Neeley Worldwide is
a design studio creating
meaningful impact

We create new value in the world through consultation in Speculative Design, Service Design, Design Research, and Strategy

We explore complexity, generate insight, and create new meaningful paths forward. We work at various scales from strategy, policy, services, and systems, to individual experiences and touch points. We work in various timeframes from solving for immediate needs and opportunities to speculating on possible futures.

Let's do good work together

SELECTED ENGAGEMENTS

[You] x Neeley Worldwide

We work with governments, multinational corporations, not-for-profits, consultancies, agencies, startups, and other organizations to realize meaningful impact in the world. We only work with organizations who's mission we believe in, or with groups that we believe could achieve a meaningful course correction through our work together. We currently work across Europe, the US, and China, and are always interested in exploring new markets and contexts for our work.

NHS
Target
Microsoft
X Moonshot Factory
Telefonica
Policy Lab
P&G
Mayo Clinic
Honda

These are just a few of the 100+ companies we've engaged with over the last 15 years. We can't wait to work with you.

Join this group

TESTIMONIALS

What people say

“★★★★★”

“Absolutely Brilliant.”

“An exciting innovation journey.”

“Neeley Worldwide helped us drive breakthrough innovation.”

“J. Paul's insights completely transformed our business.”

“J. Paul is truly a master facilitator.”

“J. Paul helped us see how we can use the future to inform our strategy.”

“A pioneer of service design & speculative design.”

“J. Paul was so instrumental in helping us connect the dots and gain a deeper understanding of the concepts.”

100% of participants over the last 7 years would recommend our workshops.

“The highest rated workshop we've ever run.”

“The best course I've ever taken.”

SELECTED WORK

Building the future

We take on a variety of projects across various domains where we believe we can create meaningful impact. We have experience in a wide array of topic areas and emerging technologies, from AI, Robotics, Big Data, Synthetic Biology, and Future Mobility, to Climate Change, Mental Health, and Homelessness, with particular expertise in Healthcare & Wellbeing.

MOOVEL LABS

Future Speculative Mobility

We helped Moovel Labs (Mercedes-Benz AG) explore new mobility concepts, responding to emerging technologies and considering the implications of these possible futures. Leading to organizational strategy shift, and a German Design award.

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Moovel Labs - Where do cars go at night
Mercy Virtual Hospital

MERCY

The world's first virtual hospital

We researched telemedicine efforts across the hospital system generating new insights on meaningful approaches leading to a new organization wide telemedicine strategy. Leading to the creation of the world's first virtual hospital.

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UK POLICY LAB

Preventing Homelessness

We worked with homeless individuals, policy experts, and local councils to design and prototype services for early identification of need and prevention of homelessness. Leading to new intervention models, and millions in new government investment.

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Preventing Homelessness

We live for opportunities to create impact that is deeply relevant, unexpected, elegant, and full of wonder.

Let's create together

OUR SERVICES

How can we help?

Service Design

Service Design

We design services, systems, and interactions at larger scales, exploring multiple interactions overtime to create meaningful experiences.

Engagements range from 1-week discovery sprints to multi-month projects. Deliverables typically include service blueprints, systems maps, interaction maps, working prototypes ready for testing, or services improvements in market.

Speculative Design

Speculative Design

We design possible futures to understand the impact of emerging technologies and cultural & social shifts, and improve decision making today.

Typically a 2-day workshop or a 4-6 week exploration, depending on depth. Deliverables range from future scenarios and provocative speculative design artifacts to strategic insights and opportunities that connect explored futures back to decisions you can make today.

Design Research

Design Research

We specialise in qualitative research methods to understand user behaviours and needs, and create a context for better decision making.

From focused 1-week sprints to 6-week deep studies. Deliverables range from synthesized insights and opportunity frameworks to actionable recommendations your team can move on immediately.

Training

Training

We teach Design Thinking, Service Design, and Speculative Design to teams and organizations on a bespoke basis.

These sessions can range from 1-2 day workshops, multi-week intensives, or ongoing coaching retainers. For individuals and open enrollment, we run the School of Critical Design.

Strategy

Strategy

We design plans, visions, and directions forward with an understanding of and sensitivity to the complex context that organizations are operating within.

From a 1-week sprint to a year-long retainer. Deliverables range from strategic briefs and roadmaps to ongoing advisory support through implementation.

Coaching

Coaching

We work with individual leaders and teams to support process and decision making, on both project work and implementation of organizational innovation approaches.

Structured around your pace: short engagements for a specific project, or longer retainers for sustained change. Deliverables range from decision frameworks and working session outputs to ongoing design and strategic counsel.

We find exactly the right delivery for what you need for any particular challenge space.

Tell us what you need

OUR APPROACH

Design + Thinking

New Kind of Design

The world is facing significant challenges, of a type and complexity not previously known. We use New Kind of Design principles and practices to deal with computational irreducibility and avoid problems of traditional scope narrowing.

Futures + Closed Loop

We work with organizations to reframe thinking about current opportunities through explorations of possible futures. We use design to create new understanding of these futures, and help clients "close the loop" generating new perspectives and strategies on preferable paths forward, with action that can be taken today.

New Methods

We believe the first step to every design project is designing the process. We are flexible and exploratory in our approach, always looking to deploy a process and methods best suited for the problem context.

