Design Tomorrow

By Christopher Butler

Arts Technology Science & Medicine Design Social Sciences

What's Design Tomorrow about?

Design Tomorrow is a podcast about design, technology, and being human with a special emphasis on growing our awareness that what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Design Tomorrow episodes:

09.09.2019
Phones Never Die. They're Eaten By Birds
Can we really call it progress when it creates so much waste? What if your phone — the one you’re using right now — was your last phone? Take a good look at it and imagine using it for the...
08.26.2019
You Don't Have to Be an Entrepreneur, Part 2
Every discussion of entrepreneurship is really a discussion about values. Today, we'll follow up on last week's episode, where we began a discussion of entrepreneurship by resetting that idea — by challenging the story of entrepreneurship. We contrasted the protagonist...
08.19.2019
You Don't Have to Be an Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship doesn’t have to mean what you think it means. Over the course of the next two episodes, I'd like to share with you how my own perspective on “entrepreneurship” has evolved, and offer a critique of the sameness of the...
08.05.2019
The Future vs. The Future
Every vision of the future is a better index of the present from which it came than whatever time it imagines. So today, let's look back at some of the things we believed would serve as landmarks of the future....
07.22.2019
Words Matter
Too often we think of the word "design" as a shorthand for an ecosystem of mostly visual phenomena. But words play an enormous, though often unseen, role in the creation of everything. Today, I want to tell you a story...
06.17.2019
A.I. Ain't that I.
The majority of our clicking and tapping is a repetitive act of information management. Isn't A.I. supposed to help us with this? Don't hold your breath... Today, on Design Tomorrow, in the tradition of the rantiest of rants, I'd like...
06.03.2019
The Glove, the Display, and the Possible Future
Is technology a means to an end — the ladder we climb to a future we want to inhabit because it's better for us than the present — or is it as far as we let our minds and hearts...
05.20.2019
Ugh. Advertising.
Does advertising still make sense in our world today? How does a form of media always known as an associated form — as something that sips from the attention river flowing to and from other things — function when the...
05.06.2019
The Interface and Me
Are interfaces good? Or are they a distraction — for us the makers, and for the users we believe we are helping? How can we think better about both how we interface with digital experiences, personally, and how others do...
04.22.2019
Useful Fictions
We live in a time of illusions. Simulations that reflect back upon us more than just the passage of time, but something important about who we are. Something unique is going on right now — with the tools and technology...
04.08.2019
The Last Thing We Need Are Smartphones
When so many problems of existence remain unsolved, we haven't earned the luxury of smartphones. So this is an intervention. A challenge to the status quo of waste and distraction and triviality and short-term pile-on that is our way of...
03.25.2019
Behind Every Robot
What is it about robots that compels us to create them? And what does it say about a culture that makes machine surrogates despite not having reached a consensus about why to make them in the first place? In this...
03.11.2019
The Real Value of Ideas
What are our ideas worth? Are they as valuable as we think they are? And what might change about how we act on our ideas once we start thinking differently about how we value them and how unique they really...
02.26.2019
How to Make Good Things
They say that practice makes perfect. I'll settle for "practice makes good," thank you very much! In this episode of Design Tomorrow, we'll explore what it means to practice - what there is in repetition that can help us to...
02.11.2019
Computer World
There are very few people left on Earth for whom the world isn't shaped by computers or seen through their screens. But does it have to be this way? In this episode, we'll explore how screens — and the images...
01.28.2019
This Creation of Our Genius
As long as we've been self-aware, we've desired companionship. And yet, we are not enough for one another; we hunger for something more - something that folklore, imaginary friends, and now technology have attempted to satisfy. Today, we stand at...
01.14.2019
How to Get Your Time Back
The more time passes, the faster it feels it's moving. It's an illusion, of course, but does that really matter? If you feel like it's moving faster, it might as well be. The shrinkiness of time is part of the...
01.01.2019
Ticking Progress Bombs
Progress is something we all try to work toward, but how do we really know if we're making any? And if progress isn’t permanent, is it progress at all? In this episode, we'll explore progress and the ways that certain...
11.20.2018
The Voice Interface
We're all using voice interfaces now — a thing of science fiction now very much in our reality. But it turns out that feelings — things like fear, loneliness, trust, and desire — play just as much of a role...
11.01.2018
The Power of Perspective
In a world as crowded with technological tools for measuring our progress as ours is, sometimes the best way to see how far we've come is, literally, in our own hands and on our own faces. In this episode, we'll...
10.16.2018
What is real?
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...
10.02.2018
Design is Art with Rules
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...
09.18.2018
How to Think About the Future
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...
09.04.2018
Active Erasure
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...
08.23.2018
Getting Out of Our Own Way
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...
08.23.2018
The Magic of Ordinary Objects
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...

What's Design Tomorrow about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Design Tomorrow episodes:

Phones Never Die. They're Eaten By Birds

You Don't Have to Be an Entrepreneur, Part 2

You Don't Have to Be an Entrepreneur

The Future vs. The Future

Words Matter

A.I. Ain't that I.

The Glove, the Display, and the Possible Future

Ugh. Advertising.

The Interface and Me

Useful Fictions

The Last Thing We Need Are Smartphones

Behind Every Robot

The Real Value of Ideas

How to Make Good Things

Computer World

This Creation of Our Genius

How to Get Your Time Back

Ticking Progress Bombs

The Voice Interface

The Power of Perspective

What is real?

Design is Art with Rules

How to Think About the Future

Active Erasure

Getting Out of Our Own Way

The Magic of Ordinary Objects