Martin Raymond is the co-founder and Futures Director of The Future Laboratory, a UK-based consumer insight, trend forecasting and brand strategy agency. Clients include American Express, Louis Vuitton, Laurent-Perrier, Absolut, BMW, Lamborghini, Chivas, New Look, Miss Selfridge, British Airways, Procter & Gamble, Marks & Spencer, Standard Life Bank, HSBC and Condé Nast.

He is also Editor-in-chief of Viewpoint magazine, a bi-annual trends, intelligence, consumer research and forecasting journal, and co-founder and editor-in-chief of L:SN, the online global lifestyle news and consumer insight network.

Martin has written several books, including CrEATe (Gestalten) and The Tomorrow People: Future consumers and how to read them today (Financial Times/Prentice Hall). He is currently working on The Trend Forecaster’s Handbook (Laurence King), the definitive work on trends and the trend forecasting arena, which will be published in 2009.

Martin is a regular media commentator on trends and business for the BBC, the BBC World Service programme Culture Shock, Channel 4 and ITV.

Born in Ireland, he moved to the UK in 1984 to work as a journalist in the design, fashion, film and video sectors. He founded VideoGraphic, and later became an associate editor at Screen International. Martin went on to edit and re-launch Fashion Weekly, the UK’s fashion business bible. A return to his native Dublin in the 90s to present RTÉ television’s fashion magazine programme Head To Toe was followed by a four-year tenure at the London College of Fashion, as senior lecturer in fashion journalism. He maintains a busy schedule of lecturing at over 12 colleges and universities throughout Great Britain and Ireland. He is also a contributing editor for Wired UK, and a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.