Plot is a Strategic design agency.

We are a specialist, nimble consultancy that offers service, strategy and design that have a transformative impact. We apply user-centred research and design-thinking to re-imagine systems, improve internal department structures, re-design digital products and enhance real-world environments. We work at the grand scale of organizational strategy and the small scale of customers, teams and individuals. We help organisations tackle really gnarly problems whilst making these problems feel manageable.

Strategic design has been our core business for 16 years. its s slightly different practice to regular practices of design. It starts with the intention and impact, and ends with the ‘thing’/service or experience that has been designed, or in less tangible more organizational, cultural forms. Read more here

What we’re working on

Inclusion Framework for Change

A low-fidelity hand drawn prototype of a framework on a table with people standing around and looking at it
We have been working on a framework for inclusion with two great inclusion producers Tony Bhajam (Watershed) and Jazlyn Pinckney (freelance), prototyping it stage by stage and testing with diferent audiences. It wil be filled with useful resources to support people to make change around inclusion. As we have found, its easy to have ideas about inclusion, but how do you actually get them to happen in an organisation? Please get in touch at inclusionwork at our domain if you would like to know more.

We are also working with Bristol + Bath Creative R+D on a Framework for thinking about Inclusion. From time to time we conduct projects with some small companies navigating change, for researching new market opportunities for Air Giants, and cooking up a project on business supporting communities. We recently worked with Audience Labs, some amazing facilitators training the trainers for Hackney Wick Town Hall, and Plymouth Culture plus many Plymouth based arts organisations. We made a magazine that shares some of our facilitation thinking here. At the start of the pandemic we worked on a project for National Lottery Community Fund called Glimmers with the fabulous Careful Industries and a host of organisations in the Civil Society. Gill is working on a publication of the work from her PhD with RMIT.

Designing great project endings

Right now we are wrapping up some research around the endings of projects with a live team Bristol + Bath Creative R+D as they end a project. We’re pulling together ideas on how to design those endings and what they leave behind, with support from brilliant experts Joe Macleod AndEnd and Louise Armstrong from Stewarding Loss. We have gone from researching project endings and finding out participants experiences, and team experiences and developing a model for designing. We’ll be publishing a document in the next few weeks.

people talking about workshops
Workshop Workshop is our tried and tested workshop on designing and facilitating workshops people love.

Want to brush up on your workshop game? We will also be bringing more hybrid versions of our classic Workshop Workshop in Spring 2023.

Recently we produced a Workshop Magazine with the wonderful Camille Aubry, which will be available very soon.

Here is the workshop magazine we produced recently, and you can see more and order yours here.

Designing research that works. How do you know what matters to people? How do you know what’s important, and what’s not to them? It’s not always price or speed, and you need to know the difference. Then, how do you delight them? Understanding where to put your efforts is critical to business success. Read more here.

Fair Finances was a project we produced with funding from Paul Hamlyn Foundation

Plot also designs for social intentions. In Fair Finances we used design and technology to radically re-think financial services and make them simpler and fairer for the most vulnerable. We designed a workshop to explore what Humane Regeneration might look and feel and act like. To ask some questions and to start to create another pragmatic version of what a different type of regeneration could be.

Tool design and original prototype for Participle’s Life Project, Swindon.

Design Tool development. There are so many tools and methods available that can support the design and production of new services. We design, make and adapt tools, such as classic design tools, tweaked for you or to fit your clients’ needs, culture and processes, or making you your own set of design tools and integrating them into the day-to-day work. Read more here.

Framing opportunities. Whether you are in an established market or creating a whole new one, it’s vital to frame innovation work to connect with the strengths you have and to develop the capabilities you want to grow. We love working with clients to reveal existing, hidden and inner brilliance and unlock opportunities they might not yet be able to see themselves. Read more here.

Plot helps work through culture issues and improve relationships and process when companies have either have acquired design agencies or have set up their own design team in-house. Clients come to Plot asking ‘how do we collaborate, communicate, integrate, harness designers’ creativity better, proving design is aligned to business strategy?’ Read more here.

We work with not for clients – that engages us with you, your colleagues and stakeholders. It is a great approach for working with complexity and ambiguity. We work through live engagement with you, through workshops and forms of engagement that work for you and your teams. While this is not unique, the way we do it is.

Copyright Plot Studio 2004-22