I'm exploring
For people already in the practice who want to see what is moving: journals and research, conferences, newsletters and the adjacent fields service design keeps borrowing from.
Start with these
The Service Design Network's journal, published since 2009. Each issue takes a theme and mixes practitioner and academic writing.
The Service Design and Innovation conference, the main academic gathering for service design research, held every two years with open proceedings.
The Service Design Network's annual conference, moving between host cities each year, with talks, workshops and the Service Design Award. The 2026 edition is in Wiesbaden, Germany, with an online option.
An occasional printed newspaper about service design, started by Martin Jordan in 2015, with short pieces from practitioners around the world. Most articles are also published online.
International association for people working at the meeting point of systems thinking and design. Runs the annual Relating Systems Thinking and Design symposium.
How organisations need to change, in their structures and leadership, to deliver services that work. Written from experience inside large public and private organisations.
Questions you might have
Then keep going
International organisation supporting the development of service design practice, with local chapters, an academy, a journal and an annual conference.
Co-author of Service Design: From Insight to Implementation, host of the Power of Ten podcast, and a writer on design at many scales.
Professor of service design at Köln International School of Design since 1995 and founding president of the Service Design Network.
The community for service, interaction and content designers working in and around the UK government, coordinated through the GOV.UK Service Manual.
The UK's national strategic body for design, home of the Double Diamond and the Systemic Design Framework.
The UK government's blog about design, written by the people doing it across departments. Honest accounts of what worked and what did not.
An edited academic collection on the theory and future of designing for services, bringing together researchers from the field's main university groups.
Author of The Service Organization, writing about how large organisations need to change to deliver good services.
Design school in Cologne where service design was first taught as a discipline in Europe, under Birgit Mager.
One of the first dedicated service design consultancies, founded in London in 2001, with studios in Europe and South America and a long record of published thinking.
A team in the UK Cabinet Office that brings design, data and ethnography into policy making, and writes openly about how.
Andy Polaine's podcast about design operating at many levels, from details to systems, with guests across service, strategic and systemic design.
The Systemic Design Association's annual symposium, held in several locations at once and online, bringing together systems thinking and design practice.
Long-running informal monthly meetup for service designers in Berlin, with short talks followed by conversation.
A guide to using service design inside organisations, aimed at people who need to make the case for it as much as do it.
An annual conference in Edinburgh for people designing public services, with workshops and talks drawn from across the UK and international public sectors.
The UK chapter of the Service Design Network, running talks, socials and an annual chapter conference for practitioners across the country.
The Design Council's evolution of the Double Diamond for problems that span organisations and systems, with a set of design principles and roles.
Gerry Scullion's podcast network on human-centred design, with a dedicated strand of conversations about service design and public services.
Daniela Sangiorgi's widely cited 2011 paper in the International Journal of Design on service design as a driver of organisational and social change.