Service Design involves the design of the spaces and places in which services are delivered. The programme includes communications design, product design, interaction design and the exploitation of digital technologies that support those services. The design of TfL’s Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme and the Oyster Card are examples of this, and there are many other examples in the private and public sector including healthcare, hospitality, telecommunications and media sectors.

A highly integrated approach to the design of service experiences and systems is required, involving integration of multiple design disciplines to create a systems-based solution. It also demands an implicit understanding of the technological, commercial and organisational context to assure the successful conception, development and deployment of service innovation.

The RCA is uniquely placed to provide an interdisciplinary design experience where students of this programme can learn to design services while immersed in an exciting design education environment. Students benefit not only from the design-led education provided by the programme, but also a broader interdisciplinary educational environment.

Building on Design London’s collaboration between the RCA and Imperial College London, the core design-based courses is complemented by Imperial College’s Department of Computing and Business School, who will provide an introduction to – or enhance – students' technical skills in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as well as business skills such as strategy, organisational behaviour and innovation management. This enables graduating students to engage at a strategic as well as an operations level in the design of services, potentially leading interdisciplinary design teams in the design and deployment of innovative services.

The two-year programme involves students in the design not only of service experiences but also of the entire service systems and related artefacts and environments that complement the delivery of those services experiences.

The course and the project assignments maintain a special focus on the themes of society, health and wellbeing, energy and the environment. Students examine services that are delivered in a business to consumer, business to business and a public sector context, exploring business models that include social enterprise, not for profit and private enterprise. This involves working with private and public sector organisation to tackle service projects in these thematic areas and demonstrating that design can transform the nature, experience and value of their service offerings, making them more compelling to the users and other stakeholders, and efficient and profitable for the organisations that deliver them.

• Structured learning programme – comprising of lectures and masterclasses by practitioners and senior academics
• Workshops – a class based around a design task (a ‘brief’), organised over three or four weeks
• Seminars – tutor-led classes where students will be asked to reflect on material that they have read of studied in advance
• Peer reviews – group discussion of students' work
• Tutorials – one-to-one meetings with tutors to discuss your work.

During the first year there will be a series of intensive two-to-four week assignments in subjects that are relevant to the taught programme.

Students will also be required to join one of the courses offered by the Department of Critical & Historical Studies (CHS). Weekly lectures and seminars are offered by the CHS Department to all studio-based RCA students in the autumn and spring terms of their first year. For Service Design students, these classes will provide a useful seam of reflections on recent and contemporary practice in art and design. They will also provide a valuable opportunity for students to interact with other Programmes. At the completion of the programme, students will complete a CHS dissertation that will form part of their final assessment.

In the second year, students will undertake a group project followed by an individual project. Students will be able to select their final project assignment within a framework of one of the major themes – urban systems, health and wellbeing, energy and environment, society and social enterprise, and address this from the standpoint of business-to-business, consumer or public services.

23

Number of places for students in 2013/14
25