Case studies

The Housing Services team at Barking & Dagenham Council are part-way through the Design Council’s Public Services by Design mentoring programme. We caught up with Group Manager Sue Devitt to find out why the organisation got involved and how they’ve found the programme so far.

Our Public Services by Design support programme partnered frontline staff from the Housing Options Centre with a Design Associate, who has shown them how to use a design approach to improve the experiences of people using emergency housing services and to deliver a more efficient service.

How a British hi-fi manufacture is using design to rid high-quality audio of its 'experts only' tag.

How university researchers secured more than £250k in funding by using design to clarify what their technology could do. 

How Innovate for Universities is helping to speeding up the commercialisation of hydrogen fuel cells at University College London using design techniques

How Innovate for Universities is helping the University of Aberdeen secure a manufacturing partner to help take a water cleaning technology to market

How Innovate for Universities is helping the University of Aberdeen use design to attract investment for a smart, fitness-detecting vibration muscle exerciser

Government has been told it’s economically rational to spend £62,000 to get a longterm unemployed person on Incapacity Benefit back in to work. Using service design methods has helped Sunderland City Council cut that figure to just £5,000.

HMRC is working with designers through the Design Council’s Public Services by Design support programme, to see how design thinking and techniques can help it the streamline the process of incorporating a company.

The North East Improvement and Efficiency Partnership's What Supports Independent Living is working with designers through the Design Council’s Public Services by Design support programme, to see how design thinking and techniques can help it the transform social care services in the North East.

Discover the innovative new designs that show how different privacy and dignity issues for hospital patients could be solved.

The University of Sussex was struggling to stand out from the hundreds of other institutions until the launch of a distinctive new identity helped deliver a significant increase in applications from students.

How should a company commercialise a new technology? FeONIC worked with designers to create a new brand and a range of internationally award-winning products. 

Designing a product to replace a much-used analogue device with a modern digital equivalent is one thing. Designing it for a group of people with limited IT skills, who don’t want, but have, to make the change, requires a whole new approach

We've talked to five small businesses to find out how they have used different sorts of graphic design and why.

Turning a classic trainer into a sustainable star for the future.

Global food systems are not sustainable. Designers helped co-ordinate 1,000 people to grow, cook and eat food produced within the city limits of Middlesbrough.

How can young people concerned about the environment take practical action to improve their immediate surroundings? Designers helped 16,000 students from across the North East calculate the carbon footprint of their school.