MDes Service Design
Apply for Sept 2021
Service-led innovation
Our MDes Service Design is ideal for action-oriented designers who wish to create services that meet the changing needs of the global market.
In a recent survey, our postgraduate courses scored 91% student satisfaction for creativity and design, and 93% satisfaction overall*
*Source: Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey, 2020. Course subject to validation.
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Study for a Master's degree in Service Design
In our exciting new MA Service Design course, you will design new services at the point where they interface with the needs and experiences of end users, consumers and stakeholders.
Service Designers are in increasing demand to translate how services can interact with innovation ecosystems, emerging technology, new business-to-business and organisational communications solutions.
Do you wish to become a leading specialist in big bold ideas in the form of services, build transformative capabilities and propel your career as a Service Designer in the creative economy and beyond?
MDes Service Design: learning outcomes
In completing the MDes Service Design course, you will have:
- The ability to design and test powerful service prototypes, develop and facilitate immersive workshops and map user experiences through storyworlds
- An in-depth awareness of how new technology platforms can be designed and open up spaces for revenue streams, business-to-business, social and community interaction
- The skills to incorporate agile organising, data design, gamification and co-creation as part of your professional toolkit
Service Design: career options
People who complete a Master's degree in Social Innovation may progress into jobs like:
- Design Planner
- Design Strategist
- Senior Innovation
- Strategist
- Director of Product Development
- Director of Innovation Methods
- Director of User Research
- Brand Strategist
- Director of Interaction Design
- Senior Information Architect
- Director of Strategy and New Business Development
- Digital Enterprise Strategist
- Director of Experience Design
- Senior UX Researcher and Strategist
Student work
MDes Service Design, Social Innovation and Design Leadership
BRING PLAY INTO PLAY
A Play Learning Mindset for Design Management
By Frances Catherine C. Poblete
MDes Service Design, Social Innovation and Design Leadership
An example of the live briefs students on the course work with
MDes Service Design, Social Innovation and Design Leadership
STRATEGIC DESIGN & INNOVATION
OPERATIONALISING DESIGN - THE CYPHERCODERS MODEL
This report explores the lives and experiences that surround the context of Cypher, a summer coding camp for kids that aims to encourage creativity through the lenses of technology.
MDes Service Design, Social Innovation and Design Leadership
DESIGNING LEADERSHIP: Thoughts, Questions, ideas
Learning Log by Emnet Woubishet Teklu, March 2019
MDes Service Design, Social Innovation and Design Leadership
Disrupting the Disrupters: Algorithmic Inequality in Music Streaming
By Tania Carregha
This essay will analyse the case of a particular industry- music, analysing the music streaming giant Spotify and its role in transforming the music industry. It will describe some of the negative externalities of the platform, identified through primary and secondary research. It will then present a proposal for a plugin, “Remora”, that has the potential to transform Spotify, generating a more transparent browsing experience.
MDes Service Design, Social Innovation and Design Leadership
Remora - democratising the music industry
A plugin for Spotify that lets users see and control the data and algorithms that are shaping their music browsing experience
Our alumni
Anna Thorp
Service Design Lead at StepStone, a company that specialises in helping people find fulfilling jobs and companies to find great employees
Read my story
Yuki Kanda
Freelancer specialising in Service Design and helping clients ranging from large corporations to start-ups
Read my storyGradSchool: In Conversation series
The Institute's GradSchool academics discuss creativity and innovation with leading edge thinkers and practitioners.
GradSchool In Conversation Series
In this series of events, the Institute's GradSchool academics discuss creativity and innovation with leading edge thinkers and practitioners.
Paul Sternberg and Joanna Choukeir
During the first event Paul Sternberg, Director of Design Innovation for our Institute of Creativity and Technology, talked to Joanna Choukeir, Director of Design and Innovation at the RSA (Royal Society for Arts, Manufacture and Commerce).
Paul and Joanna discussed how design for social innovation has the potential to create a better future for us all within the framework of the Institute’s new MDes Service Design, Social Innovation and Design Leadership.
Paul Sternberg and Akil Benjamin
In the next event in the series Paul Sternberg talks with Akil Benjamin, Design Strategy Director at COMUZI, a design studio. They will talk in depth about how social innovation, service design and entrepreneurship have the potential to create a better future for us all.
GradSchool In Conversation Series
Paul Sternberg, Director of Design Innovation for our Institute of Creativity and Technology, talked to Joanna Choukeir, Director of Design and Innovation at the RSA (Royal Society for Arts, Manufacture and Commerce).
Paul and Joanna talked in depth about how design for social innovation has the potential to create a better future for us all within the framework of the Institute’s new MDes Service Design, Social Innovation and Design Leadership.
Joanna is a leading social designer with four main roles: practitioner, researcher, thought leader and educator.
With 15 years of experience in the UK and Lebanon, prior to joining the RSA, Joanna was Health Director at FutureGov, as well as spending 10 years leading the pioneering health and wellbeing design agency Uscreates, alongside her two co-founders.
