1. INTRODUCTION

The material below is in English. It includes a set of key words for FUTURES DESIGN. All of the words are presented in this unit within a design future facing viewpoint. By this we mean that they are not only about the future but are views that are informed by design and how it works with futures. 

Some of the items appear in other domains such as Futures Studies, but they are reoriented to Design. Some of these words may also be more generally understood and you may be familiar with them. Others you may not know or know so well. 

The purpose of the unit is to work toward understanding of the terms and their definitions in the context of FUTURES DESIGN. 

This Unit is to help us get going on working with some of the main terms in Design on futures. We will work through looking at what y0u think these words mean and then what they are defined as being. 

You can translate the word or find the one nearest to its meaning in your own preferred language .

2. A NOTE ON ‘VOCABULARY’

There are a few matters concerning the use of an overall VOCABULARY in this unit. We use ‘words’ to refer to the set of terms that are listed as key ones in design futures as given in DESIGN WORDS FOR THE FUTURE (words only). We also use ‘words’ to refer to the words we use in working on design projects and research. 

For Master’s students it’s fine to use ‘words’.
PhDs will already be making distinctions concerning ‘words’: between specialist terms, concepts and words used in conveying research in writing and presentations.

Specialist terms make up a discipline’s vocabulary, just as terms in use make up a common ‘language’ for practice. The LEXICON contributes in many ways to the generation of a shared vocabulary for FUTURES DESIGN and for DESIGN FUTURES LITERACIES.

This vocabulary is made and altered through use and in doing so it comes to help form what we call a disciplinary discourse. A discourse is the way a discipline or a field articulates its work, in language and a mix of multimodal ways.

3. IDENTIFYING WORDS

The following set of words gathers and identifies some of the key items that may be seen to be central to a Design view on shaping futures. 

ACTIVITY #1: ENCOUNTERING WORDS

1. Refer to 50 FUTURES DESIGN WORDS (Words only)

2. Read through the list and mark words that are familiar or unfamiliar to you.

3. List any words that are unknown to you.

4. Go back to the list and try to define outloud the words that you do know. Everyday definitions are fine for now.

4. DEFINING WORDS

We now turn to looking at definitions for these words. Please consult 50 FUTURES DESIGN WORDS (Words with definitions). Here we have provided definitions of these words, with some board and also design specific elements.

ACTIVITY #2: DEFINING WORDS

1. Read through 50 DESIGN WORDS FOR THE FUTURE (Words with definitions)

2. Identify the words you earlier thought you knew and compare what you said out loud as definitions with those given. What are the main differences? Note the ones that have a different meaning to what you had thought or expected.

3. Did you only select one of the possible elements of the defintion, a mix or several of them?

4. Did the definition suggest changes to your idea of what the word means in a design futures view?

5. Go back to the words you had not met before. Read through their definitions and try to make sense of them in relation to your studies or project.

5. WORDS AND DESIGN FUTURES INQUIRY

These words do a lot of work when it comes to FUTURES DESIGN making and inquiry. They help us identify, share, use and analyse what and how we are designing the artifacts, processes and analyses we are developing and producing in different forms.

Words need to be defined to build shared vocabularies. These vocabularies are made up of identifiable words that develop and maintain meaning through use. 

In a FUTURES DESIGN view, we need to select specific words that do more specialised work than items in daily or ordinary use. Design is in the process of developing these words further and to sharpening their definitions through use in learning, research and practice.

We can see the set of words and definitions in the 50 FUTURES DESIGN WORDS (With definitions) are the beginnings of the shaping of an important FUTURES DESIGN set of core terms, concepts and shared means to realise the wider discourses of design education and research.

6. PLACING DEFINITIONS OF DESIGN WORDS FOR THE FUTURE

ACTIVITY #3: RE-DEFINING WORDS IN MULTIPLE CONTEXTS

1. Please read closely the list of definitions provided in 50 FUTURES DESIGN WORDS (With definitions).

2. It’s important that you try to relate these definitions as well as you can in relation to your design project/work and its futures design perspectives. Please open the FRAMES 4 FUTURES (Frames only).

3. Select the words that most relate to your project/work and describe them in terms of the FRAMES 4 FUTURES (Frames only).

4. Next go back to the given definitions and try to better situate, position, define and describe them in relation to the aim, porcesse and direction of your project/work.

Celi, Manuela, and Andrew Morrison. 2017. “Anticipation and design inquiry.” In Handbook of Anticipation, edited by Roberto Poli, 1-25. Vienna: Springer.

Martinec, Radjan, and Theo van Leeuwen. 2008. The Language of New Media Design: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.

Tassarini, V. & Staszowski, E. (2020). (Eds.). Designing in Dark Times: An Arendtian Lexicon. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

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