Design for Development MA: After you graduate

I gained a first class undergraduate degree in Industrial Design from Brunel University in 2004, where I won the AOL Broadband Innovative Award for my 'Anti-Theft Handbag' design. I realised I was good at project management, and moved onto the London-based brand design agency Design Bridge, where I managed 'The Safe Pint Glass' project (one of the Design Council's Design Out Crime projects) in 2010.

I joined the MAD4D course because I wanted to work with greater social relevance. I developed a real passion for using design thinking, design craft and organisation skills to deliver sustainable solutions for social good. My final project looked at how an empathic design approach could increase the impact of local, independent charity shops.

I now work freelance as a 'socially sustainable designer', using my design skills to help solve problems in non-traditional ways. I work with a number of social ventures and behaviour-change companies. I am Director of Behaviour Change at Ecoinomy - a company using technology to motivate employees to use less energy in the workplace. I am part of the team which won the Design Council and Department of Health's 'Living Well with Dementia' challenge. I'm also a member of The People's Kitchen steering committee.

I joined the MAD4D course because I wanted to explore new ways of using my design skills. I'd been a graphic designer for ten years and had had enough of working in a field that seemed all about making money for corporations.

My final major project on the course looked at how I could create a 'sustainable' graphic design business. It connected sustainability principles (Forum for the Future's 'Five Capitals' model) with the practical side of running a design business - how I would market what I do, and who I would work for.

Since graduating from MAD4D in 2010, I've set-up this business. It's called Nice to Meet You and provides graphic design services to charities, not-for-profits and social organisations. Alongside this I am working at 'GraphicDesign&', a project looking very broadly at ways in which graphic design connects to the wider world. This enterprise was set-up by the designer Lucienne Roberts (author of the book Good: Ethics and Graphic Design and signatory of First Things First Manifesto 2000) and Rebecca Wright (Course Director BA Graphic Design at Kingston University. In all this work I am exploring the roles of design in our society, and the different applications it can have.

The MAD4D course gave me an invaluable opportunity to gain theoretical knowledge of issues of sustainable development, social innovation, design and management, and practical understanding of participatory design processes by - the latter via collaborative projects with social and service design consultancies.

For my final major project I used co-design processes to develop 'Open doors Kingston' - an online platform concept to connect secondary schools in Kingston with their local community. This involved collaboration with the group Transition Town Kingston, and a number of local schools.

On completing the MAD4D course I directly began my current PhD research at Loughborough University, which is a continuation of my interest in education and sustainable development. The aim of my research is to investigate how design participation may lead to sustainable transformation of public services, focusing in particular on primary education in the UK.