Made in the Future!

We may not all have flying cars or intelligent ape chauffeurs today, but so much of what we take for granted—the Internet, touchscreens, the cubicle—was once a shiny figment of the future.

Sci-fi writers and technologists make a profession of beaming this stuff up. But designers have a place in the transporter too.

Made in the Future is an effort to capture our musings about what a not-so-distant tomorrow might look like. Our tools—faster, cheaper, and more out of control than ever—have triggered seismic shifts in how we design, manufacture, and distribute. And that has us asking lots of questions: What new tools or technologies will we create? How will they change the way we behave and learn? How will they shape our world?

We are a curious bunch, so we sat down with some smart friends to learn where we are headed. We also learned a lot about the edges of technology from various groups at the MIT Media Lab. Through these conversations, we’ve started to see glimpses of some really exciting things—from basic concepts to much bigger ideas.

Because one of the great feats of the future will be making incredibly complex things seem simple, we broke those really exciting things down into five themes:

We designed this site for you because we believe the act of making makes us human—then, now, and in whatever future we’re heading toward.

First theme

Meaning Economy