Visual note making as an active and shared act of shaping meaning together used across the event. Photo Andrew Morrison.

Shaping futures together is a shared interest between Malmö University and AHO and our respective design related research sections. In mid November 2019 I gave one of four plenary invited talks at a workshop in Malmö entitled Imagining Collaborative Future-Making. The event was a partnership between Malmö University’s research platforms Collaborative Future-Making and Medea. 

I chose to present and to connect a number of future making projects, including design, teaching and research, I’ve been a part of at AHO, including the newly launched FUEL4DESIGN. I gave the talk the title ‘Design & Anticipation’.

In the latter part of the talk I presented some draft material from a book I’m writing called A Poetics of Anticipation. This book currently includes an inventory of 450 design futures words that I have been gathering over the past five years and which underpin some of the build of the DESIGN FUTURES LEXICON in FUEL4DESIGN.

Morrison. A. (in progress). A Poetics of Anticipation. Extract from draft manuscript.

Morrison. A. (in progress). A Poetics of Anticipation. Extract from draft manuscript.

I also showed some of the recent classroom activity carried out with my project colleague Nina Bjønstad at AHO in a master’s course called TECHNOFORM on 3-dimensional form shaping. We’d run a workshop trailing aspects of the LEXICON as part of collaborative futures designing with multimodal literacies at the core. We sought out making connections between working with abstract terms and design futures terms in 3D form making. Read more about the workshop here.

‘Futures’ and ‘Literacies, part of a set of futures terms taken up as prompts to 3d clay modelling, TECHNOFORM Master’s course, Institute of Design, AHO, November 2019. Photo Andrew Morrison. 

Read the journal article in Temes di Disseny here and our lexicon blog post on the special issue here.

Prof Dagny Steudahl (OsloMet) pointing to the composition visual note making image summarising some of the events shared future making. Photo Andrew Morrison.

Reference:
Morrison A. (2019). ‘Anticipation and design’. Invited guest speaker. Imagining Collaborative Future-Making. Workshop: Malmö University: Malmö. 12-13 November. 09:00-16:00.

‘BALLUSION is a made up word to create a design futures metaphor. It conjoins Balloon and Illusion. The future may be inflated, or expanded. The future may be a faction or an illusion. It may be a mix of these.’ The workshop drew on a device in the LEXICON called BALLUSION designed to help master’s level design students to look more closely at the role of language in their design project, big or small, and its relation to futures.

On the role of language in a futures design project, Master’s Workshop #1. BALLUSION
Zoom, 27​ March 2020
Workshop facilitators: Andrew Morrison and Palak Dudani

This workshop was carried out online with Master’s students within AHO’s Service Design 2 course with Associate Professor Josina Vink of the Institute for Design just after the lockdown in 2020. The Service Design Master’s students were working on a healthcare project, with focus on service ecosystems.

How might such students work with an activity like BALLUSION and relate its affordances for futures learning to their ongoing design project?

In this blogpost, we will take you through the process and reflections of a student participant at the workshop. We conducted this workshop using google document templates with embedded links and now go through its workings in a set of number moves.

1. Focus on your project

The workshop began with a short activity asking master’s students to think about their current project and its relation to the future. They were asked to place it in time (near/ far off/ remote) and write 3 lines describing the project.

Student reflection on prompt 1: ‘Balloon & The project’ 

The student reflected on this saying “The project is in the future…It’s controlling or balancing the air pressure inside the healthcare system that threatens to collapse. At first, it stretches the balloon a bit, but as time progresses the project becomes a balancing agent.”

2. Design words for the future

The second prompt of the workshop asked students to read the 50 FUTURES DESIGN WORDS (words only). From this list, each student was pre-assigned a group of random words which they had to  relate to their project. Once students got a sense of how to make connections with the words, they chose new 10 words from the list which were most relevant for their project (some may be the same words).

Student reflection on prompt 2: ‘Relating given words to the context’

3. Inflating the balloon

The students were asked to imagine that they have a balloon where they can put their chosen 10 words and inflate it. They mentally tied a knot.

