1367 • Divining Design Trends

1367 is the trend research project to spot the emerging trends that redefine our contemporary scenario in this phase of disruptive transformations and recurring discontinuities, providing valuable food for thought to ignite designers’ creativity.

The project, drawing on the research findings carried out during the 2020-2021-2022 academic years by students across the three departments of Istituto Marangoni Milano • The School of Design - product design, interior design and visual design - has made it possible to identify five macro drivers of change (“major arcana”) with a huge cross-sectorial relevance and fifteen key design trends (“minor arcana”). 

The evidence that resulted from this choral trend analysis has been in fact represented through the metaphor of a mysterious deck of tarots, telling us of a future that is already here yet unevenly distributed. Tarots are an artifice of ancient tradition used to predict the future and inspire hypothetical thinking, whose origins,interestingly enough, date back to 1367 in the North of Italy, subsequently spreading across Europe as an esoteric ritual. 

This tarot deck provides an extraordinarily current overview of the issues, opportunities and aesthetics that are set to reshape the world of design in the near future. Among the evidence that emerged from the research work, on one hand the increasingly evident impact in the design world of virtualization and gamification, with the boom of NFTs and the proliferation of metaverses, and on the other hand the rise of the circularity paradigm, the pursuit of well-being and the imperative of inclusivity.

The trend research project aims to stimulate the analytical and critical skills of the students of Istituto Marangoni Milano • The School of Design and to affirm Istituto Marangoni’s vocation to be not only an excellence in the field of high education but also a research centre feeding the creativity of the designers of the future.

The research findings of the trend research programme will be showcased during Milan Design Week 2022 at Superstudio through an interactive installation consisting of three whimsical totems resembling arcane crystal-like monoliths thrusted out from a parallel, other-worldly dimension and landed on earth to generate anticipation. Visitors standing in front of the central monolith will be invited to put their hands into a dedicated fissure to get to know what design trends the future will bring to them.