Designing for the Present and the Future

Position Statement

I see myself less as a traditional designer and more as a problem-solver who uses design to build things that matter. I am strongly interested in startups, app development, and turning ideas into practical systems that can improve people's lives. A major part of my worldview is that people should not feel forced to follow only the safest pathway in life. Many people are encouraged to choose what is stable, respectable, and financially secure, even if it has little connection to what they truly care about. I understand why that happens, but I believe people should fight for work that is meaningful to them. For me, building projects is not only about career development. It is also about proving, through action, that another pathway is possible.

This mindset shapes the way I approach design. When I notice a frustration in my own life, or when I see others struggling with something, I tend to begin by observing the problem carefully. I then ask whether others experience the same issue, what existing products already do, and why those products still feel insufficient. From there, I imagine what kind of intervention might work, build something quickly, and test whether it genuinely solves a problem. This means that I value speed, iteration, and practical action, but I am not interested in building things just for the sake of novelty. I want what I make to be meaningful, useful, and capable of creating real value.

At the same time, I am also very future-focused. Even when I am not actively designing, I naturally pay attention to trends, news, technologies, and social changes around me. I often think about what people might need next, why life can still feel depressing or disconnected despite technological progress, and why systems such as education, wellbeing, and social support still seem incomplete. Because I am interested in psychology, philosophy, and technology, I often imagine how those areas could be combined to solve new types of human problems. This makes me see design as more than a way of solving present-day issues. I also see it as a way of questioning assumptions and shaping better futures.

This worldview is why I chose The Designing for Growth Field Book and Fuel4Design: Futures Design Toolkit for this comparison. The first reflects my practical, startup-oriented side. The second reflects my future-focused, critical side. Together, they represent the two dimensions of the designer I want to become: someone who can build useful solutions for the present while also thinking carefully about the kinds of futures those solutions are helping to create. The two toolkits are different, but for me they are not opposites. They are complementary approaches to design practice (Liedtka et al., 2014; Fuel4Design, 2021).

Introduction

Design toolkits are not neutral collections of methods. They reflect particular beliefs about what design is for, how problems should be understood, and what kinds of outcomes matter most. Some toolkits are built to help designers move quickly from a messy problem toward a practical solution. Others are built to help designers think critically about complexity, uncertainty, and the future. This distinction matters because the toolkit a designer chooses influences not only how they work, but also what they are likely to notice, prioritise, and value during a project.

This report compares two toolkits that represent these different orientations: The Designing for Growth Field Book by Jeanne Liedtka, Tim Ogilvie, and Rachel Brozenske, and Fuel4Design: Futures Design Toolkit, developed through a European consortium of design educators and researchers. The Designing for Growth Field Book is a practical guide that builds on the D4G design thinking framework organised around four key questions: What is? What if? What wows? What works? It is designed to help people manage innovation projects step by step, moving from research and insight toward concept development, prototyping, feedback, and implementation (Liedtka et al., 2014). Fuel4Design, by contrast, presents itself as a futures design toolkit intended to support what it calls “Design Futures Literacy” for designing “complex tomorrows” through methods such as horizon scanning, framing signals, scenarios, future personas, and provotyping (Fuel4Design, 2021).

The reason these two toolkits are especially useful to compare is that they speak to different parts of my own design worldview. D4G aligns with the way I already work when trying to build a product, service, or startup idea. It is grounded, practical, and strongly oriented toward real users and real implementation. Fuel4Design aligns with the way I think when I consider larger changes in society, technology, wellbeing, and human behaviour. It invites designers to question the present, imagine alternatives, and consider what kinds of futures they are helping to shape. Because I am interested in both practical innovation and future-oriented thinking, the contrast between these toolkits is personally and academically valuable.

This report first summarises each toolkit in relation to its methodology, principles, and intended use. It then compares them more critically through context of use, type of design problem, treatment of users, forms of prototyping, and relevance to my own practice. The report argues that D4G is stronger for present-focused innovation, especially in startup or app development contexts, while Fuel4Design is stronger for speculative, critical, and futures-oriented work. Rather than treating one toolkit as universally better, the report concludes that their usefulness depends on the context of the design challenge and the designer's own worldview.

