Hi Friends! I’m excited to share this year’s first “Designing Near Future” Newsletter with you. If this email landed in your promotions folder, you know what to do. Welcome to everyone who joined in December. I took some time off to visit Hong Kong with my friends and wrap up design consulting work for the year. It was a much needed break and I’m super excited to dive back into our weekly schedule. To kick this year off, we aren’t sticking to our typical format.

Instead, I want to share my design and tech predictions for 2024. Here’s what I have in store for you today:

⭐ 7 Shifts: Predictions for 2024

💊 3 Resources: Secret Creative Resources That Pros Use

Reading time: 3 minutes

⭐ Predictions for 2024

Predictions often draw mixed reactions due to their inherently speculative nature, swinging between optimism and pessimism. However, I think, it would be exciting to revisit these forecasts at the year's end to evaluate our hits and misses. For those who might find disagreement or frustration in these predictions, I extend my apologies in advance. 😎

Let’s get into it.

1. Mixed Reality Will Have A Revival

Led by the launch of Apple Vision Pro, VR will be in the news, enough for it to even drive sales for Meta Quest 3 and other competitors. I would assume Meta would continue coming up with accessories or potentially a new headset announcement by the end of the year to capitalize on the hype. The revival is not solely led by the AVP, in fact players like Big Screen Beyond, Pico, Visor (Which I had the pleasure of working on at Teague) and a potential headset from Samsung and Google will lead the wave for more affordable consumer first options. I suspect 2024 is going to be a year of explosive growth for mixed reality and head mounted devices.

2. First Signs of Consumer Robot Adoption

2023 was a great year for robots and humanoids. I wrote about it previously in one of the September editions for this newsletter. New breakthroughs in AI and machine learning has led to a series of breakthroughs for robots. Tesla’s bot Optimus has significantly improved limb movements and Figure AI’s humanoid shared, just yesterday, that their robot can now make coffee trained on watching humans make coffee. Pretty cool! There are a lot of players in this field including Open AI backed NEO. While full-sized humanoid robots might remain beyond the reach of commercial markets, it's more likely that smaller, pet-sized automatons, such as LG's charming new robot, will emerge as the ideal successors to the Roomba in our homes.

3. Audio powered by AI

Adobe is already experimenting with cleaning up messy audio and transforming it into a professional product. Riverside, the popular podcasting platform (that I use for my podcast Often Unexpectedly) also just introduced an AI transcribing and editing feature. And Music generators? We've come a long way in just a year. Take Suno, for example - its sound quality is so good - make sure to check out their library of AI generated music. It's clear we're going to see more and more of these innovations popping up, not just in software, but in hardware too. One such example is Neurable. Their headphones gather electric activity from the on ear sensor and use their own data analysis algos to boost productivity. Look out for AI powered music instruments and listening devices in 2024.

4. Electric vehicles will find their voice

Electric vehicles lead the pack when it comes to climate tech, so much so that they are a category of their own now. This year I am hoping more car manufacturers will introduce products that challenge the typical car. With Cyber truck being one of the most talked about new vehicles in 2023, more car companies will use their vehicles as an opportunity to market their climate tech endeavors. A few players to watch in this space - Telo trucks designed by fuseproject, Lightship and Canoo.

5. Stamp of AI through signifiers

This year you will see a lot of different ways that AI technology will begin to classified and represented through colours, logos, symbols and forms. You’ll see the famous ✦ or ✨ star logo throughout apps to signify generative AI. Mercedes added a blue light recently to signify it is self driving. Microsoft just added a copilot button to some of it’s keyboards. I can't wait to see how the cell phone big shots, the consumer tech wizards, and the car gurus are going to represent the AI stamp in 2024. It’ll be a bit like a tech fashion show. (Literally like the humane device.)

6. 3D printing becomes mainstream

I wrote a pretty detailed newsletter laying out how so many consumer tech companies are providing support for their products through 3D printing. You can check it out here. This year we saw a huge rise in 3D printed footwear, so much so that brands like Louis Vuitton are partnering up with Zellerfeld to launch their own 3D printed footwear. With BambuLabs leading the charge in affordable fast 3D printing, I think this year we will see increased adoption and even more competition in the sub $500 3D printer market.

7. The Anti Trend will continue to grow

Last year, I discussed the rising prominence of 'Clear Tech' in consumer electronics. It was my most popular piece and has since been republished on Fast Company and the Times. (Win for me yay!!) Defined by its use of transparent materials like clear plastic or glass to showcase a product's internal workings, Clear Tech marks a departure from the norm in an era where sleek, minimally designed products are often the benchmark. This trend not only represents a shift in consumer expectations but also puts forward society's desire for distinctiveness and identity, especially in a world dominated by social media. The drive to be unique and seen as a tastemaker is constantly growing. Consequently, we are witnessing more products embracing unconventional designs, like the Nothing phone or the Cybertruck. While it's unlikely that this counter-trend will become mainstream, expect to see an increasing number of brands breaking conventional design norms to stand out in 2024.

Convergence

Alright, there we go! 7 Predictions for 2024! The theme for this year is convergence where different technologies come together to create a new market. eg. Footwear + 3D Printing or AI + Audio. This will be a super important thing to look out for in 2024.

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💊 Resources

3 links to boost your creativity.

• Polycam is tool that makes LIDAR scanning easy. It also has a library of free 3D models for download.

• Cofolios is a database of cool web/ui/ux portfolios of candidates that got gigs at tech companies.

• How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas by Y combinator is an amazing video that I stumbled across recently. I’ll also be using this in my design practice.