Can design help us better understand the future?

The self-styled ‘creative technologist’ and director at design studio Takram on the power of speculative design to make ideas tangible, humanise big data, and encourage healthier behaviours

I remember first seeing Yosuke Ushigome, now director at Takram’s London office, in 2014 at an exhibition at Tokyo’s 21_21 Design Sight. In a video titled , Ushigome wears a homemade jacket with solar panels and pockets for various digital devices. He walks around Shibuya, as per requests from real-time clients, and gets paid for taking specific pictures at specific locations. Sometime during the video, he takes an online break while lending his devices’ processing powers to someone mining a digital currency. Later he queues up at a