#DesignIndaba2017: Enthralling interactive design

2 Mar 2017

Design Indaba attendees will never see clocks, wall frames and shoes in the same way again, having witnessed Pauline Saglio share about interactive design and the endless possibilities that this can have on analogue objects.

Pauline Saglio

Currently a teacher in the Visual Communication Department at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, Saglio was introduced to the audience as a designer who “infuses analogue objects with digital technology to help shift the perception that digital cannot also be tangible".

Saglio studied at both Penninghen’s school of art and the Atelier de Sevre school of art. While studying, she met her colleague, Mathieu Rivier, who has collaborated with her on various projects.

Introducing the audience to her work, Saglio said, “When you think of digital media in interaction, you might think of computers, touchscreens and smartphones… People think everything related with new technology and with the digital world is something that keeps us apart from everything that is manual. I will try to show you through our work that it’s something quite the opposite.”

Saglio then shared a series of three of her projects, namely Rewind, Interactive Scarves and a project on interactive shoes.

Rewind

This project involves a series of three clocks, which are dependent on human interaction. The user is required to participate in order to view the time.

Interactive scarves

Saglio wished to develop interactive paintings with silk scarves that could hang on the wall and respond to users’ interaction with the frame. The first of the three was dependent on the viewer’s proximity to the frame. The closer the viewer got to the frame, the more it would change and display various colours, lights and sounds. The second frame was reliant on the viewer’s touch and the third would react to sounds from viewers’ cell phones.

Emilio Pucci Interactive Scarves by ECAL/Pauline Saglio from ECAL on Vimeo.

Interactive shoes

The aim of this project was to encourage a shoe store's customers to interact with pairs of shoes.

“We focused on how you could interact with all kinds of shoes and combined electronics and mechanics in order to personalise each pair of shoes.”

The result was an enchanting customer experience, as displayed in a snippet of Saglio's talk below:

More shoe interaction from Pauline Saglio @designindaba If only all shoe shops were like this #designindaba pic.twitter.com/8tlVcTAPNY
— Tom Banks (@1TomBanks) March 1, 2017