I have always been a fan of art and design and therefore a regular visitor of Helsinki Design Museum. Also, having only recently started to study Service Design and Innovation, I was delighted to spot the Design Museum advertisement on “Enter and Encounter – A series of discussions hosted by curators” as part of their ongoing exhibition “Enter and Encounter – An Invitation to Tomorrow” jointly organised by Design Museum and the Finnish Association of Designers Ornamo.

“Enter and Encounter – A series of discussions hosted by curators” is a series of individual design related discussions on the main theme: “Design in Future – where do you go?”. Curators of the exhibition, all experts in design in their own field are holding discussions with invited guests free for all museum visitors to participate in.

I managed to spot the advertisement just in time to book slots from my calendar for the last two sessions of the series. Luckily enough, both related to Service design –currently my main field of interest outside work. I was full of excitement last Tuesday evening when taking the stairs to the second floor of the museum where the first of the two discussions was going to take place under the main topic: How is design challenging the present and shaping the future? I sat myself on the chair among the concentrated audience who had come to listen to Juha Kronqvist, Lead Service Designer and Design Director of Hellon and Sampsa Hyysalo, Associate Professor in Co-Design at Aalto University School of Art.

Kronqvist and Hyysalo shared views also on the following questions:
Who are the designers today and with whom are they designing?
How should new design, new design forms, and design in general be exhibited?

Audience was also invited to raise questions and participate in the discussion at any time. Even I encourage myself to comment on a couple of topics. 😉

It was extremely interesting to hear how service design professionals see and what they think about the current and future status of design and the role of service design in the whole. And how service design is seen and positioned with other, the more traditional, forms of design.

What is design? All the below and a lot more. 

Needless to say, I feel grateful for the opportunity given to a relatively fresh service design student to share thoughts with service design experts.

It is impossible to cover and explain the whole discussion here in this blog, but please check below a list on the topics I personally found the most inspiring.

Design is not self-explanatory but needs to be taken close to consumers and people. For instance with help of service design.

Design today is seen more and more interdisciplinary and its spreading out across various fields.

Service design is always about creating something new – and new ways to design

How can something like service design be exhibited and explained?
How to make abstract concrete?
By storytelling, creating narrative contexts, viewers point of view…

What is the ”form” in service design? Is it time?
It is rhythm, move and movement, smooth combining of things and moments

Characteristics of a service designer
(among others) agile, curious, willing to learn new, empathic, able to tolerate uncertainty…

Overlapping roles and co-creation
Service designers moving into new professions and industries.
Various professionals required to operate and think as designers.

Design is here, design is everywhere. Design is here to stay, at your Service.