Hvordan arbejder en trendforsker? Hvad er en trend egentlig? Hvorfor og hvordan bliver man trendforsker? Og hvordan spotter og analyserer de selv trends? Hør hvad David Shah siger her.

Vi har spurgt David Shah, hollandsk forlægger og ejer af Metropolitan Publishing samt professor ved Artez Kunstakademi, hvor han underviser i branding og marketing.

Dette er et lille uddrag af bogen ’Trendsociologi v. 2.0’ udgivet af pej gruppen. Køb bogen her

Why and how did you become a trend forecaster?

As a publisher, I was asked to speak at a lot of conventions and seminars etc. I discovered that, sometimes, it could be more exciting to talk about lifestyle, human behaviour, and consumers rather than pure fashion trends and that was when I launched Viewpoint, my magazine that specialises in design, branding, and lifestyle trends.

Why is it important to work with trends?

For me, the point of trend spotting today is to offer clarity, to strip away the peripheral, the ‘stuffocation’. Designers know everything already. What they need is not more information but confirmation. Am I doing the right thing? Am I making the right choices?

How do you define the concept of a trend?

Actually, I have never really liked the word ’trend’ I prefer terms like ‘direction’. What is important is to separate the final acknowledgement or arrival of a trend from the process of trends, i.e. where does it start, how does it travel, and where does it end. You find trends in the periphery not the established centre.

Which types of trends interest you the most?

Meeting and talking to the biggest designers and retailers in Europe has given me a serious understanding of what people really need to know: “Should I do black or should I do white?” etc. Also, I make a serious effort to give a reason why, a logical sales pitch they can sell on to their management and their staff.

How and where do you discover trends?

The secret is to understand the timing and how to update the concept to really make it relevant to the present. There are also cultural influences – art exhibitions, events, films etc. On a personal note, I travel over 300 days a year, there is no education like travelling, and I read constantly, especially financial based magazines and newspapers.

I sommeren 2015 udgav pej gruppen den ultimative grundbog i trendforskning. Da den er en grundbog får den (forhåbentlig) en lang levetid.

Bogen består af tre dele:

1. Teori om og praktisk beskrivelse af, hvad en trend er, hvordan den spredes og hvilken effekt den kan have. Her er det alt lige fra de store gigatrends til de små døgnfluer, der er dækket ind ligesom industritrends, kategoritrends, forbrugertrends mv. beskrives.

2. Interview med 17 af verdens bedste trendforskere ud fra grundlæggende spørgsmål om, hvordan de definerer en trend, hvordan de arbejder med dem og hvordan de er endt i denne profession.

3. Praktisk procesbeskrivelse (5 faset proces) med konkrete metoder og værktøjer til selv at arbejde med trends.

Over de kommende måneder vil jeg (og pej gruppens medier både online og offline) dele lidt mere af indholdet med læserne / følgerne og her er således første lille historie baseret på de mange interviews.

Skulle der være nogen, der er interesseret i at få hele bogen i hånden selv (den er på 400 sider), så kan den købes her