Getting ready for a Creative Seminar next week, I came across the photos of this project which was undertaken just after the Pandemic, with our second year Master Food Design Students. I was glad I had the chance to work on this really interesting project where the students had to imagine Food Fiction scenarios for 2030.

Here is the exercise I got the students to start with.

HEADLINES FROM THE FUTURE.

Instructions

Step 1. Imagine future food scenarios for the future.

Close your eyes and imagine it’s twenty years in the future. Your project has been a

resounding success in terms of press coverage. After some initial challenge, your solution is

having a huge impact on the world in ways you’d never even imagined!

Step 2.

Without discussion, each person in your team should draft a newspaper/magazine

headline and sketch an image for a particular magazine/newspaper feature of this reality.

What does the world look like now in 2030? How has your context evolved? Why is your

project headline news?

Step 2. Develop your cover idea.

Develop the cover of a magazine of your choice… You can invent a
futuristic magazine title too.
Cover tells the BIG story of their success.
Headlines convey the substance of the cover story.
Sidebars reveal interesting facets of the cover story.
Quotes can be from anyone as long as they’re related to the story.
Images are for supporting the content with illustrations.

3. Share your headlines and sketches.

Discuss any themes you see across these visions for the future. What might this mean for your project today?

Display them around the room. Do they look real. Can we imagine this? How can we develop our creative thinking ideas starting from this front cover.

Here are the some of the student’s posters and their visions of the future…

Notably, a lot of the students’ ideas were pretty dystopic in their thinking, given their state of mind after the Pandemic, but nonetheless there were some really creative ideas. Based on the “Eating on the Streets” Time Cover above, here is the student concept which was developed for people who are the poorest in society. A piece of bread with many nutrients, you can scan the code to check that it has your particular nutritional requirements.

Based on the Forbes Bezos Poster above, the group of students felt that he would slowly take over the world and imagined villages of standardised Bezoz built housing where food was delivered in portioned packs each week by Amazon staff.

An interesting project, my first time working on the theme of Design Fiction. Interesting for pushing our current scenarios into the future and thinking of design solutions for them.