In 2015, Joanna completed a PhD on design for social integration at the University of the Arts London.
Alongside research and practice, she leads our Social Innovation Masters course, as well as teaching at the Royal College of Art, the University of the Arts London and Kingston University.
She is a Mega Mentor and founder of micro-social enterprise Design My Family Tree.
A senior member of the Institute’s GradSchool team, Paul oversees a number of our social innovation and civic engagement projects, as well as being responsible for designing and leading on postgraduate courses in design innovation and business.
Unfold: Postgraduate Degree Show
A multidisciplinary exhibition showcasing the work of our postgraduate students
Unfold: Ravensbourne Postgraduate Degree Show
Ravensbourne in collaboration with CreativeLab, launched Unfold in September 2019, a multidisciplinary exhibition that showcased the work of our postgraduate students.
Disciplines collaborated closely throughout the year to develop projects that interrogate, explore and critique a broad range of contemporary design issues.
Students brought diverse prior experiences to their practice, and while applying this to their projects, they considered how they could move their disciplines forward.
Unfold: Ravensbourne Postgraduate Degree Show
Ravensbourne in collaboration with CreativeLab, launched Unfold in September 2019, a multidisciplinary exhibition which showcased the work of our postgraduate students.
Disciplines collaborated closely throughout the year to develop projects that interrogate, explore and critique a broad range of contemporary design issues.
Students brought diverse prior experiences to their practice, and while applying this to their projects, they considered how they could move their disciplines forward.
Unfold: Ravensbourne Postgraduate Degree Show
Ravensbourne in collaboration with CreativeLab, launched Unfold in September 2019, a multidisciplinary exhibition which showcased the work of our postgraduate students.
Disciplines collaborated closely throughout the year to develop projects that interrogate, explore and critique a broad range of contemporary design issues.
Students brought diverse prior experiences to their practice, and while applying this to their projects, they considered how they could move their disciplines forward.
Unfold: Ravensbourne Postgraduate Degree Show
Ravensbourne in collaboration with CreativeLab, launched Unfold in September 2019, a multidisciplinary exhibition which showcased the work of our postgraduate students.
Disciplines collaborated closely throughout the year to develop projects that interrogate, explore and critique a broad range of contemporary design issues.
Students brought diverse prior experiences to their practice, and while applying this to their projects, they considered how they could move their disciplines forward.
Unfold: Ravensbourne Postgraduate Degree Show
Ravensbourne in collaboration with CreativeLab, launched Unfold in September 2019, a multidisciplinary exhibition which showcased the work of our postgraduate students.
Disciplines collaborated closely throughout the year to develop projects that interrogate, explore and critique a broad range of contemporary design issues.
Students brought diverse prior experiences to their practice, and while applying this to their projects, they considered how they could move their disciplines forward.
Unfold: Ravensbourne Postgraduate Degree Show
Ravensbourne in collaboration with CreativeLab, launched Unfold in September 2019, a multidisciplinary exhibition which showcased the work of our postgraduate students.
Disciplines collaborated closely throughout the year to develop projects that interrogate, explore and critique a broad range of contemporary design issues.
Students brought diverse prior experiences to their practice, and while applying this to their projects, they considered how they could move their disciplines forward.
Unfold: Ravensbourne Postgraduate Degree Show
Ravensbourne in collaboration with CreativeLab, launched Unfold in September 2019, a multidisciplinary exhibition which showcased the work of our postgraduate students.
Disciplines collaborated closely throughout the year to develop projects that interrogate, explore and critique a broad range of contemporary design issues.
Students brought diverse prior experiences to their practice, and while applying this to their projects, they considered how they could move their disciplines forward.
Unfold: Ravensbourne Postgraduate Degree Show
Ravensbourne in collaboration with CreativeLab, launched Unfold in September 2019, a multidisciplinary exhibition which showcased the work of our postgraduate students.
Disciplines collaborated closely throughout the year to develop projects that interrogate, explore and critique a broad range of contemporary design issues.
Students brought diverse prior experiences to their practice, and while applying this to their projects, they considered how they could move their disciplines forward.
Unfold: Ravensbourne Postgraduate Degree Show
Ravensbourne in collaboration with CreativeLab, launched Unfold in September 2019, a multidisciplinary exhibition which showcased the work of our postgraduate students.
Disciplines collaborated closely throughout the year to develop projects that interrogate, explore and critique a broad range of contemporary design issues.
Students brought diverse prior experiences to their practice, and while applying this to their projects, they considered how they could move their disciplines forward.
Unfold: Ravensbourne Postgraduate Degree Show
Ravensbourne in collaboration with CreativeLab, launched Unfold in September 2019, a multidisciplinary exhibition which showcased the work of our postgraduate students.
Disciplines collaborated closely throughout the year to develop projects that interrogate, explore and critique a broad range of contemporary design issues.
Students brought diverse prior experiences to their practice, and while applying this to their projects, they considered how they could move their disciplines forward.
