You might remember our Born to Engineer video featuring Adrian Westaway last March? While normally Adrian and Clara Gaggero’s studio Special Projects can be found working with big brands to create user-centric design with their own flavour of positivity, they have just released three tongue-and-cheek manuals – The Missing Pages – which tackle the physical and mental woes that come hand-in-hand with assembling flatpack furniture.
Special Projects said that the manuals came from their experience working on ‘Out of the Box’, an “age-friendly phone manual [they] created for Samsung in 2009”.
They explained that they had “spent weeks looking at catalogues, manuals, instructional videos and reference books. Flat-packed furniture, horse riding manuals, even knitting books. Some of them were so dry and patronising they were scary, while others inspired us with their human touch and sense of humour”
The Manuals
Each Manual (Sleepi, Stretchi and Duo) is designed to offer users a sense of calmness by suggesting methods to deal with the stress of the task at hand.
While Special Projects clearly doesn’t LACK a sense of humour the projects do offer a serious message about the importance of well-being and empathy and show the importance of engineering a strong user-centric experience.
Duo
Do you need to alleviate any relationship tensions that might emerge whilst assembling a piece of furniture, like a bed, duo will walk you through patching up your relationship after the flat-pack experience?
Stretchi
Dreading the backache that comes from assembling a bookcase, chest of draws or any other intense DIY experience. STRETCHÏ teaches a series of 30 second Yoga streches that will help fix your aching back or soothe your worried mind.
Sleepi
Our personal favourite, the Sleepi manual teaches new parents how to engage in calming craft activities after building their babies cot. The end result – thread, scissors, tape and paper are all that are needed to create a sensory sculpture to put above your child’s sleeping space.
Download
You can download the instructions below or visit Special Projects for more information.
