PRETTY UNEXPECTED

Interactive design
I’ve just returned from a holiday in Berlin and it has given me tons of inspiration for Spaziale. Starting with this book review of a wonderful book called ‘Hands On – Interactive design in print‘ that I bought at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum bookshop. The book is a collection of projects that were designed to actively and directly interact with the person viewing the work. What I love about the book is that it encourages me to think about new ways to make my designs more interactive, in novel and surprising ways.

Examples
The book includes many lovely examples of interactive design such as the following:

Bang Your Own Drum - drum skin business cards & drum stick pencils for this copywriting agency

Twist To Read - Yoga instructor Danielle Abisaab has a business card that shows her full name when you twist it

Girl Walk, All Day - Kelli Anderson created a poster with dance moves that you can try out. Kelli Anderson’s work is featured several times in the book and she is someone with a vision that truly inspires me. If you are interested in interactive design, you should definitely watch her TED talk!

Walk the talk
The book really ‘walked the talk’ of interactive design by allowing you as a reader to participate in the creation of the book itself. At the end of the book you’ll find 93 stickers (black circles) that are numbered. You’ll find these numbers throughout the book, indicating where you should place the stickers. My experience was that in doing so, I paid a lot more attention to all the content than I normally would have if I had only flipped through the book. Below you can see how the sticker system works.

Universal Wrapping Paper - gift wrapping paper that allows you to circle a word like ‘congratulations’

How to use the book
One thing the book doesn’t offer is instructions to recreate the projects that are included. Therefore, if you’re looking for a practical book with tutorials, this isn’t the right book for you. It does however allow you to look at many examples, be inspired by them and then come up with your own designs. In doing so, you’re doing exactly what the book is all about – adding your own twist to it!

PS If you’re in Berlin; the temporary exhibition ’Five minutes of pure sculpture’ by Anthony McCall is on for another ten days at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum and definitely worth a visit. 

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