Studio Exception

Excited to share that our Co-Founder Ruby Steel is on the jury for the Core77 Design Awards in the Home and Living category, alongside Isabella Trani from @ofmyimagination , Harry Mitchell at @betadesignoffice and Jury Captain @jonmarshalll The final deadline is fast approaching… From commercial to cultural, environmental to discursive, The Core77 Design Awards honor excellence across all areas of design enterprise. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to share your story and be recognized by the global design community. We are looking forward to seeing what you’ll submit this year! Deadline is March 27 — enter today at designawards.core77.com

Innovation only moves forward when we share what we’ve learned. It was a privilege to speak at @ucl where I joined the MSc Digital Health & Entrepreneurship programme as a guest lecturer. It was inspiring to spend time with people who represent the future; curious minds who aren’t just interested in technology, but deeply thoughtful about the responsibility that comes with it. The questions, reflections and honest dialogue reminded me why collaboration between education and industry matters, it keeps innovation grounded in real human purpose. Thank you to Elliott Roy-Highley and the UCL team for the invitation and for creating space for these important conversations. Grateful to have contributed and excited to see where these students take the field next. #UCL #DigitalHealth #Innovation #DesignForImpact #FutureLeaders #StudioException

Hello everyone! As part of National Inclusion Week we wanted to share one of our proudest partnerships. Since 2020, Jaguar Land Rover has been on a journey to conduct more inclusive research and it’s been a privilege to support their commitment. Utilising The Exception Method as a tool for innovation, they have been demonstrating how to make their products and services better, not only for the exceptional individuals, but for all their customers. Through events like our project shareback, the impact of this this cross-functional JLR team is becoming clear: 1. Generating new inclusive ideas. 2. New teams are using The Exception Method in their own feature and services development work. 3. New inclusive design requirements are being embedded in the business. It’s been a pleasure to watch inclusive practices ripple out across the business, so we’re dedicating this National Inclusion Week to you. Thank you to those in JLR who continue to make this magic happen, and collaborators like Isaac, whose openness and advocacy allows innovation to be pushed to new places. @iamisaacharvey #NationalInclusionWeek #JaguarLandRover #InclusiveDesign #TheExceptionMethod

Only a few days remain until the SXSW voting deadline! We’re excited to share our talk proposal, “Authentic Voices vs. Escapist Make-Believe : Three acclaimed studios debate the creative balance”. If you’d like to hear us speak at SXSW London 2025, please consider voting for our submission — your support makes a big difference! 👉 Voting link is in our bio. (Note: Registration on the SXSW website is required, but it’s quick and simple.) “Three innovative studios— No2ndPlace, Studio Exception, and Lord Whitney— engage in a lively debate exploring the pros and cons of Authentic Voices vs. Escapist Make-Believe. No2ndPlace highlights sport as a powerful storytelling platform, grounding narratives in relatable human experiences while fostering societal impact. Studio Exception champions inclusive, real-world experiences, creating accessible designs that resonate deeply with audiences. Conversely, Lord Whitney celebrates escapist creativity, transporting audiences to fantastical realms that inspire wonder and imagination. This creative clash examines when grounded stories outweigh fantasy’s allure, how escapism might catalyze real-world impact, and how these approaches connect with diverse audiences.” Let’s take this to SXSW London 2025! @sxswlondon @no2ndplace @lordwhitney #DesignForOneCreateForAll

Studio Exception x Make Your Own Masters: Collaboration Highlight 🌟 This year we were invited to craft a special brief for the talented @makeyourownmasters students, encouraging them to explore the power of inclusive design within their own design practices—from architecture to fashion design. Make Your Own Masters is a unique Masters programme founded by Stacie Woolsey, a designer who was left alienated by the expense of post-graduate design courses. With the premise of it being completely free to enrol, Make Your Own Masters is now an agile and inclusive learning system that gives anyone, from any background, who feels obstructed from a creative career, the tools to independently design their own industry education. We were therefore delighted to be approached to be a part of the 2024 course. Our brief encouraged these creative minds to reflect on who might be excluded from the experiences, products or spaces they were investigating. We were thrilled to see how their application of The Exception Method took them down unexpected routes and shed light on new user perspectives, all brilliantly coming to life in their Make Your Own Masters 2024 Showcase at Somerset House. Congratulations graduates of 2024 - these are really ones to watch. A special shout-out to @staciewoolsey and graduates @eilishbriscoe , @charlottedack_ and @witt_key . ✨ #InclusiveDesign #StudioException #MakeYourOwnMasters #DesignForAll

Happy International Women’s Day! This year’s theme is ‘Inspire Inclusion’. To celebrate, we are so lucky to be in conversation with Lisa Payne, Director of Global Product and Design UX Research at Condé Nast and an important part of our Studio Exception community. A mother, wife, sister and director, Lisa candidly shares with us the struggles of fulfilling all roles and ‘having everything’. With reflections upon her career and finding empowerment in her new organisation, this Q&A has gifted us with some important life lessons from which we can all learn. To hear Lisa’s most recent talk from the Global Women’s Leadership Forum, ‘You Can Be Anything… But You Can’t Be Everything?’, click the link in our bio. As a female-majority company, Studio Exception is lucky to know and learn from you Lisa. Keep smashing those glass ceilings 💥 @mrs.lisa.payne #IWD #IWD24 #InternationalWomensDay #CondéNast #FemaleEmpowerment #InclusiveDesign

