Thinkpublic: public service
and communication design

My name is Adam and I’ve just spent a couple of months helping out at thinkpublic. I offered up a spare pair of hands in exchange for a look into their world whilst I complete my MA in Design for Development at Kingston University . What did I find? Lots of pitta bread and houmous in the kitchen, books in the back room and hidden boxes of smarties all over the studio. Ok so thinkpublic had just moved when I arrived so there was much talk about where stuff was and who put what where. I did also manage to do some work too! And learnt alot about public service design along the way.

I came up with ideas for an indoor festival, looked at innovation in the NHS, drew a really bad picture of a guy holding a microphone, judged some of my fellow Kingston University students user engagement techniques (pressure!), helped out at a portfolio clinic, drank a little bit of wine, found some smarties and ate lots of houmous and pitta. On my final day I was at a NESTA workshop taking photos of the event. The festival ideas that I had helped to come up with a few weeks back had been realised into the extravaganza that was ‘NESTAVAL’ complete with hats and plants and just a little bit of mud. Have a look on thinkpublic’s flickr page to look at some of the photos and see what exciting public services people can make with lego!

I’ve had a really good time at thinkpublic. The work was interesting and the people were lovely. I just wish I’d found some more boxes of smarties but apart from that it’s been great. Thank you thinkpublic.

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