The Story Behind The Service Design Fringe Festival

We managed to catch our founder, Lior, in a quiet moment to quiz her about all things Service Design Fringe Festival. Here's what she had to say.

Why did you start the Service Design Fringe Festival?

I started the Service Design Fringe Festival because I was dissatisfied; the same motive for a lot of entrepreneurs starting their own ventures. I was 24 and I was finding it hard to get a job as a service designer. I already had some great experience on my CV so it just didn’t seem right that it should be such a struggle. I’d been on the design scene, and attending the London Design Festival, for the last ten years or so (since I was 15) and I didn’t understand why service design wasn’t part of the London Design Festival. I thought: if it were part of it, there would be more awareness of the industry and its necessity and eventually more jobs - and then I would be able to get hired! I saw it as a long-term solution to problem that I, and other service designers, were facing.

If you had to sum up the Service Design Fringe Festival in a couple of sentences, what would you say?

The Service Design Fringe Festival is there to introduce service design to people who don’t know what it is. It’s also for practitioners to come together and help each other raise their game, through problem solving and co-design. It is also great for those involved in the industry to develop knowledge and networks. And, of course, for everyone to enjoy themselves!

[That was more than a couple of sentences, Lior, but we’ll let you off.]

What excites you most about the festival this year?

I’m a bit of a geek in some ways. I’m really excited about the quality of the events this year. The hosts have thought really deeply about things so we’re getting into the nitty gritty of the challenges within service design, which I love. We’re also going to have one or two events for kids, which is cool, so they can learn about service design for the first time.

I’m super looking forward to festival time - the vibe is unbeatable. It feels like a grown-up practitioner version of a design school studio, with camaraderie and candid constructive challenge. With the melting pot of people that come, in a mindset of inventiveness and goodwill, you can witness new knowledge being created when we come together. I come from a theatre family, so I try and bring a bit of fun and spectacle to the mix too. Why shouldn’t our work be fun?

We have lots of great partners for the festival. What would you say to anyone considering joining us as a partner this year?

Apart from supporting this amazing culture change of making service design a more established discipline with better quality outputs (as that’s what comes out of the festival: really great outputs), it’s also a really good way of getting in front of the best practitioners around today. As a company, getting your name in front of them means having lots of opportunities of getting those people on your team and gaining more, and better quality, clients.

What are your hopes for the festival in the next 5 years?

I would really like to take the festival around the world. A September London Festival, Milan in April and then San Francisco and Korea, to run alongside design weeks. I also hope we play a role in ensuring that service design doesn’t continue to be a fringe thing. I would like, in the next 5 years, to expand what we do to non-festival activities too. Perhaps learning opportunities and mentorship schemes to do with issues we’ve seen in SD.

Thanks very much for your time Lior and best of luck with the festival.

If, after our interview with Lior, you can’t wait to be involved or learn more, then we can’t wait to hear from you.

Potential partners, please get in touch with us at partners@sd-ldf.com

For all other enquiries, you can contact us at hello@sd-ldf.com

It's our last Be Part of It! tonight

Tonight is another one of our brilliant Be Part of It! evenings - and we’re excited to see some of you there! These evenings are for our prospective event hosts to come along and share their ideas for their talks and workshops that will make up the festival’s programme that is fit-to-burst with interesting, thought-provoking and engaging events.

Why do we love our Be Part of It! evenings so, you might wonder? Luckily, we’ve created this handy list of 5 reasons why these evenings are our favourite:

1. We meet new people who are keen to participate in the festival as event hosts. They’re all linked to service design in some way, but their backgrounds are really diverse which means we meet some really interesting people and companies

2. We hear new and innovative ideas from service design practitioners; ideas that are really pushing the envelope and introducing new ways of thinking

3. We work collaboratively with the people who help make the festival what it is by contributing our ideas for their workshops too - we all help and support each other which makes the final events the best they can be

4. We show our event hosts the ethics behind the festival, from why it started to our hopes and dreams for the festival to our commitment to great inclusion and diversity as part of the festival

5. We feel the festival coming together as ideas and events are thrown into the mix, inching ever closer to the kick-off in September

So, there you have it. Five great reasons why we love our Be Part of It! evenings.