4. Back from the future

The students mentally popped the balloon, releasing the words back into the present. These are the words that can be used to describe and define the future. Which of 10 words would they choose in the project they’re working on? Students selected 5 such words and related them back to their project/course/discipline. How are the words that work to prompt, project or even propel your project into the future?

5. Write the future more clearly

As the third and final prompt, students were asked to look at the description they had written earlier and rewrite it including their 5 chosen words.

Student reflection on prompt 3: ‘Use the words to rewrite the project in a future scenario’ 

The student writes:

The probable future of healthcare services must enable a survivable condition. In the pursuit of that condition, disruptive transformations must take place, given the availability and somber conditions of the planet and the threat to human life. As part of these shifts, the release of certain expectations must occur to enable survival. A service experience based on simulation of face-to-face experience is crucial to make the transformation tolerable. Stakeholders must make the proper investment to enable this from NOW.

Having been through the whole workshop, the student summerises their reflections:

Working with the words helped in scoping a futures-noticing point of view and anchoring it to a framework that sparks discussion and ideation around it. As well as noticing important prompts – such as ‘simulation’- to take into account in the next part of our work. Simulation was a particularly useful word for me because it is related to the things the remote services must try to emulate in the future – where technology will be ever more present, but not necessarily the human touch.

Of course we wondered if this activity had supported not only the needs of the Service Design students but also the motivations of their teacher. Here’s what educator and researcher Assoc.Prof. Josina Vink commented afterwards:

 … thank you for stimulating some good thinking about the vocabulary we are using to talk about the future. I think it helped provoke some much needed discussion about our common language as we move into the second phase of this project. The activities were incredibly useful.

A screenshot of the BALLUSION page with both print and digital versions

Ballusioning on … 

Building on this experience with the Master’s students and the in-person BALLUSION workshop with PhD students, a digital version was designed. This was made in collaboration with the French design studio Design Friction with whom we were collaborating on the LEXICON and project website.

You might also like to see a set of guided activities that we then developed further: UNIT 4.1 LANGUAGE AND METAPHOR (MASTER’S).  Below we also point to an interactive version of BALLUSION we developed subsequently for use in online only settings. This was in direct response to the challenges and needs of distributed digital learning and design futures literacies enacted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A glimpse of the interactive BALLUSION online

Screenshot of the cover of Temes de Disseny #36 journal

We are pleased to announce that a special guest issue of the open access, multilingual design journal Temes de disseny has been published on the topic ‘Design Futures Now: Literacies and Making’. The central aim is to address design’s roles in shaping futures by modes of making and analysis for alternate presents and emergent futures. Edited by two of the leaders of Intellectual Outputs in FUEL4DESIGN (Andrew Morrison and Laura Cleriès), this special issue covers a medley of matters in the form of full articles, cases and pictorials. 

From FUEL4DESIGN, there are two peer reviewed research contributions: an original article from AHO relating to IO1 Design Futures Lexicon and a pictorial for IO3 Design Futures Scouting:

Lexicons, Literacies and Design Futures
By Andrew Morrison, Nina Bjørnstad, Einar Sneve Martinussen, Bjørn Johansen, Bastien Kerspern & Palak Dudani (pp. 114-119), and

Exploring Weak Signals to Design and Prototype for Emergent Futures
By Tomas Diez, Oscar Tomico & Mariana Quintero (pp. 70-89).

Our Editorial on ‘Design Futures Now: Literacies & Making’ and access to content and to the PDF of whole special issue are part of ELISAVA’s open access publishing policy and design infused mediation of design inquiry as well as FUEL4DESIGN’s open access publication direction. 

The special issue was presented by the guest editors along with Oscar Tomico, (co-editor in chief) and Guim Espelt (managing editor) at an evening online launch event in Zoom.

It’s been wonderful to begin on the project formally as a whole group again after having met and worked so well together in developing the application and been eager to meet in person since its award. 

