCOM S.A. and Nature4Nature Industry PhD Student

Meghana Shailandra Service Designer Rhode Island School of Design

Azahara Sanchez UX Designer KnowledgeBrief

Anushka Joshi Service Design CIPD

Joseph Durant Service Designer Hounslow Council

Phannachet (Parn) Boonyamanee Software Engineer JustParent

Tzu-Yin Chen (Jenny) Teaching Assistant UAL

Maitreyee Kshirsagar Service Designer Torchbox

Janamejay Poddar Head of Design at Ellevate Football

Chaehee Lee UX Designer at HST

Yashovardhan Sharma International Business Manager at Cosy Creations

Benyada Thavornsate Co-Founder Art Of

Jenny Chen UX Designer SSE

Upcoming events

Degree Show Class of 2023- Month; December’23

Exact Date and Venue to be confirmed