-> *I came across Design Fiction when meeting some of the [Near Future Lab](http://nearfuturelaboratory.com/#whatwedo) people at the Lift Conference* Design Fiction is a practice to conduct [[Futures Exploration]], first defined by Julian Bleeker in March 2009 in his publication [Design Fiction, A short essay on design, science, fact and fiction](http://drbfw5wfjlxon.cloudfront.net/writing/DesignFiction_WebEdition.pdf). > In this way design fiction is a hybrid, hands-on practice that operates in a murky middle ground between ideas and their materialization, and between science fact and science fiction. It is a way of probing, sketching and exploring ideas. Through this practice, one bridges imagination and materialization by modeling, crafting things, telling stories through objects, which are now effectively conversation pieces in a very real sense. A bit like making science fact prototypes, or props for a science fiction film, but not quite. It has spawned many design fiction artifacts by the Near Future Labs, for example the [Ikea catalog](http://ikea.nearfuturelaboratory.com/) or the [TBD catalog](http://tbdcatalog.com/). ## How it works Design Fiction wants to create legible, tangible, ideally material representations of alternative future objects. It uses design props, prototypes, fakes, speculations materials, films and visuals to start a conversation about the future. These diagenic objects can test or taste an idea and to spawn a conversation. An example of how these can be used is from a Times article about Jeff Hawkins, Palm co-founder and one of the inventors of the Palm Pilot (see also https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/palm-pilot-right-alberto-savoia/?articleId=6507774264819744768). > "Hawkins, 40, Palm's chief technologist and Pilot's creator, designed one of the first handheld computers, the GRiDPad, a decade ago. It was an engineering marvel but a market failure because, he says, it was still too big. Determined not to make the same mistake twice, he had a ready answer when his colleagues asked him how small their new device should be: "Let's try the shirt pocket." > Retreating to his garage, he cut a block of wood to fit his shirt pocket. Then he carried it around for months, pretending it was a computer. Was he free for lunch on Wednesday? Hawkins would haul out the block and tap on it as if he were checking his schedule. If he needed a phone number, he would pretend to look it up on the wood. Occasionally he would try out different design faces with various button configurations, using paper printouts glued to the block." They are designed with a sense of possibility, as a thing that makes sense and to show around. They are a way for the designer to tell a story about a thing that could or should exist, and present it like it's already normal, maybe even mundane. ## Articles & posts [[To Be Designed]] is a game to run Design Fiction sessions. Design Fiction is a regular topic on the [Near Future Laboratory Office Hours](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfI9weP6LSOeY9nJF_W0X1w) [David Kirby - Near Future Laboratory Podcast | Podcast on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6bWN6AGlu5O3y97Edahf9y?si=b000f26f1f9b45aa&nd=1) Simplicable has a nice (maybe overengineered) list of [Design Fiction types](https://simplicable.com/new/design-fiction). [Julian Bleecker "Design fiction" (Lift Asia09 EN) - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhZ5HaT8ngM) [This is how design fiction could shape a sustainable (real) future | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/what-is-design-fiction-and-how-can-it-shape-the-real-future/)