diff --git a/patsy/design_info.py b/patsy/design_info.py
index f4b5822..2f98968 100644
--- a/patsy/design_info.py
+++ b/patsy/design_info.py
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@
 from patsy.constraint import linear_constraint
 from patsy.contrasts import ContrastMatrix
 from patsy.desc import ModelDesc, Term
+from collections import OrderedDict
 
 class FactorInfo(object):
     """A FactorInfo object is a simple class that provides some metadata about
@@ -684,6 +685,49 @@ def var_names(self, eval_env=0):
         else:
             return {}
 
+    def partial(self, columns, product=False):
+        """Returns a partial prediction array where only the variables in the
+        dict ``columns`` are tranformed per the :class:`DesignInfo`
+        transformations. The terms that are not influenced by ``columns``
+        return as zero.
+
+        This is useful to perform a partial prediction on unseen data and to
+        view marginal differences in factors.
+
+        :arg columns: A dict with the keys as the column names for the marginal
+        predictions desired and values as the marginal values to be predicted.
+
+        :arg product: When `True`, the resturned numpy array represents the
+        Cartesian product of the values ``columns``.
+
+        :returns: A numpy array of the partial design matrix.
+        """
+        from .highlevel import dmatrix
+        if product:
+            columns = _column_product(columns)
+        rows = None
+        for col in columns:
+            if rows and rows != len(columns[col]):
+                raise ValueError('all columns must be of same length')
+            rows = len(columns[col])
+        parts = []
+        for term, subterm in six.iteritems(self.term_codings):
+            term_vars = term.var_names()
+            present = True
+            for term_var in term_vars:
+                if term_var not in columns:
+                    present = False
+            if present and (term.name() != 'Intercept'):
+                # This seems like an inelegent way to not having the Intercept
+                # in the output
+                di = self.subset('0 + {}'.format(term.name()))
+                parts.append(dmatrix(di, columns))
+            else:
+                num_columns = np.sum(s.num_columns for s in subterm)
+                dm = np.zeros((rows, num_columns))
+                parts.append(dm)
+        return np.hstack(parts)
+
     @classmethod
     def from_array(cls, array_like, default_column_prefix="column"):
         """Find or construct a DesignInfo appropriate for a given array_like.
@@ -1230,3 +1274,62 @@ def test_design_matrix():
     repr(DesignMatrix(np.zeros((1, 0))))
     repr(DesignMatrix(np.zeros((0, 1))))
     repr(DesignMatrix(np.zeros((0, 0))))
+
+
+def test_DesignInfo_partial():
+    from .highlevel import dmatrix
+    from numpy.testing import assert_allclose
+    a = np.array(['a', 'b', 'a', 'b', 'a', 'a', 'b', 'a'])
+    b = np.array([1, 3, 2, 4, 1, 3, 1, 1])
+    c = np.array([4, 3, 2, 1, 6, 4, 2, 1])
+    dm = dmatrix('a + bs(b, df=3, degree=3) + np.log(c)')
+    x = np.zeros((3, 6))
+    x[1, 1] = 1
+    y = dm.design_info.partial({'a': ['a', 'b', 'a']})
+    assert_allclose(x, y)
+
+    x = np.zeros((2, 6))
+    x[1, 1] = 1
+    x[1, 5] = np.log(3)
+    p = OrderedDict([('a', ['a', 'b']), ('c', [1, 3])])
+    y = dm.design_info.partial(p)
+    assert_allclose(x, y)
+
+    x = np.zeros((4, 6))
+    x[2, 1] = 1
+    x[3, 1] = 1
+    x[1, 5] = np.log(3)
+    x[3, 5] = np.log(3)
+    y = dm.design_info.partial(p, product=True)
+    assert_allclose(x, y)
+
+    dm = dmatrix('a * c')
+    y = dm.design_info.partial(p)
+    x = np.array([[0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 1, 3, 3]])
+    assert_allclose(x, y)
+
+    from nose.tools import assert_raises
+    assert_raises(ValueError, dm.design_info.partial, {'a': ['a', 'b'],
+                                                       'b': [1, 2, 3]})
+
+
+def _column_product(columns):
+    from itertools import product
+    cols = []
+    values = []
+    for col, value in six.iteritems(columns):
+        cols.append(col)
+        values.append(value)
+    values = [value for value in product(*values)]
+    values = [value for value in zip(*values)]
+    return OrderedDict([(col, list(value))
+                        for col, value in zip(cols, values)])
+
+
+def test_column_product():
+    x = OrderedDict([('a', [1, 2, 3]), ('b', ['a', 'b'])])
+    y = OrderedDict([('a', [1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3]),
+                     ('b', ['a', 'b', 'a', 'b', 'a', 'b'])])
+    x = _column_product(x)
+    assert x['a'] == y['a']
+    assert x['b'] == y['b']