Telling Secrets: Mayuko Sakisaka Talks to PSFK

Grad schools are often incubators of innovation—it’s not rare for a final project to become a successful company or product. This year’s students at Central Saint Martins in London have turned out some very cool concepts, if the pics on Flickr are any indication. Unveiled last week at the CSM Product Design Degree Show, the projects range from octagonal chocolates to toile couches to x-ray vases.

One of our favorites was titled “please keep my secrets.” This “emotional printer” is designed to take ephemeral communications like SMS messages and make them keepsakes. The box receives text messages from, say, your boyfriend, via Bluetooth and prints them out on an antique scroll in a small hopechest of sorts. A swirled design appears on the top when you touch the panel cover and grows as a message prints.

We recently spoke with the designer, Mayuko Sakisaka, to find out more about the project:

What is your background?

I learned Japanese-style painting in university before I studied product design in London. I am certain that I could put my creativity and unique cultural perspective from this experience in product design.

What was your inspiration behind the project?

I keep the letters from my friend, family and boyfriend. I also keep memorable texts, but they are not as tangible or beautiful as the letter.

Letters offer a more poetic and romantic medium than emails or texts. I feel that this is the vanishing quality of the communication in the digital age. I initiated a task to design an electric devise to transfer the potential of this older communication tool to the text message. The fundamental concept is to see how a mobile message from a boyfriend can be kept as a physical object in more emotional way.

How many texts do you think you send in a day?

It depends… around 1-5 texts in a day.

Do you ever handwrite letters or cards? Do you save those that you receive?

Sometimes I do, when I want to convey a special feeling or personal sentiment. And of course I keep the letters that I receive.

Can interested consumers purchase the finished product?

Actually not yet. I am looking for the company to produce this product.