Starting Points

I think one of the hardest things we come across in daily life is beginning something- to write that first line, pull a pencil across the page, open that book, pluck up the courage to do it first… As you can see, these are a few things I have been grappling with for the past month since I started this blog!


But thinking about beginning things actually led me to a small mind map called 'Starting Points' and there are two things that I would like to discuss here. Firstly, that design offers us a great place to begin, and secondly, that this place is exactly the reason why I am a designer and why I am here.

I believe that all designers have their different reasons for being. Mine simply has to do with people. And this is, most often, my starting place when embarking on a new design project. Asking, observing, empathising, enquiring, experiencing… I’ve always been curious about people.

In our rapidly advancing world of tangled, networked, complex and complicated technology, communications and things, I find comfort in design for its ability to remind us, and draw us closer to what has and always will matter, and that is people.

For design, problem-solving is about putting people at the centre, not products and/or technology. This is one of the many unique things that design offers us, that is, if we so choose to go forward with it in this way.

About a PhD in Design

My name is Lauren and I am undertaking a PhD in Design at Northumbria University. My PhD is co-sponsored by the Design Council, London and Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The brief set for my PhD is to explore emerging methods in design, namely Service Design, using the Design of the Times (Dott07) regeneration program happening in the north-east of England as my main case study. By case study, I mean a few things (and this list is not exhaustive):

• Capturing the stories of Dott07 ie. What has happened
  
• Capturing the design methods that have been used in Dott07’s many projects
  
• Capturing the learnings from the projects and look at what we might possibly take forward into Dott09 (and what would best be left behind).

I have set this blog up as a platform to share my ideas and add some discipline around capturing thoughts for my PhD. I welcome your thoughts, comments and questions in response to my posts and have opened up posting to everyone (ie. You don’t have to sign in as a Blogspot member).

I hope you enjoy reading and interacting with this blog. It’s one of the many ‘activities’ I have in store to engage people with my work and research, and also help me develop my thoughts throughout this three year journey.