We held our Kick Off Meeting as planned at AHO on 14-15 October 2109. We brought together representatives of all the four partners. The team consisted of design-educator-researchers and research administrative staff from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (NO), Politecnico di Milano (IT), University of the Arts London (UK), and ELISAVA (ES). 

As mentioned on the home page of our project website, the basic intention of the F4D project is to connect emerging issues of design futures literacies for design teachers and students at Master’s and doctoral levels. These innovations are extended to other professionals (designers, futurist foresight experts, innovation specialists), educational organisations and to policymakers in education, research and culture, education governmental departments, design councils, innovation agencies and civil society organisations.

FUEL4DESIGN. Kick Off Transnational Meeting, Oslo 14-15 October 2019. 

From left: Miriam El Moussaoui (AHO), Laurua Cleriès (ELISAVA), Manuela Celi (PoliMi), Andrew Morrison (AHO), Chiara Colombi (PoliMi), Betti Marenko (UAL), Pras Gunasekera (UAL), Silke Lange (UAL), Jerneja Rebernak (UAL). Photo Prof. Rachel Troye (Head Institute of Design AHO, Pro-Rector AHO).

The meeting established its main goals and provided a space for members to engage with one another and become more familiar with the groups’ specialisms, interests and expertise. This was primed by the content of the 3rd International Conference on Anticipation at AHO that immediately preceded the meeting and at which several partners presented related papers and sessions. With confirmation of our project’s contract all signed we discussed some of the shared interests and wishes, as well as outlines for IO1 DESIGN FUTURES LEXICON and IO2 PHILOSOPHICAL PILLS. 

In the following months, collaboration with a diversity of teachers and different modes of making, relating and inquiry would be carried out at AHO. UAL would devise related co-design type workshops. A meeting in London was scheduled for October.

Betti Marenko from UAL presenting plans for IO2 Philosophical Pills. Photo Andrew Morrison

We foresaw that our Advisory Board would need to be used selectively and transversally in and between IOs. Physical visits were also seen as central to shared project events and in the ongoing function of the experts. Open access and distribution matters were positively addressed as was pre-planning.

The second half-day included discussion of IOs 1 and 2 and DFL. Experiences in related projects were shared and discussion covered thinking into the futures of the project philosophically in locating its world views.

We agreed that we had embarked on an ambitious project but with a lively and committed team with its eyes set on very real, imaginary and motivating ventures into shaping and changing design futures literacies – and thereby adding fuel to action, critique and change in design education.

A screenshot of PhD students participating in the NEOLOGISER workshop over zoom. 

Shaping futures design terms

Words are dynamic such that their meanings arrive, develop and change in use and over time. They are elastic and plastic such that they can be shaped and altered, moulded and given different identities and connections. New terms or ‘neologisms’ come into being through the combination of parts of others, or a change from one part of speech to another. 

The NEOLOGISER workshops build on the DESIGN FUTURES LEXICON and pay attention to the role of words as design material. The tool intends to help designers become more sensitive to the importance of words in shaping futures by highlighting that words are carriers and shapers of meaning. Through a series of activities and resources, NEOLOGISER strives to familiarise designers with the idea of creating new words or ‘neologisms’.

Reflecting on language, design, futures and discourse, PhD Workshop #3. NEOLOGISER
AHO, 20 March 20202
Teachers and facilitators: Andrew Morrison & Palak Dudani

The workshop was designed to support the PhDs in generating new words for FUTURES DESIGN and DESIGN FUTURES LITERACIES by using a set of action prompts that reflect the character of word formation at a broad level and thereby also for their own research project and related design work. This involves designer-researchers becoming aware that neologisms are a common part of our everyday language and engages them to also become comfortable with the idea of making their own new words and consequently building concepts and developing related definitions.

The session worked through a number of related resources from the LEXICON to achieve these goals, as we now present. The session included participants from the project partners.

