service design - palvelumuotoilu

What happens when you start looking at a non-profit organisation and the customer-facing services it provides, from the customers' point of view?

Well, firstly, you might end up knowing your customers and what drives them a bit better. You might even be able to choose a face for them. Or four.

You might start playing pretend with a stack of banana boxes and a little doll with a wooden pickup truck to simulate the real situation and to find a solution.

You might take the logo and run away with it. But first you think of the most obvious promotional product.

You could find yourself designing logo socks and knitting them up, to represent the main craft workshop run by the organisation.

 

You might start messing about with clay, and end up with chunky ceramic logo necklaces to represent the pottery.

Anothers might catch the same logoing bug, and you might end up having the same idea as the other to make upcycled bedsheet bags with silkscreened, swirling logos to be used in the pop-up shop.

Somebody else might look at the necklaces you made and fancies lightweight logo-shaped earrings. So you go down to the wood workshop and ask them to make a pair. While you are there you ask them to make a whole bunch more of the most obvious promotional product. It could get popular..!

And finally, you might decide to design a visual aid to explain to the unknowing or partially informed customer the whole complicated structure of the non-profit organisation and its different facets in a visual, easily absorbable format.

And this way, you might wind up having assembled a lovely little scene that greets the customer when they come here in their real pick-up truck. Thank you service design for the fresh point of view!

*

mending a paperback - liimaselkäisen pokkari-kirjan korjaus

I spent quite a few weeks on this mending project. It took me through a super interesting process of repairing a valuable paperback, and despite my constant worry that I won't do it right, I really surprised myself with the end result. 

(For the start-out stage, the damaged condition, please scroll down to see the pictures further below.)

I repaired the actual book by taking it apart page by page, scrubbing off the brittle gummy old glue, then sanding the spine as a block to as smooth and level as was possible, then re-gluing it with the magical bookbinding glue and japanese tissue paper combo. I reinforced the covers from the inside but I left their original condition visible, as was requested.

Then I made the book a slipcase and insert combination so it would be nicely protected in its repaired condition. The owner hoped for a gilded spine and title which I tried out in samples but couldn't carry out to the appropriate effect, so I added some small golden details elsewhere.

The state of the book originally:

*

Vietin muutama viikkoa korjaamalla tätä liimaselkäistä kirjaa. Se oli melkoinen prosessi ja vaikka koko ajan jännitti etten tule osaaman tehdä oikein, lopputulos yllätti minut täysin.

Aloitin korjauksen ottamalla kirjaa osiksi sivu sivulta, raapasin jokaisesta vanhan liimakerroksen pois, hioin kirjablokin selkää niin tasaiseksi kuin pystyin ja liimasin sen uudelleen erikoisliimalla japaninpaperisuikaleelle. Vahvistin sisäältä alkuperäiset kannet uudella paperituksella, mutta säilytin kirjan alkuperäisen ilmeen kuten asiakas pyysi eli jätin ajan hampaiden puremat näkymään.

Sitten valmistin korjatulle kirjalle suojakotelon ja vielä suojakansion. Asiakkan toiveena oli myös kullatu nimiö, jolle tein kokeilut mallityönä, mutten saanut tarpeeksi hyvänlaatusta jälkeä. Lopulta vain kotelon sormilovet saivat kullattuja reuonja.

Kirja kuitenkin on saanut pidennyksen elinkaariinsa, se on taas ehjä ja luettava sekä tyylikkäästi suojattu.