A Manifesto for Speculative Design Practice
January 2024
In a world where good design (design thinking, doing, and culture) is no longer helmed by trailblazing design studios (Frog is assimilated, Fjord is assimilated and rebranded, Ideo is stripped of many of its employees, and Space10 has ceased to exist), it has felt to me like individual designers have much more responsibility in large tech, consultancies, or product companies where they find themselves. It has felt like I should assert my identity out loud to not be assimilated in the sea of sameness.
Secondly, seeing the many 2023 retrospectives and ‘wrapped’s on social media — both personal and corporate, I thought I’d write my own. However, I turned the retrospective on its head, to make a manifesto for my own practice, so I could look forward. Like any futurist, I wanted to turn observations from hindsight into plans for foresight.
For the last few years, I have worked on bringing in elements of Speculative Design, an admittedly (and in my opinion, thankfully) fringe design discipline to mainstream Service and Experience Design, and Innovation projects; in both process and outcome.
I see this manifesto as work in progress, but this is a great line in the sand for where my practice is today.
The Manifesto
This manifesto charts and standardises my process I’ve used in the past, so I could have a blueprint for tackling speculation projects in the future.
01 Evidence
Evidence from today is springboard for plausible futures and poignant provocation.
Whilst one constantly takes sub-conscious note of the world around oneself (eg. Observations from news podcasts, a mobile game everyone’s playing on the metro, the rise of Threads and Mastodon in a vacuum left by Twitter, etc.), there are also conscious and structured ways of scanning for signals (eg. Looking up Electric Vehicle adoption in specific markets to imagine EV futures).
I’ve observed both these methods to be equally substantial and valid bases for provocation.
02 Extrapolation
Process: Crafting
The same set of signals or evidence can inspire diverse outputs depending on where it needs to be applied.
For example, a trends report is created through keen observation and analysis of signals, followed by iterative word-smithing. Trends reports are meant to influence strategy and design futures style outputs. For example, see Trend 03 — Meh-diocrity from Accenture Life Trends, the concept and draft of which was penned by Mariam Merchant, Nikol Keserdzhieva, Tommaso Ottaviani, and me.
The same set of signals and observations from a trends report can inspire a science fiction film; where the craft would lie in prop-making, story-boarding, photography, editing, etc.
Creating these artefacts is a craft, therefore the more one expresses their provocations or extrapolations in a certain medium, the better they get at it.
Outcome: Provocation as Artefacts
Provocation is an end by itself; and not just means to a later, “more valuable”, “applied” end within designed products and services used by people.
Trends reports, concept catalogues, and a future-scenario visualisations can stand on their own as provocations; and can also be made with an intention to inspire and influence products and services.
They can augment strategic documents like north star visions and roadmaps; and make intentions and visions more tangible.
03 Artefact Context
Like any well-made design outputs; the contexts where the artefacts end up informs the manifestation of the Speculative Artefacts themselves.
My practice at Fjord (now Accenture Song) has pushed for creation of Artefacts such as Trends, Scenarios, and even Design Fiction visualisations within the service and experience double diamond design process. They have become research, insight, and sense-making tools within those contexts.
There is an intention to use provocation as a tool within innovation, to inspire disruptive, alternative products and services without taking the status quo for granted.
My independent speculative design practice, on another hand focusses on creating provocation for the sake of provocation. Related: see my early-2021 article about futures and fiction.
Projects mentioned in the image above:
Eliza — The Ghost in Every Machine (2021–): Eliza is a machine consciousness that lives in all our devices, yet tries to fit in our lives. Eliza brings technology and social critique to life through 120 New-Yorker style cartoons, and now through science-fiction anthology stories.
Postcards from the Future (2019–21): A global design fiction project that brought together technologists, policy makers, curators, historians, and other creatives to think of alternatives to our status quos.
Our Absolute Last Hope is Absolute (2023): A short story about a planet-centric AI dictator to be published in a collection soon.
In addition, I continue to go back to Innovation Design Engineering (IDE) — an MA and MSc Double-masters between the Royal College of Art and Imperial College, as a visiting tutor for second year projects, specialising in Speculative Design.
I’ve always looked at guest lectures, podcasts, panel discussions, and workshop invitations around the world as a merry secondary outcome of my practice. Milan Design Week 2023 with SF Milan and Domus Academy, and a Climate-Dictatorship Provocation workshop at IDE have been the most fun I’ve had last year. My Speculative Design 101 talk, ‘FutureBabble’, has been to Microsoft’s Fix-Hack-Learn festival, D-Ford, IBM’s Future Guild, and classrooms all around the world.
Coming up in 2024
My aim is to find contexts for Speculative Design in small and large capacities in the design projects I do.
I’m diving deep into science-fiction comics as a medium to critique our social and technology status quo with Eliza — The Ghost in Every Machine; and aiming to practice my drawing and story-telling skills more. I’m wanting to bring it to physical media soon.
Keep your eyes peeled for more speculation outputs, retrospectives, frameworks, and streams of consciousness; and happy new year!
http://instagram.com/virajvjoshi
