"In Studio: Recipes for Systemic Change is a book about crafting vision. It's about how to take something big, messy, and complex and very rapidly begin developing a way to respond to the problem. It gives an introduction to the what and why of strategic design, documents the studios that we hosted last year, and then offers a practical "how-to" manual for hosting your own studio." Bryan Boyer

"The last few years have brought growing worldwide interest in applying design methods and design thinking to social and public policy challenges. At their best these methods catalyse people to see issues and possibilities in a fresh way. They spark creativity and help us to spot the possible connections between things, which so often become obscured by the silos of daily life which dominate governments and businesses alike. The visualisation techniques which are second nature to designers can be particularly useful in enabling us to escape the constraints of prose and numbers which tend to dominate bureaucracies. Best of all the design mind often sees possibilities that are simply invisible to policy makers. 

As a result this book is very timely. We're at a fascinating moment where design is influencing new fields. Its contribution is recognised as never before in areas like health, education, welfare or housing. But just as fascinating is the fact that designers are now acknowledging how much they have to learn, if their tools are to realise their full potential. An important field of innovation is itself undergoing rapid innovation.

The Helsinki Design Lab is one of the most interesting of a family of
new hybrid models that are trying to synthesise the best of design with the
best of public policy and problem solving. ......" (from the forward by Geoff Mulgan)