Professional Reflections
WILLIAM BRISTOW Service Designer at Methods
Don’t hesitate to ask for help. Not everyone can know everything! There is always something to learn. Using those around you as sounding boards, or a critique will move your thinking on when you get stuck.
”
“
Hello, I’m Will. I do ‘designy’ things. Specialising in Service Design, I help organisations understand their customer and/or business problems and work with them to make things better. So far, I have worked in both private and public sectors, and I’ve been employed in-house (within an organisation) and in an agency (as a consultant, external to an organisation). You could say that I’ve had fairly linear/obvious progression in my career. Having studied Product Design at MDX, I see product and services as somewhat the same thing. They just use different mediums to deliver value to someone. In my experience, there is no one route a person can/should take. Designers, or similar fields, often have varied backgrounds. Specialists, however, usually have had some level of
33
PRODUCT DESIGN Middlesex University Faculty of Science and Technology
training that leads to that role and may require a bit more planning and investment to get there. One thing is common amongst all of them… relentless empathy! MDX was the best introduction to the world of design that I could have hoped for. The team has a unique ability to bring variety to education. You will experience a broad spectrum of ‘design’. This allows a student to carve their own path, and not become a factory, producing cookiecutter graduates. They understand Design as an industry, and what it means to be a valuable asset to any hiring team. As I’m sure they will say themselves, they give students the foundations to build their skills, in their own way. Teaching you to learn. It’s a safe space to explore and get things wrong. You can be
