The start of this GDF blog
On the 8th of February we were briefed on our new unit: Global Design Futures. You may be asking yourself what this means (although if you are reading this blog that is unlikely). I had a vague understanding of the topic, but a quote that helped me understand it's aim was:
"Future thinking is about imaginable futures" - Alstyne 2010, Bell 2009
Our goal for this project is to highlight 5 key future global design trends. These trends will be chosen based on in-depth research into our current global climate, including the environmental, political, social, cultural, and other factors that have an impact on design. These would be educated and plausible predictions, rather than some kind of weird divination.
Image source: http://blog-sap.com/analytics/files/2013/04/273963_l_srgb_s_gl.jpg
But what's the benefit of creating a future forecast for global design?
Thinking about our design futures allows us to try and imagine possible scenarios that could happen in later years. In doing this we can consider what changes we can make as designers now, and what measures can be taken to help encourage the realisation of any good and beneficial scenarios for society, and decrease the likelihood of negative scenarios. Even if the latter were relatively uncontrollable, in considering how we may react to these possible future scenarios we can hopefully give ourselves a better chance of managing them.
