When reading the title of Chapter 10, "Futures", one should pay particularly close to the pluralization, as that one "s" establishes an pluralized, inquisitive tone, rather than a singular, declarative tone. As in previous chapters, Heskett writes in a style that, rather than strictly defining design, raises thought provoking questions about design, leaving the reader to come up with the answers. Rather than predicting one definite future for design, Heskett outlines issues in design that will lead to any number of possible futures, for the world of design and the world it shapes.
It seems that the underlying issue that will determine the future of design is a question of puppetry, "Who will be pulling at the strings of designers in the future?". Will the puppet masters be corporate bigwigs? Will designers, as Heskett puts it, "be merely technocrats, devoting their skills to the highest commercial bidder without consideration of the ends they serve"? Or will designers respond to the pulls of less physical entities, serving environmental or social issues?
One quote, concerning the significance of the growing trend of designing "experiences", particularly reverberated with me: "It also suggests that life is so meaningless for people incapable of experiencing anything for themselves that they have to be supplied with a constant flow of artificial, commercialized, and commodified experiences that take on their own reality. " The recent emphasis on "viral" marketing campaigns is one such example. By removing advertisements from TV screens and magazine pages and making them real-world experiences, the response to advertisements has changed from changing the channel or flipping the page to telling your friends about it on Facebook. I feel that such willful participation in marketing campaigns is a bit unnerving, and I sincerely hope that design instead focuses on the needs of the 90 percent of the world's population that lives "in the so-called 'Third World', in 'Developing' or 'Peripheral' countries".
However, Heskett manages to slightly take off the gleam of that dream, as he questions: "if basic requirements become more completely satisfied, will the whole world turn to conspicuous consumption, and with what consequences?"
Let's just hope McDonough's "Industrial Re-evolution" has happened by then, and the consequences are minimal.
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