The theme of the 2025 LA Design Festival is “Design Futurism”

When envisioning the future, design is inherently a part of our collective imagination: a tool for reimagining how we connect, create, and challenge existing narratives. This concept extends beyond the exploration of technological spectacle. Design Futurism is a solution-oriented exploration of human potential.

I was happy to give the closing keynote at the LA Design Festival 2025, where I spoke about the power of imagination and creativity in design fiction. I loved the intimate audience and the opportunity to hang out and chat with folks afterwards, particularly a young 15 year old and his brother, some folks in the policy and strategy space who had come from from the Bay Area, and some new futures-oriented friends from Los Angeles.

I also faciliated a workshop at the annual LA Design Week 2025 where we explored the theme of “Design Futurism” through collaborative storytelling and speculative design exercises. The ‘work’ of the workshop was to create a podcast from an imagined future, a workshop technique I’ve used in the past and most epicly with the Hyperisland Vision Week 2024 where participants created over 90 podcasts from the future(!)