Transition design aims to guide long-term systemic shifts toward more sustainable futures, tackling complex challenges on a scale of decades, not quarters.

This is the youngest major family of design, theorized around 2015 at Carnegie Mellon (Terry Irwin, Gideon Kossoff, Cameron Tonkinwise). Its launching point: our greatest modern challenges (climate, healthcare, mobility) are wicked problems that cannot be solved by a single product or service, but rather through the gradual transformation of entire systems, lifestyles, and collective mindsets.

This shifts our horizons in a radical way. While traditional design delivers within the quarter, transition design thinks in years—sometimes generations. It beautifully bridges visions of desirable futures (long-term) with concrete interventions today (short-term), all connected by a clear theory of change. This presents an exciting challenge: how do we maintain a distant north star when organizations are governed by short-term pressures and urgency?

Transition design embraces the reality that a system cannot be steered like a machine. You do not control it, you guide it: you plant interventions, observe the effects, and joyfully adjust. It is a design philosophy of patience and humility, accepting that the greatest outcomes emerge well beyond the lifespan of the project itself.

This aligns perfectly with our systemic perspective and our world of permacrises and megatrends. We help forward-thinking organizations connect their decisions today to a visionary path of transformation—not simply applying another band-aid, but orchestrating a sequence of actions that steadily nudge the system in the right direction. Taking action now, while keeping your eyes firmly on the grand horizon.

Exploring other frontiers: systemic design, speculative design (imagining futures), sustainability, social innovation, and strategic exploration.

References: T. Irwin, G. Kossoff, C. Tonkinwise, Transition Design (Carnegie Mellon, since 2015); legacy of wicked problems (Rittel).