My title is Daria, and I’ve been a designer targeted on advertising for 9 years. I’m Ukrainian, and a bit over two years in the past I moved to Toronto, Canada — the place I found a brand new world: the world of AI startups. In Ukraine, I labored with each {hardware} and software program merchandise in advertising staff.
Right this moment, I assist AI startups construct their visible presence from the bottom up. The startup world strikes quick — it brings large development and fixed change, but in addition pushes you to seek out inventive options rapidly. That’s what I like most about my work: connecting expertise and design, and mixing what’s purposeful with what’s lovely.
Nevertheless, my curiosity in creating design for bodily merchandise, researching concepts, and observing the evolution of options over time remained. I felt that this want wanted to be put into motion. It didn’t matter the place—the primary factor was to begin creating. Simply open the laptop computer and begin. That’s how my have to create became my challenge and weblog.
This text will not be a tutorial, and it’s not a information about pixels. It’s in regards to the thought behind my work — the inventive imaginative and prescient that formed my visible interactive configurators, and the which means I see in bringing design to life.
The Path to the Concept
I’ve at all times been fascinated by how a product grows and the way an organization captures the viewers’s consideration. How the product is introduced, what wants it really meets, not simply performing its primary operate, which could seem to be the one essential one at first look. I keep in mind 6 years in the past, throughout my interview for a designer place on the advertising staff at Ajax Techniques (a global expertise firm and the most important safety system producer in Europe), I used to be requested what new issues I wished to study. My reply was: animation and advertising. It’s exactly this mix that now types the idea of my challenge.
I got here to interactive animation simply over a 12 months in the past after I stumbled upon a put up that includes work created in Rive App. This was a key second. I fully immersed myself in studying Rive, spending all my free time there. My background in advertising led me to the thought of visible configurators — instruments that permit customers to work together with a product, customise it in keeping with their selection, and buy it.
My first linear configurator unexpectedly went viral — 150 thousand views on LinkedIn. This was a sign: persons are . In a single 12 months, my weblog grew from 400 subscribers to over 8K on LinkedIn and over 4K on X, although it’s new, simply half a 12 months previous. My ideas garner 50-100K views. My weblog helps me construct networking and neighborhood. Throughout this time, I joined the Rive Ambassadors program, the place I work extra intently with a small variety of energy Rive customers. And lately, I turned a member of the Leonardo AI Creator Program, by way of which I can upscale capabilities and it permits me to infinitely experiment in my inventive course of. Such collaborations are for me a recognition of my inventive and design actions.
Analysis
After researching many alternative configurators, I see a transparent division of customized options. On one hand, there are 3D configurators that require important budgets and, most frequently, an in-house staff. On the opposite, there are simplified static options. There are lots of of them, however their implementation usually has numerous technical limitations, particularly when combining the visible half with the logic of customization and code.
For my part, static options appear considerably chilly. The product itself doesn’t really feel alive, particularly if it’s about excessive tactile and visible objects, equivalent to furnishings or merchandise utilized in on a regular basis/weekly life. The selection turns into making a technical price estimate, relatively than a second of creativity for the client, creating the design of their very own product.
That’s why I began pondering: how might we carry heat, tactility, and a way of connection into digital experiences? How might on-line product interplay really feel as emotional and private as in an actual retailer — however with out the complexity of heavy 3D configurators and overloaded interfaces?
“On-line Showroom” idea
For a lot of, the act of selecting and buying has turn into a ritual that goes past merely “trying and shopping for.” The way it occurs is essential. In offline retail, the ambiance is created by particulars: interplay with the supervisor, the inside, the chance to the touch the fabric, really feel its high quality, the shop’s scent, and appropriately positioned lighting. And that is what makes the choice course of nice, provides emotion, and types the will to return. That is the place my thought got here from: to experiment with particulars to create the sensation of a showroom and high quality service on-line — inside the configurators.
Nevertheless, I’m not a fan of complicated 3D web sites the place you immerse your self in one other actuality. To me, they’re barely overloaded. I really feel nearer to interplay with the true world. Subsequently, I keep a stability: I maintain the interface elegant and restrained, however I add the chance to work together immediately with the product — to play, discover, and select, so customers really feel just like the creators of their very own selection.
When creating, I take into consideration making the method arouse curiosity and maintain consideration. Each click on instantly offers a visible response. The product comes alive, strikes, and adjustments. Considerate interplay at each step provides the sensation of customized service. And this implies extra satisfaction for the person and extra belief within the product and the model.
Simplicity
Creating emotion and heat on-line is one a part of the problem. The subsequent is making that have technically doable — remodeling complicated techniques into one thing that feels easy and alive.
