LSN : News : Need to Know 18 : 09 : 17

1. Patternity patterns to aid understanding of disease

Wellcome window graphics by Patternity, London

London – Creative studio Patternity is working with global charitable foundation Wellcome to examine new ways of visualising disease for its Infectious Pattern campaign.

Exploring how design can determine people’s behaviour towards one of humanity’s biggest threats, the multiplatform campaign will engage the public through window displays, film and creative workshops, using patterns to inform people how diseases are spread.

‘By working with visual patterns – in this case bold window patterns and moving images – we can visualise the unseen patterns of infectious diseases: how they spread both within the body and in society at large,' says Grace Winteringham, co-founder of Patternity. To read more about the designers that are helping to rebrand the healthcare sector by adopting a less sterile, more engaging design aesthetic, see our Soft Aid design direction.

2. British Fashion Council launches green campaign

Positive Fashion starring Adwoa Aboah by the British Fashion Council

UK – The British Fashion Council (BFC) has worked with designer Vivienne Westwood and the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to launch Fashion Switch, a new climate change initiative that aims to enact change in the industry through collaboration. Part of the BFC’s Positive Fashion programme, the project is designed to encourage brands and businesses in the fashion sector to commit to switching to green energy providers by 2020 to tie in with the commencement of the Paris Agreement, for which all member nations have pledged to ensure that 20% of their total energy consumption will be derived from renewable energy by 2020.

Announced at the opening of London Fashion Week, the initiative is a bold step towards creating real change in the industry. For more on the challenges faced by brands in the sector and the strategies needed to overcome them, book The Future Laboratory’s Fashion Futures 2017 in-house presentation.

3. First whisky distillery on Isle of Raasay to open

Scotland – Whisky distillery company R&B Distillers has begun production at the island’s first legal distillery, which will open to the public in October. Its first batch of single malt Scotch whisky will be available to buy in 2020. Created by co-founders Alasdair Day and Bill Dobbie, Raasay While We Wait features local ingredients sourced from the region’s unique terroir.

‘It is the location – an island off an island with complex geology, water and island climate – that makes Raasay ideal for our innovative Scotch whisky distillery,’ says co-founder Alasdair Day.

Lightly peated to reflect the volcanic mineral content in the island’s water supply, the co-founders aim to use only local water, peat and barley in their future formulations. The company has planted its own barley trails to determine whether the climate is suitable for growing and ripening the plant.

In our Terroir Spirits microtrend, we highlight spirits brands that are breaking with tradition to explore new terroir, ingredients and production methods.

Raasay Distillery, Isle of Raasay, Scotland. Photography by Scott Moone

4. Bompas & Parr’s dystopian spa experience

The Spa of Unconscious Desires by Bompas & Parr for Mondrian Hotel, London

London – Immersive design duo Bompas & Parr are working with the Mondrian hotel to hold a late-night spa experience that explores a more sinister side to wellness. Artist Lucy Hardcastle, visual studio Method Studios, experiential food creators Edible Stories and design agency Lyon & Lyon have designed a bespoke roster of peculiar treatments, including the Shadow Wrap, which plays on sensory deprivation by immersing visitors in total darkness while they are enveloped in a full body wrap while listening to an immersive monologue voiced by Hardcastle.

The Spa of Unconscious Desires, which will take place on 19 September, provides an ‘antithesis to the conventional world of wellness’, provoking reactions ranging from comfort to fear and disgust. As the use of the term wellness becomes increasingly prevalent its meaning has been diluted, with consumers now looking beyond wellness to scientifically grounded healthcare. For more, see our Healthcare Market report.

5. Digital marketplaces account for half of online sales

Driven by the dominance of mega-systems such as Amazon, eBay and Alibaba’s Tmall, which between them were expected to account for about £268.6bn ($365bn, €305bn) in sales in 2016, according to Euromonitor, new figures show that online shoppers are increasingly using these types of e-commerce marketplaces rather than visiting individual brands’ websites. For more on the changing retail habits of consumers, buy our Retail Futures Report 2017 here.

6. Thought-starter: Will future interfaces move beyond our screens?

The way we access digital content is changing rapidly thanks to advances in AR, projection-mapping and sensor-based technologies. Visual trends analyst Aleksandra Szymanska explores why future interfaces will take the form of sensory experiences rather than flat screens.

Once a symbol of futuristic design and cutting-edge technology, the flat screen could soon become obsolete. Growing sophistication and the adoption of new technologies such as holographic displays, AR and dynamic tracking will transform interfaces into dynamic multidimensional experiences that blur the boundaries between physical and digital content.

This new spatial, multisensory approach could drastically change the way we consume digital information. While current flat screen interfaces offer an extremely isolating technological experience – who doesn’t use their phone as a shield against social interaction? – future interfaces have the potential to open up our digital interactions and encourage communal access and sharing.

For more on the rise of screen-free interfaces, read our latest microtrend.