Service design - Where next

Julian is a Designer and Strategist committed to making significant progress on social challenges. With over 8 years experience working at the intersection of design, policy, social justice and local communities, his design practice is focused on equity and activism. Julian is the Founder and Design Lead of Rooted, the UK's first Social Design Lab centring UK Black experiences and the role of design in addressing racial inequalities. He is also the national Service Design Lead at Citizens Advice leading a team of Designers to create services used by millions of people every year.

As Head of Strategy at Camden Council Noel mobilises senior leaders across different sectors to develop, accelerate & embed strategic change. Through providing leadership across an organisation and with partnerships in strategy, transformation, insight, service design and whole systems change, he has enabled councils such as Ealing, Lambeth and Kent and other partners to shift to new ways of working and ensure that strategic change is embedded on the ground.

He curated the celebrated Doors of Perception conference for 20 years – first in Amsterdam, later across India – and was commissioner of the UK social innovation biennial Dott 07 and the French design biennial City Eco Lab. With a focus on focus on social, ecological and relational design, Thackara has curated place-based xskool workshops in 20 countries. He studied philosophy before working for ten years as a book publisher and magazine editor. He was the first director (1993—99) of the Netherlands Design Institute. He is a senior fellow at the Royal College of Art, and visiting professor at School of Visual Arts in New York and at Pontio Innovation in Wales. His most recent book – How To Thrive In the Next Economy: Designing Tomorrow’s World Today – has just been published in China where, since 2019, he is a visiting professor at Tongji University with a focus on urban-rural reconnection.