This session looked specifically at developing a design ideation process, that will enable students to develop concepts for a product-service-system for the Fashion Industry, that will integrate new technologies and media into new and existing content delivery formats.

The method takes its inspiration from the Oblique Strategies card-based method developed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, who were both heavily influenced by Roy Ascott in the 1960s (Dayal, 2009). The Oblique Strategies, a set of cards designed to provide creative prompts, were developed collaboratively by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt in 1975. The two had independently been working on similar sets of ideas to help themselves find innovative solutions to challenging situations, and upon realising this, they decided to combine their efforts.

In an interview with Charles Amirkhanian (1980), Eno explained the motivation behind the Oblique Strategies:

"The Oblique Strategies evolved from me being in a number of working situations when the panic of the situation - particularly in studios -- tended to make me quickly forget that there were others ways of working, and that there were tangential ways of attacking problems that were in many senses more interesting than the direct head-on approach."

Following a brief overview of contemporary design processes, the Random Cards/Oblique Strategies method (Stadon & Meschtscherjakov, 2015) will be introduced and used to develop a practical framework for seamlessly integrating new technologies, innovative media formats, content delivery methods and audience interactions, to produce rigorously developed ideas and concepts, that are sophisticated in their understanding of user groups, interface strategies, emerging trends in museology, content strategy and cultural impact/value creation.

• a. Intro to The Design Cycle
• b. Intro to Design Ideation Processes and Models
• c. Intro to the SPROUT Method et al. for Trends Forecasting
• d. Introduction to Random Cards/Oblique Strategies (RCOS) Method
• e. Defining Your RCOS Parameters
• f. Putting RCOS into Practice (activity)
• g. Analysing Outcomes and Review

Integrating RCOS into Alternative Models and frameworks such as speculative design, action based research and non-linear design production processes.