Jun 17, 2020
Carolina Faria: A Journey Towards Designing for Impact
A bit of context before we get started
For those who land for the first time in this publication, Lusofonia, mention that it is one of the initiatives that the Portugal Chapter at the Service Design Network is putting together to make 2020 the year of the community.
Lusofonia is an open door for all the Portuguese-Speaking Service Designers in the diaspora willing to connect with the Service Design community in Portugal to share their ideas, projects, lessons learned on how it is to work with a different culture. Plus, and more importantly, an opportunity to learn from and with peers.
Today we are excited to introduce you to Carolina Faria, she will share with you her journey into Service Design.
My name is Carolina Faria, I am from Matosinhos, Portugal, and I currently live in Helsinki, Finland. I am a cat person, I am fond of going to the beach and dancing. I love having my head wrapped around a problem, be it a film or a design brief. I am passionate about using design to create meaningful solutions to improve people’s lives and a more sustainable way to interact with the world.
I have been working in Vincit since June 2019, as a Planet Centric Designer (we’ll get to that in a bit).
A Journey Towards Service Design
I started my journey towards service design, by doing the Post-Graduation ME310 Product and Service Innovation, in Porto Polytechnic. In collaboration with Stanford University and the University of Science and Technology of China, we worked in a multidisciplinary team developing a year-long project for IKEA Industry. This was a very hands-on intense year that gave me the foundation for the work I do today.
Afterward, I worked as a human-centred design coach in project-based master level courses, in DFGN and SUGAR networks, in Portugal and Switzerland. These used several methodologies, such as design thinking and circular design. Here, I worked with design as a process to enable product and service innovation.
My favourite project
One of my main interests has been how education can empower individuals to create impactful solutions for today’s problems. One great example of this is the programme Challenge Based Innovation (CBI) where I worked as a human-centred design coach.
CBI is a university programme where student teams create innovative design projects in collaboration with CERN, to answer to UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Each university participating in CBI creates its version of the program. Thus, this is not a closed program, but open to different curricula, periods, and student backgrounds. Despite the impact on the participants and potential of the program, it is not as internationally recognised as it could be. As I identified this problem, later when I did my master thesis, I developed a project that rebrands and redesigns the graphic identity of CBI.
This is my favourite project so far because, in it, this educational programme was developed as a service, that caters to diverse stakeholders — students, professors, CERN organisers and experts — at the same time as aiming to raise interest by companies and governmental institutions around the solutions proposed by the students.
Therefore, the communication of the programme was redefined to improve the service provided by CBI to all its stakeholders. In addition, the goal of rebranding was to increase its recognition, better communicate its goals and project outcomes. The process involved an understanding of the problem, provided by interviews with stakeholders, along with the identity development attained through brainstorming, sketching, experimental prototyping and iterating. The result aims to be a distinct modular brand, that represents the openness of the programme and its connection with technology and society.
Currently what topics are you interested in?
I am currently working in Vincit in Planet Centric Design. Our work aims to embed sustainability into design processes and project development. Ultimately our goal is to reduce resource use and enable sustainable lifestyles to accelerate the sustainability transition. This is fundamental, because the current models for design, such as human-centered design, do not account for the impact of our work on society and the planet.
We believe we need a wider lens in design: to build products and services that are not only desirable, feasible and viable, but also responsible, systemic and transparent.
We have created a methodology to integrate Planet Centric Design in our work as designers. We test and iterate it constantly, as we think that defining Planet Centric Design and the ways of working of such designers should always be work in progress, so that we don’t stop questioning ourselves.
Here we work with design as an enabler to help people and teams find opportunities for improvement and change. The feedback to our work has been quite positive — people are excited and inspired to act. Also, businesses feel more and more pressure to change to more sustainable ways of operating, by legislation, consumer needs, etc.
However, Planet Centric Design has its challenges. The main challenges are that it requires different thinking and navigating more complexity than we have done so far. In regards to different thinking, we must embrace new principles and be critical, creative and innovative. To be critical is to ask questions, even if they’re uncomfortable, even if the answers do not immediately follow. Being creative is to think about how we might prefer things to be, how we might live differently, and how we might do business sustainably. Being innovative involves taking practical steps toward a stated goal of a sustainable future by experimenting, learning, adapting.
The main driver and challenge to enabling different thinking and navigating complexity are people. Planet Centric Design requires a willingness to collaborate and to make changes. Resistance to this is probably the main challenge of getting meaningful work done. An example of change is in how we work: in order to be sustainable, we need to bring in more people — such as sustainability experts. This requires a more systemic approach to projects, where we can’t work in silos, but in radical collaboration.
All in all, it is important for each one of us to realise that our work has an impact and that we have the skills to make a difference. It starts by asking ourselves:
- How responsible is the work that I do?
- What can be its consequences over time?
- How is my work influencing people’s behaviours?
- Who can help me answer these questions?
These may seem hard to answer at first, but it’s the first step to “unblock” ourselves to find opportunities to create meaning work.
Service design in Finland
Finland is very mature in its service design offer in university courses and career opportunities. For example, LAUREA University, Aalto University and Lapland University have well-recognised programmes. In regards to work, both in-house and consultant service design positions are common. Also, there are service design network communities in several cities, which also enhances the presence of this field of work. I won’t go much into this, as André already gave a great description in his article.
What do people interested in moving to Finland need to know before they book their flight?
Sustainability & work: One of the main reasons for me to move to Finland was the opportunity to work with sustainability. The concern with this field is visible here and there is an investment in making processes, products and life more sustainable across society. Also, in my view, there is great work culture. Life-work balance is encouraged, flat hierarchies are the common work structure, and unions are very strong on defending employees rights. Interestingly, I had to adapt to the Finnish interpersonal relations at work. I work in a very Finnish workplace, where people are very calm, straightforward and do not use emotions. Therefore I had to learn to tone down and to express myself differently.
Connect before you arrive: An interesting fact is our common themes in music. In Portugal, we have Fado which celebrates fate, resignation and saudade, at the same time that it warms up our hearts, connecting with the music and each other. Similarly, in Finland, there is Finnish Tango. It expresses love, sorrow, nature and a longing for a distant land of happiness. This is actually a dance, as you can guess from the name. But unlike what Portuguese people would do, Finnish people dare to dance Finnish Tango in the Winter snow.
A learning opportunity: Vitamin D pills are to Finns what sunscreen is to us in Portugal. As you may know, the Winters are very dark and the Summers very sunny. This is definitely a great experience, because the impact of the sun becomes very clear in our lives, in ways that wouldn’t be possible in Portugal. Whenever I go home, I am always surprised (Winter or Summer) by how bright and warm the sun is. But I recognise that we take it for granted. After spending the Winter here — fighting my low energy, mood changes — the long summer days where nature blossoms are an enormous pleasure.
Closing thoughts
In my short professional journey, I realise that what was always very important to me was making something that is meaningful. I never had the drive to make things that are techno-centric or based on aesthetics. It’s the problem-solving that I found interesting.
Considering the challenges society faces nowadays, despite what is our drive, we all need to use our skills to also create work that has a positive impact on society and on the planet, work that is critical and constantly iterated and improved to decrease its footprint and help others do the same.
“We need to build designers who understand their job is not to be a pair of hands, but to be society’s gatekeepers” -Mike Monteiro.
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Thank you so much Carolina for sharing your journey with us. We are pretty sure that the Portuguese-speaking community will avidly read this fantastic article!
If you want to connect with Carolina you can find her on Linkedin or Medium.
