Hybrid Thinking at Service Design Drinks Zurich
What happens when design, technology and human intuition work together?
Service Design Drinks Zurich brought together three perspectives on service design and AI, in a simple format: no slides, no demos, just people describing what they are seeing inside their own practice.
How do we work with new technology without losing the human part of the creative process?
My talk was called Hybrid Thinking.
I come from industrial and product design.
My education started with objects, materials, manufacturing, ergonomics and physical processes. Later the work expanded into visual communication, creative direction, digital environments and AI.
Today these areas are no longer separate in my practice. A product can start as a sketch, move into an AI-generated visual exploration, become a 3D model, turn into an animation, return to physical prototyping, and finally become part of a larger visual or spatial system. For me, this is where Hybrid Thinking begins.
It is a way of working across disciplines, tools and forms of knowledge while keeping human judgment at the centre.
During the talk I structured the idea around three concepts.
Access
AI has changed access to creation.
Designers now reach tools that used to require larger teams, longer production times or highly specialised technical knowledge.
We can explore hundreds of directions quickly.
We can visualise an idea before building it.
We can test environments, materials, compositions, narratives and scenarios early in the process.
This changes the speed of creation.
But access alone does not create good design.
Direction
When everyone has access to similar tools, direction becomes more important.
Generating images is becoming easier.
Making decisions is not.
Which idea is relevant?
Which one fits the context?
What should be removed?
What deserves to move forward?
What is the intention behind the work?
This is where the role of the designer starts to shift.
The value moves from producing every element by hand towards building systems, making connections, defining direction and recognising what carries meaning.
Creative direction becomes part of the design process at every stage.
Meaning
The last layer is the one I care about the most.
Why are we creating something?
Technology gives us more possibilities, and more possibilities do not automatically lead to better outcomes.
Design still needs context.
It needs empathy.
It needs an understanding of people, culture, materials and consequences.
The future I find worth working towards is not one where technology replaces creativity.
It is one where designers learn to combine different kinds of intelligence.
Human intuition.
Physical knowledge.
Technology.
Nature.
Culture.
Experience.
This is what I call Hybrid Thinking.
A way of moving between disciplines without losing your own perspective.
The designer ahead of us will need to know how to work with systems, tools and technologies, and also how to question them.
How to choose.
How to connect.
How to give direction.
And how to create something that stays relevant to people.
One idea stayed with me after the conversation.
Access is becoming universal.
Direction becomes more valuable.
Meaning becomes essential.
Thank you to Service Design Drinks and For Planet Strategy Lab for making space for this conversation, and to everyone who joined, asked questions and shared their perspective.
I continue to develop Hybrid Thinking through talks, workshops and projects, testing how the approach holds up inside real creative processes.
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