Summary of Toolkit One: The Designing for Growth Field Book

The Designing for Growth Field Book is a step-by-step project guide created to make the D4G design thinking approach more practical and easier to use in real innovation work. The book explains that it was written for people facing messy challenges who want to use design thinking to create innovative solutions, and it builds directly on the earlier D4G process organised around four questions: What is? What if? What wows? What works? (Liedtka et al., 2014). These four questions are simple, but they form a clear methodology. What is? focuses on understanding the current reality. What if? opens up possibilities. What wows? helps a team make choices among options. What works? moves ideas toward action and implementation. This structure is one of the toolkit's greatest strengths because it provides order without becoming excessively rigid.

The methodology of D4G is human-centred and action-oriented. It assumes that innovation should begin with actual users, actual behaviours, and actual constraints rather than starting from abstract ideas. In the field book, this is reflected in tools such as secondary research, direct observation, ethnographic interviews, job-to-be-done analysis, value chain analysis, journey mapping, personas, and 360 empathy. These tools are used to build a deeper understanding of the existing situation before solution ideas are generated. This emphasis is important because it stops teams from solving the wrong problem too quickly. Instead, it encourages them to uncover unmet needs, identify patterns, and frame the design challenge more clearly before moving forward.

After research comes ideation. In the D4G process, ideation is not presented as random creativity. It is structured through prompts and methods such as brainstorming, anchors, forced connections, combinatorial play, storytelling, and co-creation. These methods help teams generate a range of possible responses while still staying connected to the insights gathered earlier. This makes D4G especially suitable for startup thinking, not because the book is explicitly written only for startups, but because startups often need to move rapidly from incomplete information toward testable options. D4G supports that movement well. It acknowledges uncertainty, but instead of treating uncertainty as a reason for paralysis, it encourages small bets, prototypes, and learning through action. Liedtka's broader research supports this by arguing that design thinking helps reduce common cognitive biases and creates more productive innovation processes through collaborative learning and iterative testing (Liedtka, 2015, 2020).

The later stages of the toolkit are equally practical. D4G includes concept development, napkin pitches, storyboards, prototypes, stakeholder feedback, and learning launches. These methods reflect a strong belief that an idea should be explored through use, reaction, and refinement rather than through internal discussion alone. In other words, the D4G methodology values implementation. It is not only about having good insights or creative concepts. It is about developing something that can be tested in the world and shaped through evidence. This is why D4G feels highly relevant to me. It mirrors the process I naturally use when I notice a shared problem, validate it through conversations and research, imagine whether a solution could work, compare it with existing products, and then build quickly so that feedback can guide the next step.

The key principles of D4G can therefore be summarised as human-centred inquiry, structured creativity, iterative learning, and action. It is a toolkit built for designers, managers, and innovators who want a practical route from problem recognition to testable solution. Its main limitation is that it is primarily present-focused. It is very strong at helping teams address current problems and create near-term value, but it is less concerned with broader questions about long-term futures, ethics, or the systemic consequences of design choices. For those issues, a different toolkit becomes more useful.

Summary of Toolkit Two: Fuel4Design: Futures Design Toolkit

Fuel4Design is a futures-oriented design toolkit developed through a three-year European project involving the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Milano, University of the Arts London, and ELISAVA. The toolkit describes itself as a collection of methods, tools, and tactics for “Futures Design” and explicitly positions its purpose as supporting “Design Futures Literacy” for “complex tomorrows” (Fuel4Design, 2021). This framing immediately distinguishes it from D4G. While D4G begins with the present problem and asks how to move toward a workable solution, Fuel4Design begins with the future and asks how designers can make sense of emerging change, uncertainty, and alternative possibilities. UNESCO's definition of futures literacy is helpful here. UNESCO describes futures literacy as a capability that helps people understand how and why they use the future to prepare, plan, and interact with complexity and novelty. That description closely aligns with the aims of Fuel4Design (UNESCO, n.d.).

The methodology of Fuel4Design is organised as a sequence of futures-oriented stages. It begins with Horizon Scanning, where weak signals, macro trends, and drivers of change are gathered. It then moves into Framing Signals, which uses tools such as PESTLE, CIPHER, Futures Forces, and VERGE to sort and interpret those signals. This is followed by Future Philosophical Pills, a stage that introduces philosophical lenses and critical prompts to challenge assumptions about the future. The toolkit then develops possibilities through Design Interventions and Mapping Consequences, before moving into Scenario, Future Persona, and Provotyping. These later stages help designers make future worlds more concrete through narrative, future user profiles, future telling, storyboards, and speculative artefacts (Fuel4Design, 2021).