This is our final session of the year, having had some excellent event ideas brainstormed and submitted to us for the festival in September. The deadline has passed for submitting an event idea to be in the festival now. However, we will be making the odd exception on a case-by-case basis. If you’re kicking yourself that you’ve missed the deadline, then do get in touch and we’ll see what we can do.

Introducing our new Ingenious Intern!

Hello! 

I’m Ella and have just joined the Service Design Fringe Festival Team as the Ingenious Intern. 

Having only just graduated I'm a total newbie to the world of Service Design and can’t wait to get involved. I’m here to assist with the festival programme curation and co-ordination, enabling the festival to run as smoothly as possible.

I studied Product and Furniture Design at Kingston University and my design approach has developed into a passion to change the way information is translated from the company to the user.  

An example of this is my final year project Check Your Chest. It is a campaign to encourage people to regularly check for Breast Cancer. The project involves adding lumps to everyday products that evokes the haptic sensation of engaging with a physical object as opposed to the typical information leaflets from the NHS. The everyday products I have adapted include bars of soap; push panels on doors and oyster cards. The overarching aim of this project is to remove the stigma attached to checking your breasts and encourages people of any age to look for symptoms. The campaign aims to promote a better understanding and result in eliminating late diagnosis, and therefore dramatically reduce the fatalities from this disease.

Having not really been exposed to Service Design at university I am really excited to see all the amazing work and learn lots of new information about it. 

This is one article I found that really explained, through examples, what Service Design is. One example I really connected to was the MacMillan Nurses. Below is the link that has more examples of the Public Sector using Service Design. 

https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/12-18-january-2015/what-is-the-best-example-of-using-service-design-in-the-public-sector/

Currently I’m on the look out for exciting new opportunities and always up for a chat over coffee/ beer. 

Feel free to email me 

ella.otoole@icloud.com

& check out my website:

www.ellaotoole.co.uk

follow me on twitter: 

ellaotoole_

Be Part Of It! Session #2 is happening today!

Be Part Of It! Session #2 is happening today!

It's an occasion for potential hosts at the SDFF to pitch their ideas to the community. This method of festival programme curation allows for feedback and ideas from diverse sources, helping hosts develop strong event concepts.

We today's pitches are as inspiring as last week's! From idea generation games workshops to service safaris culminating in interactions with a web of yarn, hosts' initial event ideas were especially strong this year.

Some feedback from the first session:
"Waiting to build a bigger community with the Fringe festival."
"Very useful feedback given to hosts and guests made welcome."
"I was really impressed by the comnunity feeling - people were offering contacts to each other."

Dont forget,

last day to submit an evenT for the festival: 07/08/2017! 
 
SUBMISSION NOW

Be Part of It!

Tonight, potential hosts will start pitching their ideas to the Service Design Fringe Festival (SDFF) community in our first Be Part of It! session of the year!

What is "Be Part of It!"?

The Be Part of It! Sessions are a unique opportunity to feel the vibe of the festival, challenge the hosts’ ideas, pick up some new ideas yourselves and meet some of the brilliant community that is so central to SDFF.

We have no doubt that tonight's session will be brimming with excitement and potential for inspiration, as they have been every year. 

What’s next?

If you weren't able to make this session, we're hosting two more for you to come along to:

• 01/08 at 4pm (location tbc)
• 15/08 at 6:30pm (location tbc)

Final submissions for hosting an event during SDFF are due in on 7th August, so don't delay - not long to go now! Submit your event. 

If you're not able to make it along tonight but wish you could, you can follow all the action on twitter.

Introducing our new Hat Juggler!

