Anthony Greenwood: 3D Design BA(Hons) graduate

The great thing about the degree is that you weren’t restricted in any way; the staff were very supportive so you knew you could explore any direction that interested you, which made it very stimulating.

For Anthony Greenwood it’s all about talking. Since graduating from Falmouth in 3D Design in 2003, he has built a career out of it – and changed a lot of people’s lives as a result. “The more people you can get involved in the process, the more questions you can answer before you start designing and the better the product or space that you’ll produce,” he explains of his form of user-led design, a concept he learnt about and developed while studying for his degree.

It’s an approach that he built on in America, where he worked with a company that researches participatory design for Microsoft, Motorola and other multinational corporations, before coming back to the UK and setting up his own participatory design consultancy service, Terrain. “I’ve done work with the council, Creative Partnerships and local schools,” he continues. “Allowing people to be creative, I’ve had kids dancing around a school before in a bid to get to the best design solution because once they get involved they start talking, and it works with everyone – it’s a very effective way to design.”

It was this effective way of designing that Anthony used on one of his most notable projects to date – the design of the Truro Skate Park, a facility for local children to keep them actively entertained. “I like to design for change, working on something that everybody needs,” he continues. “With the Skate Park, I got together a group of teenagers and a group of professional skateboarders and got them all to create. We did collages, worked with stickers and talked about what they like, what they don’t, about being social and antisocial, and about what the park should be, until I had everything necessary to come up with the design that everyone was looking for.”

Anthony attributes the success of his current design practice to his course at Falmouth and the opportunities to explore design theory that it allowed him. “The great thing about the degree is that you weren’t restricted in any way; the staff were very supportive so you knew you could explore any direction that interested you, which made it very stimulating,” he says. “I developed my understanding and interest in participatory design during my time at the College, and wouldn’t be doing what I am now without it.”