The key principle here is not prediction. Fuel4Design is not trying to forecast one correct future. Instead, it encourages exploration of possible futures and reflection on how present choices shape those possibilities. This is important because it moves design away from simply reacting to existing demand. It invites designers to ask what is emerging, what is missing, what assumptions are limiting their imagination, and what kinds of futures they want to participate in building. In this sense, the toolkit aligns with speculative design traditions. Dunne and Raby describe speculative design as a way of using design to create not only things, but ideas, and to imagine how things could be rather than merely optimising what already exists (Dunne & Raby, 2013). Fuel4Design fits this approach well, especially in its use of scenario building, future personas, and provotyping.

Another important principle of Fuel4Design is that it encourages designers to work systemically. Tools such as PESTLE, Futures Wheel, and branching methods push the designer to think about social, technological, environmental, political, and cultural consequences together rather than in isolation. This makes it particularly useful for issues that cannot be solved by a simple product fix, such as future wellbeing, education, loneliness, social connection, or the impact of technology on everyday life. These are not problems that can always be addressed through incremental product improvement alone. They require designers to think about worldviews, values, and larger systems.

This is why Fuel4Design resonates strongly with me. Even when I am not actively working on a project, I tend to observe what is changing around me, collect trends and signals, and wonder why people still feel unhappy, disconnected, or unfulfilled despite constant innovation. I am interested in psychology, philosophy, and technology, and I often think about how these areas can be combined to create new forms of support, meaning, and wellbeing. Fuel4Design reflects that habit of mind. It validates the idea that design is not only about solving current frustrations, but also about imagining better futures and questioning whether current systems are enough. Its limitation is that it is less directly useful for short-term execution. Compared with D4G, it is more abstract, more discursive, and less immediately tied to implementation. But that is also where its value lies. It expands what counts as design work.

Comparison Discussion

The most important difference between D4G and Fuel4Design is their orientation toward time. D4G is mainly present-focused. It begins with existing reality, existing users, and existing pain points, then moves toward solution generation and implementation. Fuel4Design is future-focused. It begins with signals of change, emerging possibilities, and uncertainty, then asks what kinds of futures may develop and how design can intervene critically or constructively within them. This difference may seem simple, but it changes everything about how the designer frames a problem. D4G asks, in effect, “What is happening now and how can we improve it?” Fuel4Design asks, “What might be happening next, what assumptions are shaping that future, and what alternative futures should we consider?”

Because of this, D4G is far stronger in contexts where a designer needs to act quickly and create a usable response to a clear current problem. For example, if I were developing an app based on a frustration shared by students, D4G would be the more appropriate toolkit. I would begin by observing the struggle, speaking to other students, studying competitor apps, identifying what remains unsolved, generating possible responses, building prototypes, and testing them through feedback loops. That is almost exactly how I already work. D4G supports this process well because it provides a structure for validating user needs, forming design criteria, comparing options, and testing what actually works. In startup or app development contexts, that clarity matters because resources are limited and decisions need to move toward real-world value relatively quickly. Liedtka's work on design thinking and innovation supports this logic by showing that structured design thinking helps teams deal with bias, complexity, and uncertainty through concrete, iterative learning rather than abstract planning alone (Liedtka, 2015, 2020).

Fuel4Design would be less suitable for that exact task if the main aim were rapid delivery. However, it would become much more powerful if the project were asking a broader question. For example, if I were investigating the future of student motivation, wellbeing, or social connection in a world shaped by artificial intelligence, automation, and digital isolation, Fuel4Design would offer something D4G cannot. Horizon scanning could help identify the emerging drivers shaping that future. Framing signals could help organise those drivers into a clearer picture. Future personas and scenarios could help imagine how students might live, learn, and struggle within different possible futures. Provotyping could then turn those imagined futures into speculative artefacts or experiences that provoke discussion and reveal hidden assumptions. In this context, the aim is not only to optimise a current product. The aim is to think more deeply about what kinds of educational or social futures are forming and what role design should play in them.

