You may have seen this video already. But if you haven’t, this is essentially Microsoft’s vision of 2019.

Say what you want about the company itself but the predictions are bold. Of course, we’ve rarely gotten predictions right in the past so it’s good to take things with a grain of salt. But at the same time, it’s pretty easy to see that this “crystal ball” gathers it’s assumptions based on  technology that is already available today. What is exciting about this video to me as a designer is that this vision of the future offers the opposite of what many would expect. It shows that the different branches of Print, Motion, and Interaction Design are possibly going to combine and work together organically. It’s a reminder that Print doesn’t have to die, it can evolve, that Motion isn’t just for making fancy commercials and Interaction isn’t just sticking buttons onto a website and that at the end of the day, all of it is still graphic design.

The Graphic Design program at Art Center offers us the option of going into separate tracks. This is great for those who have the interests already planned out. At the same time, it runs the risk of promoting this segregation of different practices. It can give us this false idea that Print is completely different from Motion and completely different from Interaction.

This is a paper-thin LCD screen developed by Fujitsu. It’s bendable, nearly unbreakable and is energy-efficient. Fast forward ten years from now to 2019 and imagine what possibilities can arise from even thinner and cheaper LCD screens. Packaging that is dynamic, updating with new information as time progresses. Newspapers that you can hold in your hand but are constantly refreshing. A lot of it is wishful thinking, but it’s something to be mindful of. Even if you have no interest in AfterEffects or InDesign or Dreamweaver or Flash, this vision of the future shows the possibilities in all of us working together and how important it is to be mindful of different practices of Graphic Design and seeing it as one.

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