A screenshot of the Google document used to structure and facilitate the online and synchronous NEOLOGISER workshop

Stage 1: Grouping Design Futures Terms

Screenshot of the template WORD-O-MAP 

The workshops began with introducing 50 FUTURES DESIGN TERMS to familiarise the participants with terms and how they can be used to position their own research work.  Once the participants have chosen the terms they find relevant for their work, they can begin to categorise it into the WORD-O-MAP template. Participants are able to make connections between the terms and reflect on how it relates to their project.

Screenshots of notes by a PhD students participant, showing the use of softwares such as Miro and digital notepad during the online remote workshop. Photo by Ammer Harb of PoliMI (top) and Nan Xia, guest at AHO (bottom)

In the workshop discussion after the exercise, one of the PhD student participants said that for them using the WORD-O-MAP ‘opened up new reflections and perspectives connected to my PhD-work’. Another participant found it ‘very helpful in segmentation and categorising the ‘understanding’ of particular terms also for the terms used in research that were not in the list of words.’ Reflecting on their own PhD thesis work, one of the participants reflected that WORD-O-MAP helped ‘uncover some terms that can represent a special situation, and make my research leaner’.

Stage 2: Working with Semantic Categories

This section focuses on words as meaning-making devices and how they can be shaped as just any other design material. To inspire the participants to look at a diversity of related words and identify and explore possible others, UNIT 5.3 WORKING WITH SEMANTIC CATEGORIES is shared in this stage.

A screenshot of the TABLE OF SEMANTIC CATEGORIES 

Participants go through TABLE OF SEMANTIC CATEGORIES which helps develop a specific sense of what different semantic categories are and how designers can sort design futures terms. Once participants have refined their own understanding, they go through TABLE Of SEMANTIC CATEGORIES (List with words) where they can see how futures terms are categorized. 

A screenshot of a PhD student discussing their notes over the zoom session of the workshop.

A screenshot of a PhD student notes, showing how participants documented their reflections during a remote synchronous workshop session. Photo by Zhilong LUAN

In discussion, one of the PhD students noted that the ‘categorisation helps a lot in seeing terms in their proper context.’ and that ‘it could be quadrants for design research.’ Another felt that ‘a classification that better fits the design research category can help me track more accurately and quickly.’ The participants felt that going through WORD-O-MAP first helped them ‘think where my words belong to’ and ‘it can help to explain some special designerly terms, especially when I am at a loss for words.’

Stage 3: Making new design words

As the UNIT 8.1.ON NEW FUTURES DESIGN WORDS notes:

Designers are always working with words in the ways they talk about what they are doing and what they encounter in the works of other designers. In these ventures, words may be formal and have some fixity. Yet they change and twist and turn as we use them and play with them, for serious and joyful reasons.

The participants go through UNIT 8.1. ON NEW FUTURES DESIGN WORDS and UNIT 8.2.MAKING NEW FUTURES DESIGN WORDS which introduces them to six ways of making new words. 

Photos of PhD student notes, showing how participants used paper formats while doing activities during the NEOLOGISER online workshop session.

Stage 4: NEOLOGISER

In the last stage of the workshop, the participants go through the NEOLOGISER and experiment with new words.

Some of the terms being put in categories made better understanding’ one of the participants reflected. Making neologisms further made the participants pay attention to the elasticity of the words ‘in particular for some of the vague terms or how the terms can be used interchangeably.

Discussion and Reflections

In the concluding discussion at the end of the workshop, the PhD student participants had begun to enjoy experimenting with new words. One of the participants noted that this workshop ‘showed the complexity of words and how difficult they are to define clearly.’ Another participant remarks how having an archive of words helped them see how ‘each of them gives new colours to my understanding. endless possibilities of variations.’ 

A screenshot of a diagram made by one of the PhD student participants showing the use of different visual formats for reflecting during the NEOLOGISER workshop. Photo by Nan Xia

A PhD student who’s looking at the role of culture within service design felt that this workshop helped them see how they can try and ‘use the en-activity to explain the value of the design process to culture.’ Another participant reflected on ‘terms I use and see them from other perspectives, to search for terms I use but could not find. That in itself is interesting. Do I only use terms from my “field” or should I look around for others?’

