WIF 2008 - webdesign international festival - France

Every fortnight, wif team, in collaboration with the Pole Excellence e-Design, invites you to discover an interview of an interactive designer.
This week, Rasmus Wängelin : designer, conceptualist, life-lover from Sweden.

wif : « Could you introduce yourself in one sentence? »
Rasmus : My name is Rasmus Wängelin, I’m a 25 year old designer, conceptualist, life-lover and a former student at Hyper Island, Crew11.

wif : « You don’t become a designer just like that. What makes you come in the world of design? »
Rasmus: From a young age I’ve always had a desire to create things. I grew up around painters, writers and musicians as neighbors. No one in my family is designer and I was always told to make my own life path. The first time I understood that I had some kind of talent was when I won a painting contest for “sun-maid raisin”. I was around 9 years old at the time I think. But I never really got into digital design until I was around 16 years old. I was living in a small city in Sweden and my life was surrounded by normality and boredom. That made me really creative. I think I had a dream to find a more exiting life somewhere and I wanted to reach it through design. The creativity also helped me deal with the boredom.
After some time abroad, Spain and California, I took the step to make this my profession as I started at Hyper Island. I don’t regret it for one second.

wif : « What would be your definition of the interactive design today ? And tomorrow? »
Rasmus: I think the way we look at interactive design is changing a lot. Just a few years ago internet was used for chatting and finding information for school projects, now we’re shopping, playing and getting married online. Much is yet to be made. Mobile phones is just starting to really interact with the web in a useful way. I think many devices in our everyday life is going to be used much more digitaly.
As for now I see a trend of useful sites with quite a simple concept being built. Sites like flickr, wikipedia, last fm and facebook who has a strong nisch but makes peoples everyday life easier. And the whole “user driven” site concept is getting hot. Wikipedia is a superb example.

wif : « According to your experience, how do you see your profession and your works in the next five years? »
Rasmus: In five years I think more or less I will work the same way. All though with new software and hardware. As programs get better there’s a lot of “design” that can be generated instead of hand made but I don’t think the computer will be able to replace man’s creativity. _ _ Personally I think I will go into more conceptual design and as my bag of experience gets bigger I will step more into art and creative direction.

wif : « For you which is the media or the innovation which most stood out recently? »
Rasmus: I think motion design and how it interacts with web pages and devices such as mobile phones is starting to get really interesting. _ _ The HBO Voyeur site (www.hbovoyeur.com) is a good example and still just the beginning on what we will se on website in the future. When bandwidth is faster and computers stronger it leaves a room for creativity but the people watching will also be more spoiled. I think in the future you will have to make something really special to catch the eye of the pubic. There’s just going to be so much cool stuff out there.

wif : « A contrario, which is the most useless innovation which can be described as “failed revolution”? »
Rasmus: I think it must be one of those “work out while watching tv” machines you connect to your body. It’s in our biological nature to move around, not to sit down all day. I’m worried about mankind.. seriously.

Discover his creations and blog on : Rasill.com

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