Lorraine Gamman

Lorraine Gamman is Professor of Design at Central Saint Martins (CSM), part of the University of the Arts London (UAL); also Visiting Professor/Research Associate with the Designing Out Crime Research Centre at the University of Technology Sydney. Gamman was a member of the Design Council and Home Office’s Design Technology Alliance that advised Britain’s Home Secretary (2007-11) and continues to be Vice Chair of the Designing Out Crime Association, and an active member of the Arts Alliance Steering Group.

In 1999 Gamman founded the practice-led Design Against Crime Research initiative (whilst teaching in the School of Graphic and Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins) and was named on CSM’s successful 2013 application for the Queen’s award for creative enterprise. DAC was validated as a Research Centre by UAL in 2005, which Gamman continues to direct. Her work with the DACRC has won several awards for design innovation and recognition for delivery of impact. Together with Adam Thorpe she has delivered numerous academic outputs and co-curated over 15 international art and design exhibitions as well as catalysing a number of DAC product ranges including Stop Thief chairs, Karrysafe bags and Bikeoff anti-theft bike stands, all of which have incorporated offender knowledge into the design process.

Lorraine Gamman has been involved in numerous externally funded research projects and research networks as either PI or Co-I, including shoplifting (Home Office 2005-6), Grippa (AHRC 2006-10), Bikeoff (AHRC/EPSRC 2006-8), which have delivered design benchmarks and engaged with convicted offenders as well as designers and other actors. Further research includes PI on Graffiti Dialogues Network (ESRC 2011), and delivery of client based research funded by TfL, the Design Council, the British Transport Police, the Metropolitan Police and the NHS.She finalised her PhD on shoplifting at Middlesex University in 1999 and a spin off book from it, Gone Shopping – the Story of Shirley Pitts, Queen of Thieves, was published by Penguin Books in 1996 and then reissued (with a new afterword) in 2012 by Bloomsbury. She has published widely on visual culture, and produced several co-authored books.

Gamman’s most recent academic publications include Gamman, L. and Thorpe, A. (2010) Criminality and Creativity: What’s at Stake in Designing Against Crime? In: Clarke, A. (Ed.) Design Anthropology. pp. 52-67. New York/Vienna: Springer; Gamman, L., Ekblom, P., Bowers, K., Sidebottom, A. Thomas, C., Thorpe, A. and Willcocks, M. (2011) Reducing Bag Theft in bars. In: Ekblom, P. (Ed.) Design Against Crime: Crime Proofing Everyday Objects. Crime Prevention Studies 27. Boulder, Col.: Lynne Rienner; Gamman, L., and Thorpe, A. (Eds 2012) CoDesign International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts. Special Issue on Socially Responsive Design; also Gamman, L. et al (2012) Why role-playing is a suitable tool to design against crime and aiddesigners to think thief. The Journal of Design and Culture.

Gamman also co-curates (with Adam Thorpe) the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) ‘THIS WAY UP’ seminar series working alongside Policy Connect and the V&A, and is interested in finding more inclusive and collaborative ways of delivering crime prevention.Consequently, the DAC team are currently exploring how best to co-design products against crime with prison inmates in the UK and Australia, to help visualise the idea of anti crime design as a form of restorative justice in action.