Design Tomorrow

It may sound like a rhetorical question, but asking "what is real?" is becoming more and more a practical inquiry into the nature of our everyday experience. In this episode of Design Tomorrow, we'll imagine a future — not too far off — where the lines between real and something else will be so blurry that we'll probably need a whole new category of technology to help us bring them back into focus...

Links

The Pyramids at Giza

The Mona Lisa

Photosynth

Audio Spotlight

Talking Window

Active Listening

VR Headset

Project Bluebeam

Music

Cathedral Redwoods, by r beny

Hallon, by Christian Bjoerklund

Novation Peak Ambient, by r beny

Oella, by r beny

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, or email Chris directly at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

After-Credits Links

1. DSCOVR sends 11 photos of Earth back to NASA every day
2. Imogen Heap's musical gloves
3. Scientists hope to lengthen dog years
4. Chinese DNA-edited superdogs
5. "…most startups claiming to promote the sharing economy are really just neoliberal extravagances that will further enrich the smartphone-toting white elite."

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There is no good definition of design. In this episode, Chris talks about what distinguishes design from art, and how accountability plays a unique role in making the distinction clear.

Links

4'33", by John Cage

The scene sampled at the end of the episode is from "A Matter of Perspective," Season 3, Episode 14 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. You can view the clip here.

Music

Wilt, by r beny

Mercurial Vision, by Blue Dot Sessions

ektar, by r beny

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, or email Chris directly at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

After-Credits Links

“Conservatively, our prison story cost roughly $350,000. The banner ads that appeared in it brought in $5,000, give or take.”

An Open Letter to Managers of Women

This clock writes the time

Victorians Wanted to Contact Aliens Using Giant Mirrors

Study Finds That People’s Brains Show a Neural Spike When a Friend’s Brain is Stimulated

3,000 year old intact ostrich egg

Principles of Two-Dimensional Design, by Wucius Wong

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We all think about the future. Probably more than we're even aware. But, is thinking about the future useful? Does thinking about the future actually help us make one that's better? In this episode of Design Tomorrow, we'll talk about the future. Not a specific future, but the possibility of one. And what it means to envision the future — practically — in a way that both shapes our present and ensures progress...

Links

Traction, by Gino Wickman

Music

Winter Tracks, by r beny

Refraction, by Podington Bear

Hallon, by Christian Bjoerklund

Vernal Bloom, by r beny

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, or email Chris directly at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

After-Credits Links

1. Quiz: Can we guess your age and income, based solely on the apps on your phone?
2. This Mind-Blowing Music Machine Is Powered by 2,000 Marbles
3. How Chris Marker’s Radical SciFi Film, La Jetée, Changed the Life of Cyberpunk Prophet, William Gibson
4. HOW TO Take a photo with a piece of paper
5. Collie Lover
6. The Image of the City, by Kevin Lynch

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In this episode, Chris tells a story about a drawing professor who taught him about not just identifying the negative space in our thoughts and actions, but something he called active erasure, and how being intentional about the act of taking things out can not only improve the work we do, but change its very nature...

Links

Alfred DeCredico

How to Grow an Idea, by Jenny Odell

Music

Raro Bueno, by Chuzausen

Veins of Silver, by Blue Dot Sessions

Bathyscaphe, by r beny

Credits

You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, just leave all the vowels out. That's @ D S G N T M R R W. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

After-Credits Links

1. More than half your body isn't human.
2. MIT's wearable device can 'hear' the words you say in your head.
3. Do We Finally Understand How Acupuncture Works?
4. Shh! Don’t Tell Them There’s No Magic In Design Thinking
5. https://twitter.com/davewiner/status/987350876602978305

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In this episode, Chris talks about what it means for designers to get out of their own way, and he shares a couple of ways he's made that not only more possible in his life, but more natural to his day to day.

Things Mentioned in the Show

Clients from Hell

“I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I am doing." Said by John Cage. The full quote is, "I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I am doing." I'm honestly not sure what the original source of this quote is; it's been quoted in thousands of secondary sources, though.

4'33", by John Cage

Music

All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.

• Rythn, by Podington Bear
• Hallon, by Christian Bjoerklund
• Old Growth, by r beny

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, or email Chris directly at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

After-Credits Links

• This startup uses machine learning and satellite imagery to predict crop yields
• IKEA - Let's Relax
• Consciousness: The Mind Messing With the Mind
• http://prostheticknowledge.tumblr.com/post/148449669971/worlds-first-tattoo-by-industrial-robot
• Biutiful, by Ash Koosha
• A Primer of Visual Literacy

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In this episode, Chris talks about appreciating the design of everyday objects, minimalism, and how some objects can reflect a life well lived.

Links

I mentioned a bunch of objects I own that I especially value. Only some can be found online, so this is a partial list:

• My preferred notebook is a Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook
• My preferred pen is a Pilot G2 .7mm Fine Point in black
• My preferred belt is a Grip6
• My preferred pants are a pair of Edgevale Cast Iron Utility Pants in Smoke Black. In the summer, I wear a pair of Fjallraven High Coast Trousers in Limestone
• My preferred boots are Blundstone Super 550 in black
• My preferred t-shirts are Woolly Merino V-Neck in Grey
• My wallet is a BRYK stainless steel case
• My watch is a Trintec Zulu-07 in Stainless Steel
• My bag is a Booq Boa Briefcase

If you don't know the Spin Doctors song I referenced, congratulations. If you can't handle not knowing it, you can listen to it here.

Ubik is a book by Philip K. Dick. You should read it.

Bruce Sterling coined the term "Spime" in his book, Shaping Things. You should read that, too.

Music

All music featured in this episode (except for the tiny bit of Two Princes) is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.

• Bass Rider, by Podington Bear
• Mercurial Vision, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Western Sycamore, by r beny
• Waves, by Podington Bear

Credits

You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, just leave all the vowels out. That's @ D S G N T M R R W. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

After Credits Links

• Study: Average Person’s Life Plan Can Only Withstand 25 Seconds Of Direct Questioning
• Owl attack
• https://twitter.com/PersianRose1/status/731776250130235393
• Peter Gabriel on Music
• This is what your life looks like when you are a major dramatist writing plays in Italian and you’re boldly and publicly living-in-sin with a woman who should have been the Queen of England.
• Art-Camera
• http://mentalfloss.com/article/67770/there-video-game-where-you-just-take-care-succulents
• Here’s what it’s like to be unable to visualize anything
• Face recognition app taking Russia by storm may bring end to public anonymity

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