Meet Waad. A visually impaired tech enthusiast passionate about creating positive change in the world to empower everyone. As part of our partnership with @zaingroup and their unwavering commitment to making products and services more inclusive, we’ve had the privilege of collaborating with Waad in our joint pursuit towards inclusive innovation. Today, we’re honoured to be trusted to share Waad’s story with you. It provides a glimpse into the unique perspective of her life, living and working in Kuwait with a visual impairment. Her story and the insights we’ve gained has had a profound empathic impact inspiring us to develop inclusive, innovative solutions led by our ethos ‘Design for One, and Create for All’ using The Exception Method. #InclusiveInnovation #InclusiveDesign #WEABLE #DesignForOneCreateForAll

Who’s up for a belated Christmas stroll down memory lane? 🎄🚶‍♂️ We may be a few months fashionably late, but Studio Exception proudly teamed up with @theofficialselfridges at the end of 2023 to sprinkle some festive magic into the holiday windows. Who says the spirit of Christmas can’t linger a little longer? 😉✨ The ‘Showtime’ Christmas displays featured custom theatrical soundscapes and audio descriptions to immerse people with access needs into the festivities - projecting a symphony of sounds onto the streets captivated every passerby. A special thanks to our partners @billostudio and @kayabucholc Credit to @theofficialselfridges for the beautiful images. #InclusiveDesign #Selfridges #Accessibility #Christmas #DesignForOneCreateForAll

What a way to kick off 2024. This week Studio Exception had the pleasure of travelling to Zain Kuwait to host our series of Discover The Exception workshops 🇰🇼 The talented cohort from Zain have been busy designing inclusive solutions with our wonderful exception, Waad - and even had the joy of collaborating with her in person. This telecoms giant are tackling the issue of digital exclusion head on and we can’t wait to see what they do next. A huge thanks goes out to the Zain workshop attendees for bringing so much energy to this piece of inclusive innovation work, to those both remote and in-person. We are also enormously grateful to our hosts Zain Kuwait, with a special thanks to Haidar and Maryam for your passion and hospitality. #Zain #InclusiveInnovation #AWonderfulWorld #TheExceptionMethod #DesignForOneCreateForAll

Sunday saw the return of International Day of Persons with Disabilities - a day dedicated to promote the rights of disabled people in all spheres of society, and one very close to our hearts. So this week, we have taken a step back to reflect with our community on the past year since the last IDPWD. It's been another year of hard work, but with the wins also comes losses and missed opportunities. We have spoken to Sam, Lisa and our own CEO Dawood, to get their thoughts on what changes they have seen in 2023, and what changes they would like to see ahead. Over to you guys! @deafchefofficial @lisabazza72 #IDPWD #IDPWD23 #Inclusion #Disability #InclusiveDesign #DesignForOneCreateForAll

In our projects, we are lucky to meet talented people who just get why inclusive design is so important. Designers, thinkers and engineers who take The Exception Method and run with it. One of these talents is Leah Dorman, Product Analyst at Jaguar Land Rover. Having participated in The Exception Method alongside the wonderful Isaac Harvey, Leah has already begun applying the research approach to other internal projects as well as addressing her experience to colleagues on-stage. She is truly flying the inclusive design flag. Leah was kind enough to share her reflections of the experience: “Working with Studio Exception has been extremely valuable for JLR, not only to produce products that put the client at the centre of the design process, but also in the changed perceptions of everyone involved. For me personally, I have learned that embracing diversity during the design process is a game changer; taking someone who is traditionally excluded from a product and designing a solution specifically for them results in a more luxury and seamless solution for the customer. Being involved in this project has allowed me to remove design bias from the equation when innovating charging solutions; it has highlighted the importance of spending time with the client you are designing for to fully understand the problem at hand.Thank you, Studio Exception, for introducing me to the method of design for one, create for all.” A special mention to Rebecca Matthias (Capability Research Human Factors Group Leader), James McGregor (Innovation Lead), and Zoë Jarvis (Human Factors Specialist) for also speaking at our project share-back event back in September, and for your fierce commitment to inclusive design. Until next time @jaguar Jaguar @landrover_uk Land Rover! #TheExceptionMethod #Advocacy #InclusiveDesign #DesignForOneCreateForAll

Finding like-minded people is special in this industry. Studio Exception have had the privilege of forming a friendship with the pioneering fem-tech company @elvie over the years. Defined by their female-centric design process, Elvie are correcting the design wrongs born from an era of ignorant, often male-led research in the women’s health space. “We place women at the heart of our design and engineering process. From conception to development, from testing to production, women are key to every step. By doing so, we are creating a parallel healthcare industry that is unashamedly female-first, with a stubborn focus on women's unique needs based on research and innovation, not assumption.” – Tania Boler, Founder & CEO. Their iconic product, the Elvie Pump, shook up fem-tech back in 2018 when it offered a discreet way to silently express milk on the go, with the device slotting comfortably into women’s bras. More recently Studio Exception attended an Inclusive Design evening at the Bristol office, proving to be a wonderful moment to exchange knowledge and discuss the importance of inclusion in relation to healthcare. A fascinating talk by their Principal Designer and Inclusive Design Lead, Tom Malloy, emphasised the damaging effects of excluding voices in the design process, and why inclusive research results in better products for the vast majority. A notion we can get behind! If you are unfamiliar with Elvie’s work, please check them out. Their inclusive mission is resulting in women finally taking charge of their bodies, and Studio Exception are here for it. 🫶 #Elvie #InclusiveDesign #WomensHealth #FemTech #DesignWithNotFor