Reseach Methods

Trend Forecasters use a plethora of research methods helpful in aiding their investigation and detection of new trends. Firstly, Trend Cartograms are used to visually interpret a trend gaining prevalence in society. It looks at the who, what, where, why and when, through identifying changes within society and the world around us.

Furthermore, the use of Trend framing consists of selecting and categorizing trends. The idea of framing a trend “is about imposing a more logical, visual and texturally coherent framework around all the data you have collected so far.” (Raymond, 2010, p.60). The inherent concept of trend framing is being able to identify the key attributes of each trend, allowing the trend to take on a specific title, and give it a distinct identity.

Moreover, Cultural Brailing, a technique created by American forecaster Faith Popcorn, is about brailling the culture and trusting one’s senses: things one can see, hear, taste and feel (Rothstein, 1996). The technique links a forecasters intuition with their observations (Ideacity, 2010, 4:10-4:45). Faith Popcorn explains it as running one’s fingertips “along trend-bumps as they speed past” (Rothstein, 1996). “Brailing is a way of communicating language through bumps on a page. We take that same technique here and feel the bumps in culture” (Raymond, 2010, p.36).

Lastly, in order to accurately observe society “one must observe and analyse social and cultural movements.” (The British Library, 2019). This includes buyers “having an innate ability to absorb huge amounts of data and information, which they use to underpin their buying decisions. “A buyer who believes that their own good taste is more important than that of their customers inevitably fails” (Shaw and Koumbis, 2014).

Research Methods

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