The Service Design Programme...for designers

The Service Design Programme is a new package of support for the creative industries in Wales.

So, what is service design and why does it matter to you?
Well, it matters because we live in a service economy. 66% GVA comes from this sector in Wales compared with 32% from manufacturing. Services are all around us, they play key roles in our lives and generally they aren't designed very well.

But it matters to you because whether you're a freelancer, artist, designer, or run your own design company then you're a service provider. Start by asking yourself these questions; What is the quality of your service like? What do clients say about your service (not your work)? Do clients buy from you more than once?

Service design is a process and set of methods, tools and approaches that can help you answer all of these questions and help you design a better service for your business and your clients.

Design Wales have been funded by the Welsh Assembly Government to provide support and training to businesses that want to innovate their existing services or develop completely new services. Paul Thurston, who leads the programme says "It's come about due to combination of two factors, firstly the growth in the practice of service design across Europe and secondly, the need for companies to think beyond the products they produce and start thinking about the service they provide".

Get involved with the programme
The 'Service Design / For Designers' training programme will launch later this Spring and we are currently looking for 6 Welsh companies from the creative industries to apply for the 6-month course. More information will be available by the end of March but if you would like to register your interest now we will let you know as soon as the application process is open. To do this please email: pthurston@designwales.org

Find out more
These upcoming events will introduce you to the core principles of service design.

Breakfast Seminar
Swansea on 23rd March
Book your place now

Breakfast Seminar
Conwy on 8th April
Book your place now

Policy, Innovation & Design Conference

The SEE project, led by Design Wales, is a network of 11 European design organisations engaging with regional and national government to integrate design into policy, particularly innovation policy. The project runs from September 2008 to June 2011, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the INTERREG IVC programme.

This conference is the project’s final event and aims to provide delegates with an overview of design’s role in innovation, recent design policy developments in Europe, examples of successful design policies and promotion programmes. The programme will be opened by Polish MEP, Jan Olbrycht with reflections on design as part of the Europe 2020 strategy. Other highlights from the conference include:

Design as part of innovation policy in a global context

Gavin Cawood / Operations Director, Design Wales

Making design policy happen in Denmark: the journey since 1997

Anders Byriel / CEO of Kvadrat, Chairman, Danish Design Council

Innovate and integrate: Design support for companies in New Zealand

Judith Thompson / Director, Better by Design

Design policy in practice: innovative strategies for local authorities in Flanders

Patrick Janssens / Mayor of Antwerp

Jan Van Alsenoy / Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities

Design as a Government capability

Bryan Boyer / Strategic Design Lead, SITRA – the Finnish Innovation Fund

EU Design and Innovation Initiative: What’s next for design in Europe?

Christine Simon / European Commission DG Enterprise and Industry

During the day, the SEE project lead partner, Design Wales, will briefly present the project’s achievements over the last three years, we will screen 11 short films about design policy developments in the SEE partner countries and delegates will receive the ‘Service Design Toolkit’.

This is a free event but delegates are required to register. The programme, logistics and registration can be found at www.belgiandesignforum.be

SEE bulletin 5 out now!

With ‘Innovation Union’ at the heart of the ‘Europe 2020’ strategy, design has been highlighted as a means to achieve ‘smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’ in Europe. This is part of a growing trend around the world where design is climbing up the policy agenda as reported in SEE bulletin issue 5.

The research article is from our Finnish partner – the Global Design Watch 2010 reveals how design is more in evidence in policy and programmes across the globe. We also present special reports on how design is part of China’s drive to become an innovative economy as well as how the SEE project has been examining ‘next’ practice in design support programmes in Estonia. Our case studies highlight the Polish business support programme ‘Design Your Profit’ and the Scottish ‘Centre for Design and Innovation’. We also provide an update on EU design-related policy developments.

The SEE bulletin is the only publication entirely dedicated to exploring matters related to design policies and programmes for design support. It is published by Design Wales, lead partner of the SEE project and is distributed to over 60 countries.

SEE is a network of 11 European partners exploring how to integrate design into regional and national innovation policies. The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the INTERREG IVC programme. An electronic copy of the bulletin is available to download from the SEE website: www.seeproject.org/publications.

We would also like to take this opportunity to invite you to the SEE project’s final conference to take place on 29 March 2011 in the Flemish Parliament, Brussels. For more information and to register for this free event visit: www.belgiandesignforum.be

SEE Policy Booklet 3 'Evaluating Design' is launched

The SEE project, led by Design Wales, has just published Policy Booklet 3 entitled 'Evaluating Design: Understanding the Return on Investment in Companies, National Industry, Programmes & Policies, Economy & Society'.

A lack of knowledge and tools to evaluate the rate of return on design investment is often cited as a severe barrier to advancing the understanding of design’s value among policy-makers and civil servants. With design firmly on the European political agenda as part of the strategy ‘Innovation Union’, policy-makers across Europe will be looking at how design can meet challenges in industry, services and society. However, without insight on evaluating design and its strengths compared with other disciplines, we risk missing key opportunities for consolidating the contribution of design to competitiveness and social innovation in our regions.