A second major difference is how the two toolkits understand the user. In D4G, users are present-day people whose needs can be researched through interviews, observation, empathy tools, and behaviour analysis. The goal is to understand what they are experiencing now so that a valuable solution can be developed. This is extremely useful in practical innovation because it grounds the design process in reality. In Fuel4Design, people are often represented through future personas, story worlds, and scenario actors. These are not merely marketing-style projections. They are devices that allow designers to imagine how human lives, behaviours, and relationships might evolve under different conditions. This makes Fuel4Design better for critical and speculative work, but less directly concrete. D4G's users are people you can talk to today. Fuel4Design's future personas are people you have to imagine responsibly.

A third difference lies in the role of prototyping. In D4G, prototypes are used to learn what works. They reduce risk, gather stakeholder feedback, and help a team refine its offer before implementation. In Fuel4Design, provotypes are not only there to test function. They are there to provoke reflection, discussion, and critique about the future. This is a crucial distinction for me. I care deeply about building practical things, so D4G's understanding of prototyping suits my startup-oriented side. But I also worry that building quickly without asking deeper questions can produce shallow innovation. Fuel4Design reminds me that design artefacts can also be used to reveal assumptions, challenge complacency, and ask whether a more desirable future is possible. Dunne and Raby's argument that speculative design creates ideas rather than merely things helps explain why Fuel4Design's provotyping feels different from D4G's testing logic (Dunne & Raby, 2013).

In relation to my own life, this difference can be expressed simply. D4G reflects how I build. Fuel4Design reflects how I think. D4G fits the practical pattern I naturally follow when I notice a problem, test whether others share it, compare existing products, imagine a response, and refine it through feedback. Fuel4Design fits the way I constantly gather signals from technology, culture, and daily life and ask why people still struggle with happiness, connection, and meaning despite progress. D4G aligns with my desire to create real products and ventures. Fuel4Design aligns with my desire to shape a better future rather than only a more efficient present.

For design students, this comparison also highlights that methodology is never just about technique. It is also about worldview. A student who wants to build an app, improve a service, or launch a startup would likely find D4G more immediately useful because it gives a clear structure for moving from insight to action. A student working on speculative design, critical design, or future social issues would likely find Fuel4Design more useful because it expands the frame of inquiry and allows for more imaginative, discursive outcomes. Neither toolkit is sufficient for every challenge. Their value depends on what kind of question is being asked.

This is ultimately why I find the two toolkits complementary rather than contradictory. D4G protects me from staying at the level of vague ideas. It pushes me toward evidence, prototyping, and value creation. Fuel4Design protects me from becoming too narrow, too reactive, or too trapped by the present. It pushes me to imagine different futures and to ask what my designs might mean beyond immediate use. Used together, they create a balanced design attitude: practical enough to act, but reflective enough to care where those actions are leading.

Conclusion

This report has compared The Designing for Growth Field Book and Fuel4Design: Futures Design Toolkit as two different but highly valuable approaches to design practice. D4G is a structured, human-centred, and action-oriented methodology that helps designers and innovators move from messy present-day problems toward workable solutions. Its strengths lie in observation, validation, ideation, testing, and implementation. Fuel4Design is a futures-oriented, critical, and speculative methodology that helps designers engage with complexity, uncertainty, and long-term change through horizon scanning, framing signals, scenarios, future personas, and provotyping.

The comparison shows that these toolkits are built for different but overlapping purposes. D4G is stronger when the challenge is current, practical, and implementation-driven. Fuel4Design is stronger when the challenge is systemic, uncertain, or future-facing. D4G supports innovation by helping designers understand reality and learn through action. Fuel4Design supports design futures literacy by helping designers imagine alternatives and think critically about the consequences of change. Their greatest difference is therefore not just the tools they use, but the way they understand the purpose of design itself.

For me, this comparison has clarified that both toolkits matter because they reflect different aspects of my own design identity. D4G aligns with my startup-oriented desire to build useful things quickly and solve real problems. Fuel4Design aligns with my future-focused desire to question the present and design toward a better society. If D4G helps me understand how to build, Fuel4Design helps me understand why those future possibilities matter. Together, they form a strong foundation for the kind of designer I want to become: someone who can create practical interventions in the present without losing sight of the futures those interventions may shape.

References