Ever since the industrial revolution and the development of the assembly line, we have been working to cut the world into finer and finer vertical slices and to optimise every slice. By slicing the world vertically and making every segment as efficient as possible, we have generated quantities the world had never seen. Efficiency and fragmentation became the measure of every practice. Even cultural practices that are committed to synthesis, like architecture and intellectual work, were submitted to the tyranny of the efficiency metaphor.One night, in London, I watched as a lorry delivered its shipment to a McDonald’s restaurant and I had a moment of clarity and awareness.

I realised that the split between the tractor and the trailer was in fact a model of our culture And in particular of design culture. That disconnect between delivery and content allowed the driver to be unaware of what he was delivering. He had been optimised, made efficient, and released from any pesky responsibility for the contents of the trailer. Any implications that might derive from its contents were in no way attached to him He was a driver, driving the tractor.

The trailer and its substance was the responsibility of someone else. I could not have imagined a clearer definition of conventional graphic design.Yet, today, technologies that integrate intelligence are now being assembled that allow a new synthesis, and that’s what my new book Life Style explores. This synthesis allows us to define design as “a horizontal practice in a world of vertical slices”. Design defined thus is a practice that is not limited or defined by its products.I’m not sure if this new way of working means the end of design, or whether it means that designers become authors, or authors become designers, or all of the above. But I am convinced that this approach is capable of producing results not otherwise possible.The new design practice is a method defined by the following It’s educational It’s about experience, and growth is inevitable It’s synthetic.

It integrates other practices and operates one register above conventional design practices It’s boundary-less; it crosses other fields It produces something new every time It’s opportunistic – we are always searching for partners. It’s international, a global orientation allows for maximum opportunity and optimum partners. Finally it’s wild, free and committed to life and love.Is it not our role to imagine new futures more rich and complex and wild in their style than any single framework can accommodate?As the mass and volume of information increases, people search for a clear signal. More powerful than ever, the role of the navigator – one who gives pattern, shape and direction to the noise – becomes indispensable.