Design Out Crime Case Studies

Designers know that crime happens but only some have created products, services , spaces or graphic communications that address crime.

For some designers, there has been a business imperative to design out crime. They have responded to business and consumer demands for more security. The Best Bar None scheme rewards pubs and bars that have designed-in security, and potential customers feel safe while they drink. School uniforms that incorporate stab-proof materials are proving a sure seller to parents who are frightened about rising levels of violence encountered by their children.

Communication design

Graphic designers too have been inspired to raise awareness of crime. Graphic communication campaigns can grab public attention and raise the profile of different sorts of crime. A coherent design strategy are often at the heart of this sort of work, with the Home Office commissioning RKCR/Y&R to create a campaign to raise awareness about theft and burglary and design agency Cresecent Lodge creating a poster of a bullet proof vest after a young man was shot dead yeards from their studio. Both designed posters that use graphic yellow and black colours, which remind people of police crime scene tape.

Aritistic inspiration

For some designers, thinking about how to cut crime has inspired artistic concepts. Khashayar Naimanan has designed a range of expensive handpainted tableware called Incognito where it’s the underside that’s painted so criminals don't see the value.Naimanan has also come up with a way to hide precious metals. If they are shaped into nails they can be hidden in what appears to be a standard cardboard box of nails for DIY.  

Product design

From America, entrepreneurial designers Manila Mac took inspiration from Apple Macbook Air adverts which show the thin as air laptop being taken out of a manila document folder. Manila Mac has created a padded secure laptop case that looks just like a document folder, so whoever’s carrying it doesn’t appear to have anything more valuable than a sheaf of paper.

Read more about how designing out crime has proved an inspiration for designers outside the UK and about the products and services they've developed.

Making designs work 

For a design to be really effective at crimeproofing products, services or environments, designers need to think about how what they create might be affected by crime.

In the context of hot product theft, designers have been using two acronyms, CRAVED and VIVA, to help them understand why products are stealable.

If a product has any of these characteristics it is likely to be attractive to thieves.

There are also some techniques designers might use to generate ideas for how to crime-proof their products. Professor Ron Clarke identified 25 situational crime prevention techniques to kick-start thinking about how to design out crime, which include:

• Making products or services more difficult for criminals to attack
• Controlling access to spaces or products that might be a target for criminals
• Increasing surveillance in an area prone to crime or around a product that’s desirable
• Increasing people’s responsibility for their own products or spaces
• Reducing anonymity of a criminal who attacks
• Disguising or concealing valuables
• Denying criminals the benefits of stealing.

As orange school projectors show, designs don’t have to be complicated to cut crime.

On the right hand side of this page you will see a set of inspirational case studies which show how designers have taken innovative approaches to cutting crime.

The Design Council is involved in a project to encourage designers and makers of hot products like mobile phones, MP3 players and bikes to design in security. Soon we hope to have developed more case studies of projects currently underway where design tools and techniques are being used to tackle crime.