I consider myself one of them.
Hi, I am Frank, a strategic designer.
“I find design strategy to be the most rewarding area of design because the focus is on creating strategies, products, and services centred around the needs of people and life itself, rather than just creating visible outcomes”.
What is design strategy?
Strategy in design is crafted by comprehending a problem through a multidisciplinary approach via research and solving through co-creation.
Design strategy should create solutions contemplating all involved user, customer or organisational requirements, aligning the design outcome and its process to fulfil those needs.
What is a good design strategy?
When we look far beyond the problem to solve and begin seeing the broader context, all agents and actors influence and/or are influenced by our solution. Taking this into account is part of a good design strategy.
Designing something means solving a problem, regardless of the environment or craft.
I am working as a freelance strategic design consultant, leading service & product design projects by helping organisations tackle problems where “technical” problem-solving approaches don’t work anymore.
Thats how I can give you support:
Helping through the challenge of transformation
Design Strategy Consulting
I work with organisations and companies that need to adapt to the changing demands of the world, people, and their clients. I help them develop strategies and solutions that can keep up with these changes and continue to meet the needs of their stakeholders.
Guidance through the design process
Facilitation
I facilitate creative processes to help companies and organisations design sustainable solutions to their problems. This involves understanding the problem, analysing it, and using that information to guide the ideation and design process. My goal is to help organisations create solutions that are effective, efficient, and long-lasting.
Creating structure and outcome by applying frameworks
Design Methodology
Design methods like design research, design thinking, or systems thinking make it feasible to create a human-centric and holistic approach to solving a problem. They are based on knowledge obtained through research and collaboration. These methods allow us to create concepts, products, and services tailored to the needs of people and the world around us.
Leading diverse teams to success
Multidisciplinarity
I work with multidisciplinary teams to look for in-depth knowledge and different point of view that allow us to work in a permanent dialogue process to create meaningful solutions.
Leading these teams requires an adaptive leadership approach that takes into account the personalities and cultural differences of each team member.
My professional journey:
At the beginning of my career, I co-founded a design studio called WERK 4, which was dedicated to designing sustainable furniture and researching materials from a circular economy perspective.
Since 2000, I have focused on digital projects, working as an art director and then as a service design lead for various industries, such as tourism, health, transportation, financial services, and telecommunications.
Through my work, I have gained cultural experience in Germany, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, Schweden, Australia, the USA and Denmark. I feel comfortable leading multilingual and multifunctional teams.
Selected projects as design lead over the last years.
As most of my client work is protected by NDA, I can present selected case studies in depth. Please feel free to contact me.
Home appliance | Schweden | Worldwide
Electrolux
Electrolux is a leading global appliance company that has existed for more than 100 years. Electrolux, AEG and Frigidaire sell approximately 60 million household products in approximately 120 markets every year.
Challenge:
Electrolux has design teams working in different functions all over the world. Our task was to create a tool that brings different teams together, creating synergies, helping them understand their innovation streams, and giving a strategic global innovation vision.
Based on our research, we designed a prototype of a collaborative innovation roadmap tool to be tested by the teams.
#Research #Strategic design #Co-creation #UX design #Product design #Prototyping #Corporate innovation
Financial services | UK
NatWest Bank
NatWest Group is the largest business and commercial bank in the UK, with a leading retail business.
Challenge:
NatWest wanted to explore possibilities to connect better to SMEs and connect them to 3rd party services. Research led to a hypothesis that the current customer segmentation was not the way to detect the specific needs of their SME clients. We’ve developed a different approach to understanding their situation better to offer external and internal services that add value to their businesses.
#Research #Workshops #HCD
#UX design #Product Design
NGO | Denmark / Worldwide
UNOPS
Design research to understand H&S application in different cultural contexts. UNOPS is an organisation that belongs to the United Nations and is responsible for reconstructing infrastructure such as roads, hospitals, schools, and water supply after incidents like war, natural catastrophes, etc.
Challenge:
UNOPS wanted to explore the use of H&S policies in 17 developing countries. I led the international research and data analysis to obtain insights that were used ahead in a one-week workshop to teach design thinking methodology to an international group of stakeholders working in H&S. The participants took the insights. They were building possible solutions to improve policies and how they are distributed to construction workers worldwide.
#Research #Co-creation #Facilitation #Design lecturing
NGO | Spain
Fundament association
Design strategy and methodology to resolve problems of social coexistence.
Founder and president. Fundament is a non-profit NGO founded by designers to solve social problems related to coexistence by employing design strategy and methodology to make the world a better place.
Challenge:
Fundament was born because of my personal need to apply service design methods for social good. It is only active in Spain and registered as NGO. You can visit fundament here.
#Research #Co-creation #Facilitation #Design for Good #Strategic design #Systems Thinking #ServiceDesign #DesignThinking #Design lecturing
Financial Services | Spain
Generali Insurance
Redesign of digital services for Spain in an international collaborative design project. (2017-2019).
Generali Group is an Italian insurance company, third in the world. It has its headquarters in Trieste.
Challenge:
Generali decided to unify digital assets and services internationally to interchange knowledge and improve UX and visual identity in all countries.
It was an international co-creation project where I led the project in Spain, one of the most developed markets, to include local solutions and products into an international design system.
