On 7 April we had another event in the "INTERSECTIONS Series" of Service Design Meet ups.
Karin Aue and Megs Armour took us through their personal journeys.
Karin talked about the role that design and designers can play in 'sustainability'
"Upto 80% of products' environmental impacts are determined at design stage"
"Sustainability - meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"
Karin Aue exhorted designers (each one of us) to "find your own leverage point in the system - in your design, within your team, within your organisation or in wider ecosystem"
Megs Armour idea of O-shape design struck a chord with our community - "The answer is not shift left or right or go deeper, it's expansion
She emphasised that to enable O-shaped designers we need a systemic change which includes policies, training, culture and more.
We are hugely thankful to Raffles Design Institute to host us.
A special thanks to Kai How ONG, Vice President, Raffles Education for Higher Education for his support for our design community.
TALK BY KARIN AUE
NAVIGATING THE MESSY MIDDLE - DESIGN'S ROLE IN SUSTAINABLE TRANSITIONS
Karin Aue a super talented designer who has navigated different transitions (from Europe to Asia, from consulting to teaching, and more) and who is playing at "intersections" of disciplines to champion the cause of "sustainability" in the way to live, practice design craft, and do our business spoke on following topic:
TALK DESCRIPTION
Sustainability can feel abstract, focused on sacrifices or just about recycling. What if we changed this narrative to innovation and resilience?
What if less = more, and local wisdom can guide exciting futures? Designers work best at intersections: between stakeholder needs, business goals, behaviour, policy, technology. Design's real power isn't just beautiful products, but navigating messy spaces in between what's possible. Karin explores design's role in sustainability transitions, why design alone can't solve this, and how design education might become a space for collective experimentation.
TALK BY MEGS ARMOUR
THE DESIGN GENERALIST MOMENT HAS ARRIVED - A CAREER AT INTERSECTIONS
A decade in design and CX consulting taught Megs one thing: experience breaks down at the seams - between teams, channels, technology and intent. Delivering consistently great CX in complex organisations means owning those intersections. In this talk she shares the hard-won lessons of enterprise journey management, and looks ahead to the rise of the O-shaped designer. She shares her POV on the 2026 AI workflows and skills that finally give designers the range to operate across the full product lifecycle. If you are a designer trying to make sense of opportunities around you and how you can shape your professional life, there might be some valuable nuggets for you.