How can speculative design shape the future? In the past years, the field of future studies has become closer to design practice. The works of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Stuart Candy, and Matt Malpass underline the importance of thinking through design to provoke action and inspire innovative solutions to humankind. Design fiction and speculative design reveal hidden possibilities to a culture of imagination through critical thinking, where the status quo is challenged and shifted by creative minds. According to Dunne (2008), it represents a shift from thinking about applications to implications, where design moves beyond the invention of products in a market-led context to achieve imaginary futures that might exist in years to come.
Fictional artifacts and scenarios, as well as participatory and co-creative methodologies, are a medium to surpass pragmatic and problem-solving design approaches and raise instigating debates about possible futures through new ideas instead of objects. According to Malpass (2017), speculative design thinking is related to futures research and is situated between emerging technology and material culture, focusing on its possible applications in new use contexts.
Design fiction and critical design explore different ‘what if’ scenarios, not to predict the future, but as a powerful tool to promote a debate about desired and possible undesirable worlds (Dunne, 2008). It challenges the known and blurs the boundaries between the real and the fictional. Speculative design explores questioning through prototypes that are not intended to be part of the mass-production market, inciting a reflection about how design could go beyond market barriers and challenges hegemonic thoughts, norms, and values
The French design studio Imprudence materializes imaginary new futures into objects that seem to be real, using speculative design as a tool to inspire the beauty market. For instance, they created a fictional product to a future need: a post-travel space oil to treat the skin in a fantasy collaboration with Virgin Galactic. The prototype is so convincing and fun that it makes us already feel part of the future in an optimistic way.
Design fiction is an essential approach in future thinking because it unfolds the ability to imagine the world how it could be and not as it is, materializing ideas without the pragmatic restrictions and barriers of commercial product design (Malpass, 2017). When considered through a critical design lens, it can spark a reflection on values and practices in a consumption culture, but also, it can orient industry and market players to rethink their strategies, changing dramatically predictable products and services and contributing to a more disruptive culture towards the future of humanity.