My approach is rooted in a transformative reflexivity, encouraging designers to critically assess and move beyond traditional paradigms, through questioning narratives, norms and socio-political structures.

I use design to explore, facilitate and produce innovative solutions towards preferable futures.

In today’s Anthropocene era, being an explorer means embarking on a journey inward rather than outward, delving deep into the layers of our own planet rather than seeking new horizons. The focus has shifted from global to local, from expansiveness to sustainability. The age-old spirit of boundless curiosity and discovery is now accompanied by a sense of urgency and necessity, driven by an awareness of the planet’s limitations and the consequences of capitalist activities.

21st century explorers are not just cartographers of the land but also mappers of ecosystems, identifying how the human and non-human forms of intelligence and the living and non-living entities on Earth interact.

Exploration today is not about conquest but coexistence, about learning to inhabit a world that is reactive to our actions and teeming with life that we’re only beginning to understand.

It is about mapping not just the boundaries of mountains, seas, terrestrial continents and human infrastructure but also the boundaries of ecosystems and our place within them.

With this site, I’m opening up a space to share my experiences, perspectives and explorations. Here’s the overall scope of what I am building here.

The bridge between design and critical theory must continually evolve and grow through collaboration. This website began as a repository of notes, organized and refined with the help of AI. Initially a tool to address challenging issues I observed in design practice, it has since transformed into a dynamic platform where I collect key concepts to guide action and learning for my students and clients.

In 2023, a major part of my focus has been on unveiling the inner workings of my consultancy. Managing client expectations is challenging. This space serves as a platform where I aim to open-source my consultancy’s core model, offering a behind-the-scenes look at how to sell, run, and deliver effective discovery research interventions. I acknowledge that I haven’t yet dedicated as much time to this part of the site as I would like.

I am starting to enjoy more side projects and personal speculative and concept art explorations. I’m playing in the space between Chat GPT and MidJourney. I use Chat GPT as a research and generative tool. It has been mind blowing for now and I look to share more how to produce speculative and critical design experiments using AI.

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Picture this site as a slow-motion blog-as-a-toolbox, a playground for building an open system and an open invitation to join the discussion.

I plan to keep this open and free. All work here is published under a Free Culture Attribution 4.0 International Creative Commons Licence (CC BY 4.0). Genius steals.

All field Photography, Poster Works, Dektat Archives and Logos archives are copyrights of Pascal Wicht or their respective owners in the case of commissioned work for clients.

How to start

As a strategic designer, I often work with clients who are struggling with challenges that seem strange and hard to approach.

In almost every case, these challenges start with a fuzzy situation that needs to be de-fuzzed like a symptomatic issue that requires further examination.

So, don’t worry if your challenge seems weird, unclear or ambiguous – you’re probably on the right track. In this very upstream phase of the challenge process, your intuitions are key.

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
— Albert Einstein