Call for participation: State of design 2025

Hi everyone, and a (late) happy new year!

Let's start 2025 by opening up our State of Design, once again. If last year saw the rise of the fear of becoming irrelevant, being replaced, and even working ourselves out of relevancy, this year marks another turning point in our grand narrative: accept change or leave the space altogether.

This new form of escapism is different from the blind techno-optimism we've seen in 2024, the likes of “AI is great; we must learn to work with it to stay relevant; etc.”, which was not true in that the current market conditions have little to do with AI itself (rather, AI is a consequence) and much with an overall economic slowdown, inflation and the end of “free money”, less government subventions (or lack thereof), geopolitical tensions, political instabilities, etc.

The themes for the State of Design 2025

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We are looking for members and designers alike to participate in this collection.

Through the following exploration, I'll lay out several themes that I will sum up at the end in a series of questions, along with the conditions and rules of participation.

Last year we had 17 members who joined the call and 8 submitted contributions which went through review and made to final publication.

If you're interested, don't hesitate to contribute and bring your own perspective!

1/ A topographical understanding of our narratives

Generally speaking, there is one main internal fallacy to our designerly narratives, a pattern of “seemingly automated collective reasoning” which is applied in two ways:

On one hand, design itself and/or designers themselves are the cause of their own predicament; reducing causality to a single or narrow set of internal factors.
Which helps justify, on the other hand, that design and/or designers can and must focus on X, Y, Z narrow set of internal factors to escape or solve their dire situation.

If the narratives change, they tend to gravitate around similar patterns, like strange attractors or gravity wells. Tools and frameworks, skills and crafts, predefined ways of thinking and sometimes even personality traits. “If design is fading away, you see, this is because such and such designers are missing one of these [insert arbitrary factor]” –or so it goes. And I can't help but see a rather toxic feedback loop.

This unfortunately compounds with other toxic dynamics, which I call the apex predators of our design ecologies and permitted by the techno-capitalist space in which (most) of us find ourselves bounded to –and soon to be techno-feudalist perhaps?

But I wonder: when will the realization comes that design and designers aren't causing their downfall, the space (and rules) we are working in do? When will the realization comes that design isn't fading away, but the very meaning we attach to it does?

Design, like many cultural object, is composed of many intertwined formal and informal elements, be it codes and norms, practices, ways of doing, language, etc. Over time, because it is bound to a broader context that evolves, some of its informal meaning evaporates and only the formal remains.

Perhaps because the world looks like a liminal-space (now more than ever), a place we weirdly recognize but feel strange at the same time.

2/ United like sand. Defined by differences

I'd like to present this metaphor:

Design is like sand; from afar, it seems coherent and homogenous enough to hold itself together, but once you try to hold it in your hands it elusively slips away in tiny individual heterogenous grains.

It is a counter-intuitive reality. Once dive into the many expressions of design, there appears to be no true unity between designers. What makes us “designers” and not “engineers” or anything else? What characterises us? Is it just our flimsy, inconsistent (and sometimes meaningless) job titles? Our uneven (and sometimes shaky) eduction? Our preconditioned behaviours? Is it the space we are working in –the tech world we find inadvertently intertwined to? Why are some reluctant to even call themselves “designer” or use “design” to describe what they do?

Most probably, these are unanswerable questions simply because they lead to costly claims about the world that can never truly encompass the very diversity design necessitates at a meta-level, a meta-diversity if you will. And I would be fine with that.

Borrowing from, Gilles Deleuze, a French philosopher, who rejected identity as commonly accepted as an object and proposed instead that the self forms through differences and repetitions, thus constantly evolving and mutating as an ever-forming concept.

"I make, remake and unmake my concepts along a moving horizon, from an always decentered centre, from an always displaced periphery which repeats and differentiates them" – G. Deleuze

For Deleuze, repetition is inherently transgressive for humans. He identifies humour and irony as lines to avoid the “generalities of society” because they create distance from laws and norms even while re-enacting them.

We, as designers, are indeed very too often a bit too serious. We are professionals, you see. But is it all we are? Where is the alternative culture, or even counter-culture, offered by humour and irony? Where are the small rebellious acts that give back a sense of autonomy through differences and unique repetitions, rather than through escapism and delusional optimism?

3/ Sometimes, all you need is to burn it all

I find hope and catharsis to be very interesting things in this discussion. First, because they both exist in a continuum, and second, because they are active and loose processes rather than fixed objects. Catharsis helps us abandon certain things we hold dire, lifting an emotional burden so we can move forward. Hope helps build new desires and anticipation about that uncertain, changing future, allowing us to act on our own terms.

As you may know, I live in Switzerland, a small country full of contrasts and cultural diversity. Each year, during February, an interesting practice is held in my small town. The fanfare, called Guggenmusiks, beats the rhythm as the giant idol (resembling Perch fish) goes around the town. People, disguised, cheer, dance and party until, on the second day, the joyous procession reaches the fire place.

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Carnaval d'Estavayer. Source

The idol is brought through, and the fanfare plays one last time, perhaps even louder as if to say goodbye, as the fire is lit. Everyone cheers the burning idol, representing all the hopes and sorrows of last year, and welcomes the gentle renewal of everything, as springs is coming and with it, new hopes arise. As the fire dies out, the carnival ends, on a cold Sunday in February.

It is thought that if the perch fish burns well, this is a good omen for the rest of the year.

So to conclude this exploration, I like the idea that we need a similar carnival for design, with a burning place. What are the idols, which encapsulate our deepest hopes and sorrows, that needs to be burnt away? What should be the anthem of our joyous fanfare? What hopes should spring arise?

Themes summary

Topographical understanding of designerly narratives ⛰️
1. How do collective narratives shape perceptions of the designer's role in their downfall?
2. Are design challenges rooted in external systemic issues rather than internal faults?
3. How can we redefine the meaning and purpose of design in liminal, transitional spaces?
United like sand. Defined by differences 🏝️
1. What defines a designer in the face of diverse practices and perspectives?
2. Can differences and repetitions, as proposed by Deleuze, help reshape our understanding of design?
3. How can humour and irony offer counter-culture and autonomy in design?
Catharsis and Hope 🔥
1. What practices or approaches enable designers to "burn it all" and start anew?
2. How do hope and catharsis contribute to evolving and transforming design paradigms?
3. What new desires and anticipations can guide us in uncertain futures?

How to participate?

Format 📝

You can write something as long in length as you want (no format restrictions), but we ask that add links to sources and references whenever possible.

Your name will be displayed in the title of your section and your profile details/links (at your discretion) at the end.

Process 📆

You have from January 21st, 12 pm CET, to February 21st, to submit your piece through a dedicated form, shared upon registration.

Each essay will be reviewed before publication, then posted separately on our website under the State of design tag, between February 24th and 28th. All essays will then be put together in a final post, as a collection, which will conclude this year's collaboration.

👉 As a major contributor, you'll also be invited to our “State of Design 2025” event, on the March 4th, 6 pm CET, to speak about your contribution, share your thoughts and discuss with other contributors and members of the community.