Design Directories

Design Directions challenge students to innovate

The RSA’s Design Directions student competition has introduced two ‘super briefs’ this year. These have been issued under the Design Directions Plus moniker, challenging entrants to tackle issues relating to prison visits and social exclusion among older people.

Action for Age, supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and GlaxoSmithKline, asks design students to propose services to ease the social isolation and loneliness of older people. The Visit, supported by private prisons provider Kalyx, asks for proposals for the improvement of prison visiting services.

The annual competition asks design students to create innovative solutions to a range of briefs, covering areas including product design, socially beneficial services, graphic design and technology. The categories aim to explore the role design can play in response to key challenges in contemporary life.

The emerging discipline of service design has a different focus from that of conventional product design. Designers are encouraged to engage users in the design process in order to produce results that respond sensitively to their needs and experiences. Reflecting this emphasis on user consultation, the 12 shortlisted Design Directions Plus finalists will benefit from a mentoring session with either Engine or ThinkPublic, two of the UK’s most successful service design consultancies.

This session prepares the finalists for a half-day workshop on their proposal with a group of stakeholders and users, including front-line public service workers, relevant experts, professionals and representatives from voluntary organisations
and charities.

Shortlisted proposals include a system that rewards prisoners by allocating them a visiting pod commensurate with the ‘host’ status they have attained; a service in which young people both refurbish used computers for use by older people and coach their seniors in how to use them; and a network that deliberately brings together society’s two most isolated groups: older people and new mothers.

The Design Directions winners will be announced in April. For further information, visit the RSA Design Directories page