Designing for Our Digital Living Room
It made my day when Apple featured my new set of Monster Microbe stickers in the AppStore! And it made me think about how designing for our digital spaces has changed in the mobile era.
When I got my first computer I wondered if they really had to look so boring and sterile? Wasn't there a way to make them more personal, a way to make your files and folders more beautiful and easy to find, so you would work with ease and flow throughout your day? So I started making icons that have a colourful and organic vibe to them.
Scandinavian Design
I love creating things directly for people, or "users" to speak the digital lingo. Maybe it's no wonder, because I'm a Swedish designer, strongly influenced and inspired by my heritage. Scandinavian design is characterised by beautiful, simple, clean, organic designs, inspired by nature and the northern climate. And making design accessible and available to everyone, so that design can infuse your daily life and bring you pleasure as you go about your days.
Designing for Our Digital Living Room
We live our lives more and more online, in our digital living rooms. And I feel it's increasingly important to design for the digital environment that we spend so much time in. It's the place where we communicate, work, learn, and enjoy entertainment. We want it to be an easy, beautiful and functional experience.
From Desktop to Mobile
Although lots of people enjoy customising their computer desktops with icons and wallpapers, it requires a bit of effort and know-how. On mobile devices it became (almost) impossible to customise your icons, but extremely easy to change your wallpaper.
In the mobile era, stickers and emojis are evolving as a popular, game-changing phenomenon. They're really easy to use, and make it fun and expressive and to quickly communicate on the tiny screens of our mobiles.
Communicating Visually on Your Mobile
Stickers and emojis help people communicate in unique and efficient ways. Stickers can communicate emotions (without you having to spell it out), or lace your chat with humour, ambiguity, complexity and personality.
The mobile experience takes place on a small screen. Often for a short time. And maybe you're surrounded by traffic, or carrying a shopping bag, or maybe the sun is causing glare on your screen, perhaps it's raining. In other words, it really helps if you can communicate more easily on your mobile device using messaging apps and social platforms like Line, WeChat, WhatsApp, and Facebook.
Designing Stickers
It's so exciting that with Apple's release of iOS 10, designers can create sticker packs that you can use in iMessage too. I'm loving designing stickers for people to spice up their conversations! In a way, design is coming full circle, allowing me to design directly for people's digital living room - again. This time it's mobile.
Storytelling Stickers
Stickers give you an addictive new way to communicate emotions and feelings with personality and quirkiness. They make a great giveaway, they're fun to collect and easy to use. They help you tell your story.
New Sticker Packs
Floriography
Stickers for the Iconfactory.
"Delve into the hidden language of flowers with this beautiful set of floral stickers. Send coded messages to friends or simply brighten someone's day."
Monster Microbes.
Stickers for the Iconfactory. Featured by Apple in the AppStore.
"Tame the world's scariest viruses and bacteria with this tongue-in-cheek set of stickers. Sally Salmonella and Bert Bacillus can't wait to meet all your friends!"