Dan Lockton

@danlockton.com

2452 Followers 6643 Following

Utrecht, NL + Norwich, UK Prof of Design & Imagination, Norwich University of the Arts ⦿ Director, Institute for Sustainable Worlds https://sustainableworlds.org.uk ⦿ Design⸻imagination⸻climate⸻futures ⦿ http://imaginari.es ⦿ he/him ⦿ Not employer's views

An advert for Freedom Petroleum, c.1969. A scary-looking petrol pump attendant points directly at you while his other hand grips the nozzle of a pump. The Freedom logo, an elliptical orb with red panels and a blue rim, glows in the sinister darkness while what might be a Capri sits awkwardly behind.
The logo of Oakstead, a 1980s petrol station operator. Orange rounded rectangle with thick black border and black capital letters reading OAKSTEAD
An advert with a terrifying picture of an Edwardian undertaker and the text: "Master's & PhD in 20th-CENTURY BRITISH HISTORY. Study in London with one of the country's leading historians of modern Britain (and regular Literary Ravie contributor), Professor Lord Blackwater (Simon Heffer), and pursue research on the topic of your choice in almost any aspect of Britain's 20th-century history — social, cultural, political. The programme compements one-to-one supervision with an outstanding series of early-evening seminars held in a Pall Mall club, each followed by dinner with the speaker. These include: Sir Vernon Bogdanor, Sir David Cannadine, David Kynaston, Dan Todman, Sir Hew Strachan & more For further information, scan the code or email Admissions at HPG@buckingham.ac.uk"
Anglia Television studios in Norwich, viewed from the top of the Bank Plan building
A very stylish angular electric kettle made by Haden
Newcastle Central Station with a pigeon waiting for the 11.02 LNER Azuma service to Edinburgh Waverley
Early morning sun from ferry window
An information panel about Marine Wildlife of the North Sea, including Bottlenose Dolphins, Minke Whale, Harbour Porpoise, Harbour Seal, Grey Seal, and White-backed Dolphin
Departing IJMuiden
DFDS King Seaways
A group of people with umbrellas waiting with suitcases, on a rainy riverside, taken from a coach window
The title 'DOUBLE ALBUM' and 'Dan Lockton' on a dark background with orange and purple glints of light on it
A grid of photos of many different things including a caterpillar, a flower, a building being demolished, and two cats, with yellow and brown filters over. There is overlaid text 'New Metaphors for Imagining Futures: A masterclass workshop, 21-24 June 2026, Norwich UK and the logos of NUA and the ISW
The cover of THE ILLUMINATED MAN: LIFE, DEATH AND THE WORLDS OF J.G. BALLARD by CHRISTOPHER PRIEST AND NINA ALLAN
A poster for the event. The text reads: Designing Sustainable Worlds Edition 2 Art and Architecture of Reimagining Futures Josie Chambers Urban Futures Studio, Utrecht University Sarah de Villiers Norwich University of the Arts Thursday 2 April 2026 15.00-16.00 BST
Gus Honeybun, a grey rabbit puppet, in this case wearing a dark blue sailor's outfit
A (speculated colour) version of the BNOC logo. Black sans-serif capital letters surrounded by a thick blue lower frame and red upper frame with a split in the middle of the upper frame
A black-and-white period photo of 5 WW, an Austin-Healey Sprite with modified bodywork: "John Sprinzel's Sebring Sprite with Williams & Pritchard aluminium Coupé bodywork" from https://www.sebringsprite.com/williams-pritchard.html
Newspaper article with the headline "To beat the 5p bag charge... just say NO and bring your own"
A banner for the Library for Transformative Play launch, with photos of people and games and the logos of the universities involved
One of the New Metaphors cards, showing a frustrum-shaped tower in a field with the sea shining visible behind, and the sun in the sky causing lens flare. The text "A lighthouse or 'daymark'" is on the image.
A screenshot of an eBay.com listing for the Design with Intent toolkit, on sale for $135 Buy it Now
Screenshot of "EDP 24" (former Eastern Daily Press) Facebook feed item with photos of people and roadworks and the headline "'They are trying to make our country into the Netherlands' - fury at cycle lanes work". One person has a yellow top with the words BALTIMORE U.S.A. on it.
The window of an NS DDZ train, looking out over a snowy landscape. A sticker is lettered STILTE, silence, and above it a circular sticker depicts a figure sitting with a laptop, book, and headphones floating above.
A blue tit, perched on a snowy branch, looking right at you
A screenshot of Naomi Wolf's tweet "I got pretty far along in the hiring process for a wonderful position teaching at a NY state university before a dean in the department told me I couldn’t go any further because I was white" with the five letter gs in her tweet circled in pink
Two ceiling-mounted luminaires with a ridged housing which gives them the appearance of cupcake paper. They are on the ceiling of the Stena Plus lounge on Stena Britannica, a North Sea ferry.
a red fire extinguisher propping open a blue door
a grey fire door wedged open with a plastic disposable lighter
The Simpsons bus driver "Don't make me tap the sign" meme but the sign is a tropical synthwave meme with "J.G. Ballard was right" text
the classic Daily Mail comment "IS TONTY BLAIR BEHIND THIS" comment by meercat of Leeds
Four double-page spreads of an "Amoco Fashion Brochure" from the early 1970s, showing Amoco-branded uniforms for petrol station staff. Two men and a woman are shown, wearing various combinations of uniforms, on a garage forecourt, Town Centre Service Station
