Josep Almirall
Josep Almirall (Barcelona, 1983) is a service designer, business strategist, and user experience, researcher. After completing his BA in photography in 2005 and his BA in Graphic Design in 2009 he started to investigate the visual literacy of digital interfaces producing as a result the multimedia project ‘Love it or Leave it’ exhibited at FotoColectania (2010) and Sarajevo Winter Festival (2012) where he explores the possibilities of landscape storytelling within the boundaries of the digital screen. In 2011 he shifts focus onto the system and organizational design and completes a PgDip in Design Management experimenting with retail production research and the DYI culture emerging from creative practices in digital communities and the relationship between artisan and digital retail spaces.
In 2015 he is awarded a full scholarship to study for an MBA at Hull University Business School (UK), which give him the opportunity to focus on research design practices and holistic methodologies. In his master's dissertation, “From incubators to ecosystems: Evaluating the startup digital economy cluster of Hull City”, which will be presented at the Data Publics conferece at Lancaster University (31st March – 2nd April 2017) he examined the digital economy network and the value of social connectivity within the TechNorth business clusters in the UK. Interested in Design Thinking and Complexity Theory his current research contributes to the debate about feasible and desirable changes within digital economy ecosystems.
In 2009 he co-founded the design lab www.ellenjames.net, where he has been working as design manager in a wide variety of projects ranging from customer experience, strategic and creative thinking and managerial development.