The chances of non-linear logic in Rive give me the pliability to construct complicated techniques hidden from the person whereas conserving the interplay on display mild and intuitive. It permits me to keep away from overwhelming options. All of the complicated mechanics and settings stay behind the scenes — identical to in ballet. Think about: you’re sitting within the viewers and also you see the extremely technical choreography, completely synchronized set adjustments, and a stay symphony orchestra creating the ambiance. You benefit from the efficiency, fully immersed in it, with out even occupied with how a lot work and element is hidden behind the stage. It’s the identical right here: the person dives into the method, enjoys the interplay, and doesn’t encounter the complexity of the implementation.
Ballet tells a narrative, combining dance, music, and units to convey deep feelings. I take this concept for my initiatives: I mix totally different components in order that the person doesn’t simply “select a product,” however lives a small expertise that feels emotional, and this builds closeness and belief within the model.
Product Magnificence
After we design, we don’t simply create interfaces — we form how magnificence is perceived. For me, magnificence isn’t solely about how one thing seems to be; it’s about what we really feel within the course of. It’s within the heat of colour, the softness of sunshine, the best way supplies and reflections make a product really feel alive — even by way of a display. That’s how design interprets emotion and creates connection.
However in digital work, this sense of magnificence usually will get misplaced. After we categorize too early — calling one thing “a static web sites” and “configurators” or pondering solely by way of technical constraints — we cease seeing the product itself. We begin designing round limitations as a substitute of potentialities. And that’s after we lose the fantastic thing about the product — the way it seems to be, feels, and is perceived.
To carry that magnificence again, I borrow an method from Nonetheless Life. To not flip configurators into work, however to deal with them with the identical sensitivity to mild, texture, and element. Simply as still-life artists might make unusual objects come alive by way of composition and a spotlight, I need digital merchandise — even one thing so simple as a wardrobe — to evoke that very same pleasure and curiosity.
After we give attention to how a product feels as a substitute of the way it’s categorized, we begin seeing once more. And after we begin seeing, we are able to create experiences that transcend operate — ones that really feel complete, emotional, and alive.
In Element
In my ideas, I most frequently select furnishings. These are issues the place the choice is at all times made with the eyes and based mostly on private preferences.
I want to not go away a product “flat” in opposition to a background. As an alternative, I give it a stage, an area to exist in. This adjustments the sensation. For instance, in a single challenge, I used a darker background to match the wooden tone—it emphasised the fabric and made the image deeper.
In one other case, conversely, a lightweight background to create lightness and a sense of air.
Typically I’m occupied with enjoying on distinction and even inserting the article in an actual area to make it come alive. For me, it’s at all times in regards to the product trying not like an “remoted image,” however as a part of a scene, an environment that emphasizes its character.
The product is accompanied by shadows, mild, and reflections so as to add depth and the sensation of the true world. Shadows transfer with the article; if the article’s measurement adjustments, the shadow’s measurement additionally adjustments. If there’s a mild configuration, it displays on the floor and on the article itself.
I take note of supplies and particulars—they’re what make the scene really feel actual. If it’s a cupboard with mirrored doorways, I even take into consideration what will probably be mirrored within the mirror. It’s a small factor, however the feeling of actuality consists of such particulars.
Interactivity opens up the potential of reproducing the method of interplay itself. Think about: a cupboard is in entrance of you, you open the doorways and select the inner filling. In my configurator, it really works the identical approach. There’s a sequence of actions: first the outside, then the inside. And each time you work together with the product, the interface adjustments, adapting to your step.
Every little thing occurs easily. For those who change the dimensions, it actually grows earlier than your eyes—although it’s not 3D! And when a brand new object is added, it seems to be as if a guide in a showroom simply positioned a field in entrance of you. And it’s exactly these small moments that create a residing, real looking expertise.
In conclusion
The thought behind my challenge lies within the which means of selecting and shopping for — as a result of it’s usually not simply in regards to the product. It’s a ritual, a course of the place we really feel feelings, join with our selection, and with the model itself. And when that have feels proper, we naturally need to return to it.
In offline shops, manufacturers create this emotion by way of ambiance — by way of mild, texture, and area. My objective is to carry that very same feeling into digital — by way of interactive configurators that make on-line expertise really feel emotional, tactile, and alive, not only a collection of clicks and picture switches.
All through this text, I used metaphors and examples to point out that the which means behind my work goes far past operate. I see interactive configurators as a brand new language of digital storytelling. By means of motion, mild, and emotion, they let merchandise communicate for themselves. They remind us that good design isn’t about perfection — it’s about connection. When a person interacts, explores, and feels one thing actual — that’s the second design really comes alive.