#Design Research # Product Design #Strategic design #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Servcie Design #APP #Desktop
Financial Services | Switzerland
Zurich Insurance
Service design consulting for “make the difference program”. With its “make the difference” programme, Zurich Insurances is one of the first insurance companies to transform into an actual customer-led organisation.
Zurich Insurance Group Ltd. is a Swiss insurance company, commonly known as Zurich, headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company is Switzerland’s largest insurer.
Challenge:
I was working with a multidisciplinary team from Zurich Insurances to evaluate if a new product would fit customer and companies’ need and to adapt it if it fulfils these requirements. The product was created and won an internal price for innovation.
#Design lecturing #Design Research #Strategic Design #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Service Design #Interaction design
Financial Services | Spain
Banco Santander
Definition of services and experience of FX (Foreign Currency Exchange) experience.
Banco Santander, a Spanish multinational bank based in Madrid and Santander, is doing business as Santander Group. Additionally, Santander is the 16th-largest banking institution in the world.
Challenge:
The project was about understanding the different ways of application of FX in banking different products and creating new service concepts for FX for different areas and clients based on previous need analysis.
#Design Research #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Service Design
Manufacturing | Spain
CAF
The digitalisation of maintenance processes.
CAF is the leading international company for turnkey transport projects and the 7th largest train manufacturer worldwide.
Challenge:
The company decided to improve maintenance processes using data collected from all different electric devices in their train to analyze it and create more accurate maintenance foresight. We helped them understand the workers’ needs in the maintenance workshops, structure the available data, and visualize them in dashboards.
#Design Research #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Service Design #Big Data #Tablet #Desktop
Financial Services | Spain
Banco Popular
Research and co-creation of banking solutions for SMEs and design strategy for creating new relationships between SME customers and banks.
Banco Popular Español, S.A. was the sixth-largest banking group in Spain before Banco Santander bought it as part of a rescue package in June 2017.
Challenge:
Banco Popular decided to discover their most forgotten customer segment: small and medium enterprises. Our work was to understand this heterogeneous customer segment’s different needs and provide solutions to give them better service. The result was 71 initiatives addressed to resolve SMEs’ problems, contemplating the bank’s important role in their business.
#Design Research #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Service / Product Design #UX design #Design Strategy#APP
Utility Company | Spain
Endesa
Analysis of product and service opportunities for millennials.
Endesa is the largest electric utility company in Spain. The firm, a majority-owned subsidiary of the Italian utility company Enel, has 10 million customers in Spain.
Challenge:
Endesa was worried about the habits and needs of their future customers. The Millennials. Working with young people (millennials), we discovered what they think about energy and what expectations they have for their future to co-create services and products, considering their needs related to energy.
#Design Research #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Service / Product Design #UX design #Strategic Design#APP
Retail | Spain
Makro
Omnichannel experience definition for the Spanish market.
Makro is an international brand of warehouse clubs, also called cash and carries. Ownership of the worldwide chain of stores is split between two companies: Metro AG in Europe and SHV Holdings in Latin America.
Challenge:
Makro Spain wanted to improve their service in between their different customer channels. Our work was to research all the channels to understand the interaction between Makro and its clients. The result of our work was a service blueprint which offered opportunities to improve communication and interaction between channels and services to improve accessibility for clients in zones where Makro does not reach their customers quickly.
#Design Research #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Service Design
Health Industries | Spain
Vithas
Exploring big-data usage for processes and unification.
Vithas SA is a private Spanish company providing health services for more than 5 million patients in 20 hospitals and 20 health centres in Spain.
Challenge:
Helping a health organisation to understand the variety and opportunities that consolidation and big-data exploitation could bring in their industry.
#Design Research #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Service Design #Implementation
Financial Services | Greece
Piraeus / Winbank
APP design and digitalisation of customer processes.
Piraeus Bank was one of the most important banks that survived Greece’s financial crisis. The bank was forced to digitize processes to survive.
Challenge:
Onboard their homogenous client portfolio on digital services through an innovative digital product that allows Piraeus Bank to reduce its ineffective branch structure and drive clients to self-serving. The app won various design prices in Greece.
#Design Research #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Service / Product Design #Detail Design #Implementation#APP #UX design
Financial Services | UK
TSB / Sabadell bank
A customer and brand-centric APP design for customer services.
TSB Bank is a retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom and a subsidiary of Sabadell Group.
TSB Bank operates a network of 536 branches across England, Scotland and Wales.
Challenge:
Bringing the bank for people closer to their clients through designing a self-service application that reproduces their people-centric approach in a digital environment.
#Design Research #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Service / Product Design #APP #UX design
Travel Industries | Spain
Amadeus IT Group
APP fleet/cruise planning digital experience.
Amadeus IT was created in 1987 as a strategic alliance (joint venture) between the airline Air France, Lufthansa, Iberia L.A.E. and Scandinavian Airlines System to create a worldwide provider of information and reservation services for the benefit of travellers and the general public.
#Design Research #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Design Concept #Tablet
Travel Industries | Spain
Barceló Hoteles
Redesign the digital experience for Mobile and Desktop.
The Barceló Group is one of the most important tourism companies in the world, with more than 250 hotels and 700 travel agencies on four continents.
#Design Research #Facilitation #Ideation #Co-creation #Detail Design #Implementation #APP #Desktop
