Your junior designer spins up a prototype in Lovable before lunch. Your PM shows you a "working" MVP built entirely with Cursor within a day. And your CEO forwards you a LinkedIn post about how AI will replace 80% of UI work by 2026. And it seems like anyone can now make an app to solve a specific problem. Has the graphical interface really died, as Jakob Nielsen provocatively suggests?
Picture this: a lamp that literally grows before your eyes, expanding and glowing brighter as you pump air into it like you're inflating a bicycle tire. It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, but it's very real, and it's called Blow. Designer Jung Kiryeon has created something that makes you rethink what a lamp can be, and honestly, it's kind of mesmerizing.
Emotional design isn't just about making something look pretty but about crafting an experience that elicits a specific emotional response. Think about products you love, perhaps a sleek coffee maker that brings joy to your morning ritual, or a comfortable chair that offers a sense of calm after a long day. This isn't accidental but is the deliberate result of designers considering how the product will make you feel.
If you haven't seen them yet, OpenAI's launched new ad campaign of short 30 seconds videos that embed AI into an idealised, warmly analog, version of the past. They're quite visually pleasing, to be honest, with a slight VHS grain and muted colours, and depict very relatable everyday scenarios like wanting to impress a girl or getting fitter. They lean hard on 80s soundtracks and cheesy movie vibes.
The shift from performance to presence is a design challenge, and solving it will be key to building emotional trust with AI. This means designing intuitive interfaces that interpret emotional cues.
The "Hug Me" Chair embodies three decades of Steel-Land’s journey, transforming resilient storytelling into design, while inviting emotional and physical comfort through its embrace-like form.