Playgrounds

We work on a number of exploratory side projects and collaborations to keep our thinking fresh, push new conceptual boundaries for our thinking and work, and to build and test things that we think can make the world a more interesting and beautiful place.

Worldwide

Worldwide is a philosophical acknowledgment of the vastness of the universe, that everything is connected and nothing exists in isolation. We are interested in the acknowledgement of this complexity and exploration of this everything.

Meaningful Impact

In everything we do we look to create meaningful impact. We are open to the form this takes in different contexts, from new conversations, to enhanced visibility, to radical efficiencies, to deeper empathy, to divergent directions, to enhanced bottom lines, to next visions, etc, etc.

We evolve our thinking and approach to create new meaning and impact in the world.

Let's play together

FAQs

Common questions about our speculative design, service design, and design research practice.

Speculative design is the design of future products and services to understand the impact and implications of emerging technology and social or cultural trends. It is closely related to critical design, design futures, and design fiction. As a speculative design studio, we use these methods to help organizations disconnect from the immediate pressures of the marketplace and ask new kinds of questions. Our applied speculative design practice explores the social, cultural, economic, and ethical implications of emerging technologies — designing speculative futures that help us engage with possibility as a way of reframing and understanding anew our current state.
J. Paul Neeley is an American Designer & Researcher based in London, and the founder and director of Neeley Worldwide. He is considered one of the pioneers in using speculative design in industry and corporate settings — what is often referred to as applied speculative design. He was also one of the first service designers working in the United States, applying service design techniques in healthcare settings at Mayo Clinic's Center for Innovation. J. Paul holds an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art where he studied with Tony Dunne & Fiona Raby. He has deep experience in speculative design, service design, design research, and strategy, and is the creator of New Kind of Design, an essential philosophical framework to address complexity in design and decision making. J. Paul taught Service Design at the Royal College of Art for over a decade, and regularly speaks at conferences on speculative design normalization, New Kind of Design, and the optimization of happiness.
Our speculative design methods include futures scanning, scenario development, design fiction, experiential futures, and speculative prototyping. We believe the first step to every design project is designing the process itself. We are flexible and exploratory in our approach, always looking to deploy methods best suited for the problem context — sometimes creating provocative artifacts that challenge assumptions, other times building immersive experiences that help stakeholders inhabit possible futures. These methods help organizations de-risk future possibilities, create new context, and identify meaningful opportunities for intervention.
Service design focuses on designing services, systems, and interactions at larger scales — exploring multiple interactions over time to create meaningful experiences. Speculative design operates at a different timescale, seeking to help us understand anew our current state by exploring future possibilities. As both a service design studio and speculative design studio, we work across research, strategy, product, service, and system contexts, often combining these approaches: using speculative methods to envision future service landscapes, then applying service design to make those visions tangible and actionable.
Our service design methods include ethnographic research, journey mapping, service blueprinting, co-design workshops, and rapid prototyping. We design services, systems, and interactions at larger scales, exploring multiple touchpoints over time. We work across scales — from individual experiences to entire service ecosystems — and across timeframes, from immediate operational improvements to long-term strategic transformation. J. Paul Neeley brings deep service design experience from Mayo Clinic's Center for Innovation and over a decade teaching Service Design at the Royal College of Art.
New Kind of Design is an essential philosophical framework created by J. Paul Neeley to address complexity in design and decision making. The world is facing significant challenges, of a type and complexity not previously known. Current design and business practices are inadequate. NKD uses principles and practices to deal with computational irreducibility and avoid problems of traditional scope narrowing. Its core insight: anytime we consider anything less than everything, we are missing something. Nothing can ever be isolated from anything, because it is always connected to everything. Learn more about New Kind of Design.
We work with governments, multinational corporations, not-for-profits, consultancies, agencies, startups, and other organizations across Europe, the US, and China. Past engagements include the NHS, Mayo Clinic, Microsoft, Target, Honda, X the Moonshot Factory, UK Policy Lab, P&G, and Telefonica. We only take on projects where we believe we can create meaningful impact — whether helping a government rethink policy, supporting a corporation in navigating emerging technologies, or working with communities facing complex social challenges like homelessness or healthcare access.
We have deep experience across AI, robotics, big data, synthetic biology, future mobility, climate change, mental health, and homelessness, with particular expertise in healthcare and wellbeing. Recent projects have focused on happiness, self quantification, social polarization and civility, and issues of complexity and computational irreducibility. We bring speculative design methods, service design methods, and design research to these complex challenges — exploring complexity, generating insight, and creating new meaningful paths forward.
J. Paul Neeley regularly delivers lectures, workshops, and bespoke training for teams and organizations on speculative design, service design, design thinking, and futures methods. We also run open programs through the School of Critical Design, which teaches emerging methods like applied speculative design, applied critical design, applied cultural strategy, and applied futures to address critical issues facing humanity. Whether you are looking for an in-house workshop, a conference keynote, or a structured course, get in touch to discuss how we can help.
We believe the first step to every design project is designing the process. We are flexible and exploratory in our approach, always looking to deploy a process and methods best suited for the problem context. We evolve and shift our focus based on energy and opportunities to create impact. We draw on speculative design, service design, design research, and strategy — working collaboratively throughout, from initial exploration and insight generation to concept development and implementation. We also teach these emerging methods through the School of Critical Design.

Create Meaningful Impact

Today we build the future. Let's discuss what this means for you and your organization, and how we can help you get there.

Let's Begin