Hello! My name is Katie and I’m the latest edition to the Service Design Fringe Festival team! I’m delighted to come on board as the Hat Juggler and excited to make SDFF 2017 the best one yet. I will be in charge of all the fun stuff – parties, the launch, the hub and collecting as many goodies for our lovely hosts and guests!

I grew up surrounded by music and started learning piano and flute from the age of 7 and studied music at the University of York. I then lived abroad in Taiwan for 2 and a half years. This was an amazing and eye-opening experience for me, and I learnt a lot about what was important to me. I returned to the UK in 2014 where I started working in festival production. I began in Brighton with the visual arts festival HOUSE (2014 and 2015). Since then, I’ve worked on the London A Cappella Festival in 2016 and 2017, and the alternative jazz music festival Match&Fuse in 2016. In between I’ve worked in the hospitality industry as well as working with individual jazz musicians on promotion and management.

I now work four days a week at the beautiful and diverse arts venue Tara Theatre down in Wimbledon. I joined in February this year as the Digital Marketing Co-ordinator and am thoroughly enjoying it. I’ve certainly been challenged in this role, but thrive of this and now feel like an integral part of the team.

I’m really excited about joining the SDFF team and can’t wait to get my teeth into the work! To be brutally honest, I hadn’t thought much about Service Design until I met Lior (founder) a couple of years ago, but now having read about it I understand how important it is to any organisation. If you’re interested in Service Design and want to read about it, below are the web pages I looked at which I found helpful:

Design Council

Government Digital Service  

I’m always interested in having chats over a cuppa or a beer, so feel free to email me on katierobsonarts@gmail.com

Diversity & Inclusion Co-design Workshop

"Diversity is the mix. Inclusion is making the mix work", Andrés Tapia.

After last year's edition, a lack of diversity at the Service Design Fringe Festival (SDFF) was recognised. Even more importantly, it is an issue within the Design Industry as a whole.

So this year, we are aiming at doing better. This means ensuring that Inclusion and Diversity is one of our core values and not only a tick in the box!

That's not all! We see as well the Festival as a springboard to make a change within the industry.

Julian, Alice, and Lior planning the D&I workshop. "Diversity is a necessary step to reach inclusion."

Tonight a workshop is going to be held with a bunch of bright people from diverse backgrounds who want the industry to be more inclusive. As part of this workshop, we will develop a Diversity and Inclusion Manifesto. This Manifesto will be communicated to all people involved with the Festival (speakers, partners, attendees, volunteers...) and we expect everyone involved in the festival to support it and promote it.

More to come on D&I after tonight's workshop.

Operations Octopus on Board!

Hello! I’m Alice and I have recently joined the SDFF as the ‘Operations Octopus’! As an operations octopus, I’ll be juggling various projects to ensure things are happening at the right time, and within the allocated budget.

I am coming from the construction industry, where I used to work as a Project Engineer. My last position as an engineer was on the phenomenal Crossrail project, in London. This is my first position in service design, and I’ve been thrilled to learn about it each week.

I find it to be more than just processes; it’s a philosophy on how to consider your client in the service industry. By starting the design of services from the end user or end customers’ needs, I am confident that service delivery can be optimized. For those who like me want to learn more about Service Design, here's a few links to look at:

Design Lab's take on service design

Interaction Design Foundation's take on service design principles

...and of course the video of the festival.

Across countries, languages and industries I have developed a great respect of teams and teamwork.

The way to succeed is by having a passionate team working towards a common goal, with transparency and honesty.

I am thrilled with the opportunity to champion Diversity and Inclusion, work satisfaction and work life balance at the Service Design Fringe Festival. Service design is a way to change the service industry; let’s do it in an ethical and innovative way!

Working freelance at the moment, I have time to be involved on a part time basis in other projects. I am always free to meet for a coffee (or pint!) if you want to discuss any opportunities. I am genuinely enthusiastic to work with start-ups and charity organisations on improving process, brainstorming ideas, or simply assisting with taking the first step!

Alice

Alice.magand@gmail.com

@AliceMagand