Imagining Otherwise: Narrative Design Lab

The Narrative Design Lab invites participants to step into the creative mechanics of storytelling. Using frameworks from narrative design, speculative imagination, and design thinking, this 75-minute workshop explores how story structure, theme, and character choices shape meaning.

Through hands-on exercises, participants will analyze narrative patterns, test speculative frameworks, and prototype their own story experiments. Part learning lab, part creative jam, the session makes the tools of narrative visible, usable, and collaborative.

✨ What to Expect

• Explore frameworks for analyzing story structure, theme, and character
• Experiment with short creative exercises to prototype new story ideas
• Engage with peers in a collaborative, playful workshop space
• Take home accessible tools for applying narrative design in your own work

✨ This event is for:

• Designers and creatives curious about narrative as a design tool
• Artists and performers exploring speculative or experimental practice
• Community organizers and changemakers interested in storytelling for social futures

Details

Date and Time: Sunday, Oct 19, 2025 • 4:15 - 5:30 PM • Doors will open directly following the Story in Motion: Performance as Prototype event

Location: Resound NW (Downtown Portland)

Agency for Speculative Futures

A civic imagination lab treating the future as a public work, blending design, storytelling, and systems change. We create experiences and invest in spaces where communities can rehearse and reimagine just, joyful futures

Impact x Design

A community of designers, strategists, and change-makers who believe design has the power to shape more equitable futures. We curate conversations, facilitate workshops, and resource projects exploring impact at the intersection of creativity and systems change.

The workshop follows the Story in Motion table reads (Oct 18–19) and is part of Imagining Otherwise: Storytelling & Narrative Future(s), a three-day exploration of performance and design as methods for cultural futures.

• Story in Motion: Performance as Prototype(Sat, Oct 18) → A public table read that opens a window into the creative process of performance-making
• Story in Motion: Performance as Prototype (Sun, Oct 19) → A second public table (the same in-progress work as the Saturday Table Read)

• Imagining Otherwise: Storytelling, Design & Speculative Imagination (Mon, Oct 20) - A multidisciplinary panel on storytelling as a dynamic tool for imagining otherwise

And be sure to check out the Radical Future(s) Fest (Oct 6 - Oct 8), a three-day celebration of design, systems, and belonging — with panels, showcases, and design jams imagining more just and joyful futures.

Explore these and more at the .

Get ready to be inspired, share your ideas, and connect with others who are shaping what comes next

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