By: Mauro Porcini

September 6th, 1996: Stefano Marzano, back then HEAD of PHILIPS DESIGN worldwide, based in Eindhoven, Holland, sent me two books created by him and his team and released by the Dutch company: Vision of the Future and New Objects, New Media, Old Walls.

In those books, Stefano and his team were forecasting and designing the future of technology, with ideas and concepts that 20+ years later have become the products and the services of today, surrounding us everywhere and accompanying us in our everyday life. I loved those books—they fascinated me, inspired me and made me appreciate, more than ever, the “design profession” of imaging and conceptualizing the future. Essentially, they made me fall in love with what many people today call “innovation,” and with what we, designers, simply call “design.”