Nodes of Design#95: Design for Futures by Anab Jain RDI

Nodes of Design

Anab Jain is a filmmaker, designer and futurist. She co-founded Superflux, a pioneering speculative design and experiential futures company in London, UK, working for clients and commissioners such as V&A, Google, Red Cross, UNDP, IKEA, Deepmind and many more. Anab has delivered prolific talks at TED, Skoll, NEXT, House of Lords and House of Commons UK, and shown work at MoMA New York, V&A London, National Museum of China and Museum of the Future Dubai. Profiles on Anab and Superflux can be found in Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and Financial Times.

Anab and Jon, co-founders of Superflux, have recently been awarded Royal Designers for Industry in speculative design, UK’s highest accolade for design. Anab also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Arts London for her contributions to the field.

Anab serves as a Professor for Design Investigations at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, for the last six years. She hopes to instil a culture of radical enquiry in her students so they can become active designers-translators-catalysts for a complex and uncertain world.

In this episode, Anab shared great insights on Design for futures; we started the episode by defining design for the futures and what is the design process when working on a project focused on the future. Then we discussed navigating that uncertainty in work and how designers can balance the need for innovation and creativity with practicality and functionality in their designs. Later, we discussed why ethical considerations are critical when designing for the future and how do designers ensure their work is inclusive and representative of different perspectives and experiences.

Book Recommendation by Anab Jain RDI

• Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning - Karen Barad
• Correspondences - Tim Ingold

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This podcast aims to make design education accessible to all. Nodes of Design is a non-profit and self-sponsored initiative by Tejj.