Filip MakowieckI

Who I am

I’m a service designer, which is a nice way of saying I worry professionally about the parts of a service nobody is meant to notice.

I identify as a human-shaped Occam’s razor on a mission to find the most obvious solutions to the most wicked problems. I currently do this at a Finnish stainless steel company Outokumpu, which is as unglamorous and as interesting as that sounds. I’m based in Warsaw, Poland though.

My conviction is that service design has a theory-shaped hole in it, so I keep smuggling in things to fill it: from classic service operations theory of the 1980s, to Self-Determination Theory and Actor-Network Theory. If you’d like to invite me to some explorations, sometimes I’m open to freelancing or even volunteering (don’t get your hopes up).

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY

  • Since January 2025 I’ve led the Service & UX Design practice at Outokumpu – Europe’s largest stainless steel company – working across teams that run from brand, marketing, and communications, through data and AI, to sales, supply chain, and operations.
  • Before that I led the Strategy Team at Cogision, a research and design agency, and worked alongside developers and designers at e-point, one of the most experienced Polish software houses. In my vendor days I built things for four of the five largest Polish banks and the biggest insurer in the CEE region, along with companies across retail, media, publishing, education, utilities, transport, and manufacturing.
  • After hours, I’m the lead UX designer at the Centre of Community Archives, working on the Community Collections portal and the Open Archive System used by more than 400 organizations.
  • Before I retrained as a designer I worked as an editor, proofreader, translator, and PR & PA manager. And, for a while, a lexicographer at the Institute of Computer Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

teaching & training

  • Since 2022 I teach at Faculty of Design at SWPS University in Warsaw. My original courses in Business & Economic Aspects of UX and Service Design & CX consistently receive top student evaluations (average above 4.9/5.0, not bribed). Temporarily I also co-lead classes in Advanced UX Research for one term.
  • From 2022 to 2024 I also provided lectures and workshops in UX Modelling & Information architecture, and UX Strategy for Graphics and Multimedia students at Tischner European University in Cracow (now a part of SWPS University).
  • Since 2025 I collaborate as a trainer with Learn Design, and between 2020 and 2024 I lead multiple training sessions for Design Thinking Institute.
  • Sometimes I teach applied improv for designers, researchers, and product managers, running intro-to-improv classes at conferences like WaysConf and Speak IN_UX, and as on-demand in-company training.
  • And I occasionally mentor or facilitate at initiatives like the Global Service Jam in Warsaw, the Design Marathon at the Pomeranian Science and Technology Park in Gdynia, and the SDSI Summer School in Kuldīga.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

  • Delipop, a robotic click-and-collect service for the French market that I led at Cogision, won the DesignWays Award in 2022 and reached the final of the Service Design Awards in 2023.
  • The Community Collections Portal by the Centre of Community Archives, where I led the UX, was nominated for a Paszport Polityki in the digital culture category in 2025.
  • Earlier, my participatory design project Embrace the Space coordinated for LafargeHolcim was nominated in the architecture category of the O! cultural awards in 2018.