This paper engages with the literature to present different perspectives between forecasting
and foresight in strategic design, while drawing insights derived from futures studies that
can be applied in form of a design-inspired foresight approach for designers and
interdisciplinary innovation teams increasingly called upon to help envisage preferable
futures. Demonstrating this process in applied research, relevant examples are drawn from
a 2016 Financial Services industry futures study to the year 2030. While the financial
services industry exemplifies an ideal case for design-inspired foresight, the aims of this
paper are primarily to establish the peculiarities between traditional forecasting
applications and a design-inspired foresight visioning approach as strategic design
activities for selecting preferable futures. Underlining the contribution of this paper is the
value of design futures thinking as a creative and divergent thought process, which has the
potential to respond to the much broader organizational reforms needed to sustain in
today’s rapidly evolving business environment (Buchanan, 2015; Irmak, 2005; Muratovski,
2016).
Traditional Industrial Design sponsored studios (when a corporation partners with a student design studio) can quickly become design for hire studios which limit student learning outcomes as well as successful outcomes for the Sponsor. In assessing instruction practices in sponsored studios, traditionally success is limited to products moving directly into production. By reframing the studio into an incubator and in-line studio setting students could work in the same fashion as an in-house design studio, with mass diminutive ideation focusing on performance initially rather than aesthetics causing an increased standard for success. Because students would be concentrating on editing down a mass amount of variables with swift precision using raw but effective mockups, time would not be wasted on improving the craft of an initial, potentially ill- developed concept, leading to more risk projects with market disrupting potential rather than just an aesthetic or materials update going into production.
In a multi-disciplinary studio setting students from Industrial Design, Apparel Merchandising and Design, and Kinesiology, partnered with a corporate sponsored studio instructed in the framework premised above. The outcomes were a success with the studio functioning beyond a studio for hire scenario to learning objectives being met as well as aspects of projects moving forward into to development and projects moving directly into production as well as applications for patents. This paper investigates how studio culture can be reframed to create a diverse range of success as well as what specific instruction techniques, making techniques, and studio culture lead to this success.