A screenshot from the late 2000s, Firefox, Windows, showing the Wordpress blog Architectures of Control in Design. The header shows a padlock attached to a door where the hasp & staple have been pulled out of the wood on one side, with rusty nails dangling from it. The blog post below is titled "Welcome: About this site" and shows an Audi A2, a bench with a central armrest, and an inkjet printer, with the text "Send an example (or picture) or add a comment. How products increasingly control and restrict your behaviour Increasingly, many products are being designed with features that intentionally restrict the way the user can behave, or enforce certain modes of behaviour. The same intentions are also evident in the design of many systems and environments."
A Facebook screenshot from a group called "Yesterday's Britain,It Was A Better Britain" with an image from the public information film of "Jimmy" reaching for his frisbee lodged among the ceramic insulators of an electricity substation. The comments include "Never did me any harm, today its all elf & safety gone mad wokists Greta ects 🤬🤬🤬" and a reply to it stating "we are still here today because we learnt the hard way about Risk Assessment. Scraped knees toughened us up. Now, it appears, kids get repetitive strain injury playing with their X Box controls and become Woke instead 😢😢😢". The posters' names have been pixellated.
Mar 23, 2021 tweet by court (@timshel_11) modified to read "I keep thinking about that post that's like personas is 90% just making up a guy and then basing decisions off our made-up stories about them because it's so real"
A banner for the event with the same details as the post, plus photos of the speakers and their / their students' work
The interior of a Greater Anglia class 745 train with the destination “Next station: Manningtree” on the display. An advert for Hiscox insurance intentionally includes the typo “carless” instead of “careless”
A large group of pedestrians and someone on a bike crossing the road when the "red man" figure is showing. Norwich.
a blank (ungrooved) side of a record on a turntable
Join us for an open jam with the newly launched… Library for Transformative Play 26th September 2025, 12:00–14:00 The Playground — Vening Meinesz C Building Utrecht University —Open to all, with free food and drinks —Chance to take home a Roles and Relics game! Come play with materials and methods designed to help you… Surface worldviews Facilitate collective imagination Stay with the trouble Unmake systems Embrace ambiguity … in settings ranging from classrooms to societal dialogues. The library is the result of a four-year project funded by the Centre for Unusual Collaborations: Playing with the Trouble,with Raimon Ripoll Bosch, Jet Vervoort, Maikel Waardenburg, Dan Lockton, Josie Chambers, Jessica Duncan, Joost Vervoort, Joyce Browne, and Danvy Vu. Contact: j.m.chambers@uu.nl
The open door of the studio in Utrecht, with the logos of the Imaginaries Lab and Norwich University of the Arts - Institute for Sustainable Worlds
Another angle of the same crossing, showing that to pedestrians' left, there is no red/green figure signal on the box on the pole
A pedestrian crossing outside Norwich station. In the photo cars are on the crossing and the lights for pedestrians are red.
The Sunsets and Sunrises exhibit and poster, and an unrelated poster, on display in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. A group of people are talking to each other. One of them is looking at a set of illuminated discs.
A coot on a floating platform made from grass and reeds in the middle of a canal in Utrecht
Two people walking in a garden, very much in love
Screenshot of a Google search for the phrase "emperor's new vibes" showing one result, a tumblr https://danisaywhat1.tumblr.com/
A visualisation of "Real time energy use" phrased in terms of 323 kWh per hour
The cover of Whale's "Hobo humpin slobo babe" (1993) with a white paper jam icon (a zig-zag adjoining an 8 shape symbolising rollers) on a red and black indistinct background. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo_Humpin%27_Slobo_Babe
A close-up of part of the model: a house-boat
A close-up of part of the model. A fence reads: "Warning: Saline Frogs"
A top-down view of a group of people building a model landscape/waterscape
Slide with the text "New Waterscapes: Tales from Imagined Coastal Futures" and the logos of the Institute for Sustainable Worlds and Norwich University of the Arts. The background shows a seagull flying over a stretch of water with dock cranes visible in the distance.
View through a window of a ramp leading up to Stena Britannica (out of view) at Harwich, Essex. In the evening sky there is a reflection of a square white light and a green emergency exit sign
The kombucha girl meme with the captions "I really can't recommend it...", "highly enough...", and "actually to choose it"
An old analogue clock with Roman numerals on the red brick tower of Harwich International railway station building, showing the time 7.55
A photo of platform 1 at Harwich International railway station (HPQ) including a 1980s British Rail era digital clock, showing the time 05.43 11s
A BWOC (Bob Wayne's Oil Company) sign, 1987, Hewish near Weston-Super-Mare
A view towards Agricultural Hall Plain, Norwich, from the top floor of 20 Bank Plain. It is a misty morning with the sun visible through the mist. Cars are queuing to cross a junction with a Boer War memorial of a bronze angel on it.