Abby Milliken (She/Her)
Hello, my name is Abby. I am a multidisciplinary designer who is interested in creating meaningful design solutions and services for people. I enjoy taking on projects that tackle social issues, alter set behaviours and ultimately push the boundaries of what we normally understand design to be. I enjoy working in collaboration with real people and field research and co-design is at the core of how I work. I enjoy seeing the positive impact and social change my designs can make and I am very excited to see where my design journey will take me after 4 years of at the school of innovation.
Throughout my time at GSA, I have achieved a great deal of experience in working with design teams, I have also been able to develop my skills and with each design project that I have undertaken I have been able to grow to become a more versatile designer. My self-initiated project, (Designing Practice for Change) looks into tackling the issues of ethics and inclusion within the sport of football.
Aiming my project at young children, I worked in collaboration with experts in this field to better understand the need for change within this world. Using co-design I created interactive tools for children, parents and coaches to incite these meaningful conversations. With the hope that it can help to shape a generation of inclusive individuals. I am passionate to work deeper into this area of design and look forward to progressing my abilities after graduation.
Projects
Collaborative Work
Designing Practice for Change
For my self-initiated project, I chose to look into the different ways in which education can be utilised to prevent aggressive and non-inclusive behaviours in sport; looking specifically at the world of football to try and tackle how we can alter the perception of the sport to younger audiences. Following on from an extensive self-led research period, using co-design methods and user testing with participants, I choose to design a interactive zine for children who play football.
The zine is comprised of educational activities that can be done individually or with their team and coach at their local football coaching sessions. The zine has multiple activities that can be completed throughout a season in the sport; each one aims to challenge and address the ways we think about being good people and better players. After a child has completed all the activities within the booklet, their coach awards them by ticking-off ‘I have’ statements that showcase how they have developed as inclusive players.
The ultimate goal of this project is to incite meaningful conversations between children, coaches and parents/guardians. Getting them to try and not shy away from having discussions and ultimately improving the way they act as individuals on the pitch and off the pitch.
Future Experience’s Project Part 2 – The Continuum Of Care
After working in collaboration with fellow classmates on our Future Experience’s Project Part 1 , I began to research how education and care could work hand in hand, to create a new care system that developed more empathetic and caring individuals. I went onto analyse what caring for others would look like in the year 2031. In the year 2031 the care system has seen some significant change; preventative care has become the government’s main priority.
Ensuring that all of society can receive and access a basic level of care so there isn’t any further strain and imbalance of care resources for the global population.
Care education has become a popular way to roll-out these preventative methods, local learning labs have been set up and placed across the UK, teaching the basic principles of care to people throughout the course of their childhood and into adulthood, with the aim of developing a new generation carers. Focusing on creating people who can become better carers for themselves and for others if need be.
Balance of Care
The ‘Balance of Future Care’ team focused on researching a future world centred around people and care. We started off our research by looking at past, present, and future trends and then understanding care throughout time up to 2050. Our team future world exhibit showcases our findings.
By 2031, we believe the world will be in a more complex and chaotic state than today. Our future world is one of post-normalcy and chaos.
Using the future world exhibit, participants have to make decisions based on limited resources about their hopes, desires, and care needs. Based on the theories of a causal loop, participants’ decisions will ultimately decide their final future world outcome. Our exhibit is there to show the delicate balance between our choices and their effects on the future of care.
Our exhibit could be a decision-making tool for practitioners working in care and citizens understanding different care needs.
