Design Fiction Daily: Imagine Harder every Day
The Artifact Hunter: How Dré Labre Uses Design Fiction to Unearth Futures
As a creative director and futures designer, Dré Labre has established himself as a pioneering voice in the field of design fiction through his Substack publication, Design Fiction Daily. Each day, Labre adopts the persona of a futures archeologist time travel blogger to take his audience on imaginative expeditions to excavate artifacts from speculative future worlds. Equipped with his metaphorical “janky time machine,” Labre leverages his expertise in design fiction to vividly render the objects, stories, and implications of futures yet to come.
The futures archeologist persona provides creative constraints that challenge Labre to reconstruct futures from limited clues. By visiting timelines, specific years unknown, and mundane locations, then grabbing whatever details he can find before the janky time machine whisks him away, Labre must synthesize tangible artifacts from fragmented shards of possibility. This narrative device pushes Labre to envision fully fleshed out worlds, but only hinting at the richness of imaginable futures through everyday minutiae.
Central to Labre’s prolific creative process is his integration of AI tools. By combining original vision with algorithmic capabilities, Labre is able to rapidly produce arresting artifacts, weaving together visuals and narratives that provide immersive windows into speculative worlds. His interdimensional dispatches span topics from climate change and biotech to AI ethics and everyday mundanities, each transmitting artifacts back to the present as thought-provoking conversation starters.
With his Active Commitment to Daily Creation (AC/DC) of imagined worlds, the time travel blogger represents a pioneering voice in leveraging design fiction to stretch perspectives on the future. By donning his persona and harnessing AI, Labre prolifically propagates visions that spark dialogue and unlock radical creativity around the futures steadily unfolding before us. Through Design Fiction Daily, Labre has created a singular platform for prolific speculative interrogation that pushes the boundaries of our collective imagination.
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