Smartians

Why replace your things just because they’re not state-of-the-art?

Smartians are cloud-connected motors that breathe new life into the things around you, allowing you full flexibility to build your own smart-home in a fun, efficient and inventive way. Consisting of a small rechargeable module onto which you can add a dozen different add-ons, each add-on converts the movement of the motor into a different motion to enable you to press buttons, turn knobs, pull strings and move objects.

Developed by Frolic studio in-house, my responsibilities included designing and bringing to life the backdrop in which the Smartians could shine in all their playfulness. The magic-realist scenarios for the movie were given a minimalist style and just enough level of detail to highlight each tiny device’s functionality, without taking the attention away from them.

Alongside with the set design came the definition of the entire visual style guide, including the selection of a sparkly colour for both the devices and their physical and digital environments. An exercise of distilling and blending together the atmosphere of the modern home and our deepest, Pixar-like fantasies.

Smartians were showcased in multiple renowned media and received the Red Dot Award for the best of the best design concepts of 2019.