A blog about design at the OU.
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OU Sustainathon 2025: A Week of Sustainable Innovation and Student Collaboration
Last week, The Open University proudly hosted its first-ever Sustainathon — an exciting, week-long online initiative where STEM student teams tackled real-world sustainability challenges presented by third-sector organisations. The main objective of the activity is to develop employability skills and increase sustainability awareness. This year, we were thrilled to collaborate with English Heritage and The…
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Design for Accessible Travel Infrastructure
Disabled people in the UK make 38% fewer journeys than non-disabled people — a figure that’s barely shifted in over a decade. This sustained Transport Accessibility Gap reveals systemic inequalities in mobility and social inclusion. To challenge this, the Motability Foundation funds vital research into inclusive transport systems, supporting disabled researchers, like myself, through a…
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Designing out youth crime
Youth crime remains one of the most persistent and complex challenges facing societies worldwide. While crime among adolescents can take many forms—ranging from petty theft and vandalism to gang involvement—its root causes are rarely simple. Factors such as poverty, family breakdown, school disengagement, and systemic inequality all converge to increase risk. Previously an approach that…
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Designing the OU
We’ve been teaching design at the OU since its beginning in the 1970’s. So it’s always been fascinating to me how you design a thing like The Open University? And trust me, the OU was designed. If you look at the history of the the early vision and ideas for the OU, you can see…
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The Textile Flood Is Coming – And It’s Closer Than You Think
Imagine standing in the middle of a desert, surrounded by mountains—not of sand, but of clothes. Fast fashion, forgotten donations, discarded trends. Welcome to the Atacama Desert, a dumping ground for the world’s cast-offs. Now imagine this crisis hitting closer to home—because it already is. The UK is on the brink of a textile…
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Graphical abstracts: great advertising?
I was at an interdisciplinary professional development session last week exchanging tips on how early career academics could promote newly published journal articles to various audiences, academic, policy and even ‘normal people’. In a lull in the discussion of social media and industry newsletters I said, ‘And you could of course always create a graphical…
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Learning to live with artificial intelligences and autonomous technologies
Society is rarely ready for new technologies and AI is no exception. Suddenly AIs seem to be ‘everywhere’, in our work and home lives, in universities, health care systems and even on border patrols. Yet we haven’t deliberated and decided what circumstances AI may be useful; how to govern and regulate them for public benefit;…
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Six Months of Growth: My Journey as an OU Design Intern
Six Months of Growth: My Journey as an Open University Design Intern As I approach the end of my six-month internship as a Design & Communications intern, I reflect on my journey that has been anything but ordinary. Coming into this as a neurodivergent student, I knew there would be challenges, but I never expected…
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Campus Life_1: our green spaces
Walton Hall Campus As a 4 nation university we may sometimes forget that we have a central campus in Milton Keynes. Academics, technicians and administrators – the wearers of muddy boots on a building site in the early 1970s – today have the benefit of working in a green and diverse landscape covering 111 acres…
