Design futuring, the creation of futures, is a young field of activity for designers. With the means of design, creative people outline and negotiate different (desirable) futures and make them (be) tangible.
Interview with Eileen Mandir and Benedikt Gross
How did the idea for the book come about? Can you give us a brief insight into the development process? Who should read your book?
We come from speculative and strategic design and the book was actually the answer to questions that have concerned us in our professional practice. In projects with customers or with students, we repeatedly found ourselves in the situation where we had to explain what we actually do when we design future scenarios. We simply lacked a theoretical foundation and robust methods that are comprehensible and create trust. For many, designing futures — we use the term “Design Futuring” — is a whole new field and it helps to be able to explain how it actually works.
So who should read the book? So we think, and we also see this with our students, that designers should act more and more in roles in which they talk to clients not only about the new campaign for next quarter, but about new products and services in 3-5 years or new concepts and strategies in 5-10 years. The book is aimed at designers who work with their clients to develop participatory solutions for larger contexts. This can be in an agency environment, can be in a research environment, can be in a company, or as part of citizen participation.
Can you give us a few examples of methods and tools from your book?
The playlist of methods we use come from various disciplines: future research, design, coaching, strategic planning, etc. Perhaps a good example is the Futures Wheel method by Jerome C. Glenn. A futures wheel is a type of structured brainstorming and helps groups not only think about possible new applications, but above all about implications. For example, you can use a futures wheel to discuss the direct and indirect consequences of a trend. If you want to try it out, visit the book's website Shaping the future.info A Miro template for the Futures Wheel.
What tips can you give designers who want to focus more on designing the future? What role can designers play in this? (Except reading your book) ;-)
Maybe for now... Design futuring is a young field of activity — even the terms are not yet stable. So you can still get in there very well and help shape the role of designers and the discourse. A good start to make contacts in the Design Futuring community is perhaps the Design Futures Initiative meetups. And of course, as with everything, you don't become a guru overnight, you need practice. There is no need for a big new project. Individual design futuring methods can often be used in daily work on “completely normal” design projects, for example in in-depth systematic research.