This third SEE Policy Booklet provides an overview of current practice in design evaluation and identifies actions to improve these methods. The Policy Booklet notes that there are several different dimensions that must be taken into consideration when investigating design evaluation, which should include micro and macro levels in both the private and public sectors. :Each section of the booklet discusses a different dimension of this framework, exploring how design can be evaluated in different contexts and providing illustrative case studies. The four sections are:

1. Return on investment in design for individual companies

2. Return on investment in design in national industry

3. Return on investment of public funds in design programmes or policies

4. Role of design and its impact on the national economy and society.

This publication is one of the outputs of the SEE project, a network of eleven European partners engaging with European, national and regional governments to integrate design into public policy. The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the INTERREG IVC programme. This is the third of four SEE Policy Booklets to be published between 2009 and 2011. An electronic copy of the booklet is available to download from the SEE website: www.seeproject.org/publications. If you would like to receive future SEE Policy Booklets please email info@seeproject.org.

Petition Design for Innovation in Wales is accepted by the National Assembly's Petitions Committee

Thanks for all of your support in signing the Petition Design for Innovation in Wales. The petition closed on Friday 12^th November with 369 signatures.

On the 16^th November it was reviewed and accepted by the National Assembly's Petitions Committee. As result, the petition was referred to the Deputy Minister for Science, Innovation and Skills Lesley Griffiths AM for her view about further action.

The focus of the petition was also described as ‘interesting’ by Veronica German AM, who also proposed a second action to establish who else in the Welsh Assembly could address the issues raised in relation to ‘social enterprise and new ways to deliver public services’.   

On the 17^th November, the Design Wales team met with Andrew Rt Davies AM, member of the Petitions Committee, to reinforce our recommendations and to discuss how we can ensure the momentum we have created can be sustained and lead to a greater commitment to design by the Welsh Assembly. (photo by Darragh Murphy)

Design Wales wants to raise the profile of design ahead of next May’s elections and ultimately aims to see the assembly members form a cross-party group for design and innovation in Wales.

We would like to thank once again all the endorsers of the Manifesto and individuals who have signed the petition. The manifesto would not have been possible without the SEE project, a network of 11 European partners, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the INTERREG IVC programme.

To learn more and to download the Manifesto ‘Design for Innovation in Wales: Industry, Services & Society’, visit: http://www.designwales.org/pages/manifesto.htm

4th design policy workshop takes place in Poland

On the 4th and 5th November Design Wales took part in the latest thematic workshop involving the 11 SEE Project partners and their regional government representatives in Cieszyn in Southern Poland.

Opening address by Polish MEP Jan Olbrycht.

Hosted by the Silesian Castle of Art & Enterprise the theme was “Bringing innovative ideas to the market more quickly” and combined presentations from leading European innovation programmes as well as hands-on workshop sessions for the partners and their government representatives.

SEEProject steering group meeting.

Facilitated by Alexander Grots of Gravity Europe (Germany) the presentations of current design/innovation intervention programmes included; Jonathan Ball, Design Council (UK); Sergey Dmitriev, Sea Xray AS (Norway) and Sami Heikkinemi, Tekes (Finland). The first day concluded with a presentation by Aron Losonczi, founder of the company Litracon (Hungary) who have brought an innovative and award winning product to market in the form of concrete that allows light to travel through it via thousands of fibre optic cables or plastic rods moulded into to it.

Litracon - see-through concrete

The second day of workshops saw the partners unfolding in some detail various case studies of how design has played a role in bringing innovations to market, the development process that might have been followed and the part that government intervention can play in possibly improving this.

The workshop sessions taking place in the old castle stables.

The key output of the workshop will be a policy guideline booklet intended to inform policy makers but available to all via the SEEProject website early next year. SEE is co-financed by ERDF through the INTERREG IVC programme.

SEE bulletin 4 now available!

The SEE project, led by Design Wales, has just launched the fourth edition of the SEE bulletin, the only publication entirely dedicated to discussing design and innovation policies and programmes across Europe and beyond.

Over the course of the SEE project, we have observed how the use of design has been evolving. More and more, we are seeing that design approaches are not only being applied to product development, manufacturing and technology, but to a growing array of other domains such as the public sector, social innovation and sustainability projects. This edition delves a bit deeper into how design techniques are being applied to specialist scenarios such as peace and security.

This issue includes:

• Research: Designing Programmes in Contexts of Peace and Security – Derek B Miller, Lisa Rudnick (United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research) and Lucy Kimbell (Saïd Business School, Oxford University).
• Interviews: Design Policy and Promotion Map with insights from Chile, Croatia, India and South Africa.
• Research: National Design Systems – Dr Gisele Raulik-Murphy (Design Wales, UWIC).
• Case Study: Design Advisory Service (Canada).
• Special Report: SEE Project Activities and Results.
• SEE Library: papers and documents related to design and innovation policies.
• Design Policy Conference: SEE project final conference will be held on 29 March 2011.

SEE bulletins are distributed to over 60 countries around the world and are available to download from www.seeproject.org/publications.

Don't forget we are still collecting signatures for the petition 'Design for Innovation in Wales', which is an output of the SEE project. Your signature is very important in generating attention at political level. To sign visit www.designwales.org.

SEE is a network of 11 European partners exploring how to integrate design into policy. The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the INTERREG IVC programme. If you would like to receive SEE communication in the future please email us at info@seeproject.org