Giovanni Caruso, Silvio Cioni
There is something inherently fascinating yet reassuring about manuals. They promise results as long as you follow steps and recipes that you can easily replicate and apply every time you need them. The Field Guide to Design Futures works on a different premise: you build your own understanding of what Design Futures and futures thinking are and design accordingly by selecting, assembling, scraping, and skimming different entries, voices, and contributions that make up this volume.
The book presents Design Futures as a discipline shaped by plurality, of approaches, perspectives, and destinations, through the assemblage of the lived experiences of the two authors and the assemblage of points of view of practitioners and academics who have left their mark on the field guide, exploring different territories and adjacent fields. These voices invite reflection on the current state of the practice and push toward its advancement while helping you adopt an inquisitive mindset as you explore futures.
The fragmented nature of the book reflects the fractious quality of the multiple realities we live in and their multiple possibilities. The response is not a framework, but a playful approach to chaos through which you design your own way through apparently unrelated trails: from bovine design to design sociology, data biases, activism and the democratization of the practice, decolonization, and the problematization of human supremacy.
Get lost in this essential yet ambitious constellation of fragments. The reward? The chance to reconfigure the way you think and understand Design Futures and the practice itself, as well as to shape it to change what’s next in a meaningful way.
Specifications
Type
Softcover
Dimensions
127 x 203 mm / 5 x 8 inch (portrait)
Pages
232
ISBN
979-12-985986-0-7
Language
English
Release date
31/01/2026
Edition
First Edition January 2025
Credits
Authors
Giovanni Caruso, Silvio Cioni
Contributors
Phil Balagtas, Steve Baty, Michael Dunbar, Coe Douglas, Simone Engelhardt, Gabriele Ferri, Tina Fung, Inte Gloerich, Estelle Hary, Sara Innocenti, Marite P. Irvine, Masaki Iwabuchi, Chris Jackson, Viraj Joshi, Bastien Kerspern, Agata Kowalska, Silvio Lorusso, Léa Lippera, Albéric Maillet, Sahibzada Mayed, Andrea Gilly Márquez, Erica Moreti, Margherita Paleari, Karla Paniagua, Theo Ploeg, Amna Qureshi, Amanda Reeves, Tobias Revell, Søren Rosenbak, Juliana Schneider, Eloise Smith-Foster, Chris Speed, Martin Tomitsch, Patrick Tanguay, Savannah Vize, John V. Willshire, Samuel Yu
Book and Cover design
Margherita Paleari, Sara Lavazza / Chapter 24
Illustrations
Stefano Cardini
Editing and Proofreading
Matthew Wizinsky