Balloons as metaphor for futures, twisted and made into different forms, suggesting the malleability and precariousness of futures. Photo Yue Zou.

Shaping malleable futures

BALLUSION looks at the role of words, language and metaphor in design projects and its relation to futures. As we note in our Unit on this in the LEXICON,

When we talk about the future, we refer to something that lies ahead of us in time. As designers, we’re invested in affecting, changing and shaping this ‘future’. However, ‘future’ is an ambiguous and intangible concept. Using a metaphor to describe the future allows us to make it tangible, making it interesting for us to experiment and play with it.

The BALLUSION workshop explores ‘balloons’ as a metaphor for shapeable futures. We take this up in the supporting Unit by asking: ‘If the balloon represents the future, how might we shape, twist, deflate, go, squeeze, bounce, tap, stretch or release it?’

By treating words as design material, participants cut them out into small strips. These are inserted into balloons and blown up, thereby sending the words into future. The words are brought back to present by popping the balloon and using the fallen words as inspiration to reflect on their design projects.

Identifying Needs and Interests, PhD Workshop #1. BALLUSION
AHO, 28 February 2020
Teachers and facilitators: Andrew Morrison & Palak Dudani

The workshop was designed with PhD students in mind. The aim of the workshop was to explore the use of words in shaping concepts in a PhD thesis, clarify the project’s focus in early phase and position it relation to the future.

Preparing the in-person workshop at AHO. Photo Palak Dudani.

This workshop was initially designed as a face-to-face event and was conducted during early March, before the lockdown period. As the lock-down period went into extension, our project team negotiated this to create a digital version for this workshop. The version shown here gives insights into how we did this learning process together. The revised revision is shown in the UNIT 4.2 LANGUAGE AND METAPHOR.

In this post we share how we conducted the workshop and its key activities and we also share the resources we used along the way.

One of the student participants going through a list of 250 FUTURES DESIGN WORDS. Photo Palak Dudani.

Starting with terms from the LEXICON

The PhD students looked at 250 FUTURES DESIGN WORDS and TABLE OF SEMANTIC CATEGORIES as a way to find futures words that relate to their project. 

They select a word and write them onto the balloon. They play with the balloons, shaping them into forms that reflect the character of their projects. 

Student participants selecting words relevant to their PhD project and writing them on their balloons. Photo Palak Dudani.

Student participants playing with balloons, shaping them in ways to reflect their projects. Photos Palak Dudani.

Playing with the ‘futures’ as balloons

In the following phase of the workshop, the metaphor of ‘balloon’ is used as a way to articulate the futures positioning or what kind of futures the PhD students are working towards.

Students received balloons filled with words. As they popped the balloons, the words fell onto the table, brought into the present. What does it mean to bring words from the future and about the future, into the present? Discussion followed.

The workshop is divided into sections and activities, as shown here in a screenshot of the UNIT 4.2 LANGUAGE AND METAPHOR on the FUEL4DESIGN website.

Next, the participants chose their own 10 words relevant to their PhD project. They cut them into strips and inserted them into balloons. Once inserted, these represented words in the future. In order for them to be seen and touched or accessed, these words needed to be brought down to the present. The students popped the future/balloon so the words would ‘fall’ to the present. These words are the material students could then use to articulate and shape their project. Popping or releasing or taking away the balloons was like sending them into the future. 

Student participants cut the words relevant for their project. Photo Palak Dudani (left) and Claire Dennigton (right).

The cut-out words were inserted into balloons and ‘sent into future’ (left). Popping the balloons, made the words within the balloons ‘fall back into present’ (right). Photos Palak Dudani.

Reflecting on language and metaphor

Quiet individual writing was part of finishing the workshop. The students selected five words from the fallen words and reflected on their definitions in relation to their project. A few more balloons were also popped.

PhD student writing definitions for her chosen words, reflecting on how they relate with her PhD thesis project. Photo Palak Dudani.