Good Services review

This could be the ugliest book you’ll ever buy but it contains pure gold.

If you ever get the opportunity to see Lou Downe talk about service design I’d recommend it. It was after seeing her talk and her mentioning that she’d released new book called ‘Good Services’ I immediately purchased it. When it arrived it was bright to say the least (and even checked to see if glowed in the dark, it didn’t) and when I opened up the types and colours were a bit of a surprise.

From a print perspective this is a disaster, typefaces, colour and contrast, it’s not an understatement to say it can be a difficult book to read (maybe go for the Kindle version). What you need to do is ignore the print design and started reading. Lou was Director of Design for the UK Government, created award winning design and was recognised as one the top 50 Creative Leaders by Creative Review. All of this experience is reflected in this book with insights not just how to achieve great service design, why you should do it, how it benefits all users and what happens when you fail to consider all the use cases and real impact that can have on people’s lives.

This is one of the books, when you finish reading it you’ll totally inspired. It highlights the positive impact of good design and it gives you the tools and ideas to begin changing your products and services for the better.

Author: Lou Downe
Published: 2020