IDEACAST 2024

As we experience constant change, we will need a new rulebook to move beyond an anxious state. We should discard notions of going back to a known normal. Instead, embrace change, design systems that are more fluid, intuitive, flexible. Embrace systems that are more intuitive and empathetic to deal and strengthen from the fallout of not knowing.

With new variants continuing to emerge and a new generation of workers knowing only a WFH reality, expect the home and hybrid state to be the normal. Explore a better balance between working remotely and those elements that bring us closer including more intentional intermittent gathering spaces, focus on team-building activities, modular flex work/play spaces, and more.

The pandemic’s full emotional effects have yet to be fully assessed. There has been a great deal of loss. Lets build environments and spaces that listen, nurture us and provide ways to more meaningfully connect. Focus on building communities that provide a new set of incentives and benefits beyond the transactional and that include time, access, advise, more calming experiences and truly needed benefits.

Skepticism is already at all time highs and so is our reluctant relationship with technology, aka big brother. We expect to see stronger demand for systems that give power the consumer including personalized data privacy and ownership on all levels.

As blockchain becomes more commonplace, expect disruptions around transparency, ease and security. Bitcoin and other forms of blockchain asset creation, protection and sharing will usher an increasingly cash-free society.

The great Covid race vaccine has empowered us with a sense of possibilities. To boldly bring about change, including conquering space, but more importantly to address environmental degradation and social injustice. Expect to see more of a moonshot driven by a societal hunger for disruption. Image: Tesla Falcon.

Covid has prioritized the importance of Scientific breakthroughs and safety. Expect to see more interfaces, innovation systems and form of storytelling around the great mystery of life and Science’s ability to decipher it and protect us. Photo: Boynton Life Sciences complex in MA.

Our relationship with space has become more complicated, but also increasingly multi-textured, creating an opportunity to design smarter spaces. Explore modular design, bibliophilic textures and settings that heal us, and more. Photo: Lehrer architects.

Climate change requires a more drastic intervention than the gradual and reluctant societal compliance. Expect to see more bold initiatives such as the yet to be fully assessed carbon trapping or design such as Turenscape’s (pictured) eco-city which intervenes to both protect and design for a more symbiotic relationship with nature.

As we spend more time indoors we will crave the physical and emotional experiences and benefits of all things natural. We expect to see more of the blending between indoors and outdoors and elements such as Signify’s natural light (pictured) which bring a familiar feeling and light to our indoor needs.

As Covid and modern living have taxed us and depleted us, we seek design that is restorative on all levels, beginning with physicality yet also including values. We want to wear what we believe in. This total design approach places lightness, mobility and full circularity. Image Adidas Future Loop.

Our modern lives demand our time and attention. And during Covid this depletion of personal resources has been exacerbated. And this includes our need to charge those tools that connect us. We embrace the era of wireless on all aspects of our lives. Picture: Aira wireless chargers.

Now more than ever, we crave being able to move and explore the sense of personal discovery. This need coupled with a hunger for slower, more sustainable living are making the electronic bike a modern panacea for venturing out.

Technology at its best connects us but also reaffirms our individuality and delivers platforms and utilities to preserve and amplify it. Beauty and wellness next chapter is around personalization. Expect to see more customization on all levels, including DNA level needs mapping, body type personalization and more. Picture Opte Beauty delivering personalized ingredients and products.

Kengo Uma’s design are around nature allowing it to envelop us and deliver healing, inspiration and protection. Explore all the ways in which nature can deliver the human design we all need now.

There is a restorative aspect in slow living with pottery and other form of crafts claiming center stage in a conversation of healing and nourishment. We see more craft playing a lead role in design and welcoming modern interfaces including soft tech. Picture: Linda Xiao for NYT.

We have gone through a great degree of trauma. We need spaces to heal, reset and strengthen our individual and collective identities. Explore ways to create spaces for conversations, healing and thriving. Picture: National Memorial for Peace & Justice

During a time of sociocultural dissonance, listening and empathy are the only means forward. Explore all the ways your brand can become a more empathetic presence, beginning with listening interfaces while being more inclusive through an intersectional lens.

Our futures full of possibilities will require skill sets around maximum creative shape shifting. And it’s never too early to begin. Expect to see a continued rise in education entertainment and story-learning as little ones learn to explore the world in multiple ways. Toys like Toniebox (pictured) deliver a toolkit for creative discovery and role playing.

Remember when adult coloring books became all the rage to assuage our stressed out times. Well that was only the beginning as platforms such as Skillshare (pictured) now bring us both therapeutic forms of creativity but also tools that help us get ahead.

Unsettling times call for a dose of happiness. There is a hunger for products and experiences that deliver delight, magic and a touch of joy. Kinship (pictured) does this with beautiful, neon-light packaging but more importantly with a values-focused sense of community that feels like that friend who makes you laugh-cry.

Inclusivity and acceptance have become front and center platforms as society evolves to put aside taxing and toxic notions of beauty, gender and identity, pimples and all. And in the case of upstart brand Starface (pictured), those same pimples become platforms of creativity, fun and self-expression. Expect to see more platforms of joy get our attention.