Spotting, hunting and forecasting: The professional practice of design forecasting

Abstract:
This paper considers the profession of ‘design forecasting’, a social and cultural practice in which ‘trends experts’ anticipate style change through the lens of social identities, the flow of commodities and art and design innovation. In surveying, selecting and venerating particular aspects of contemporary production, these creative professionals inform and define the design industry’s understanding and knowledge of emerging culture.
With an estimated global market value of over $36 billion (Telegraph, May 2011), design forecasting is an increasingly powerful force operating within the design industry, but also one that has received very little critique or analysis within a scholarly context. This paper attempts to address two aspects of the practice: expertise and circulation models.
- Who are the individuals who define and represent themselves as the spokesmen of ‘what’s next’ in culture and what constitutes professionalism or expertise within this practice of forecasting?
- In what ways do current forecasting models, which recognise the source and primary circulation of design trends as bound to a limited set of metropolitan centres, privilege particular cultural identities, social classes and ethnicities?