Just came across this awesome project by Sarah Kueng somewhere in the depths of google: Wand Wandler (which translates to Wall Transformer in English), is a wallpaper composed of images of everyday objects, arranged in a grid "designed to generate calm." The printed design intends to inspire the viewer to add personal keepsakes to the wall, mixing the new with the old, and the two-dimensional with the three.

From Sarah: The function of a wall is to define a room. The living area is separated from the anonymous area. Private ambience is created by hanging up personal things. The ambience of the room reflects the personality of the person who is living in it, and this person is in turn influenced by the atmosphere.

This project suggests, in part, a contemporary version of the curioisity cabinet, where a viewing plane (glass) flattened one's collection of objects into an exhibit. These days though, our collections are more souvenirs and ticket stubs and less holy relics or mysterious animal pelts (depending). Though it may be easy to criticize the design-value of tacking a bunch of objects to the wall, the project makes a couple of smart moves. First, rather than asking users to arrange objects on a wall by way of a set of written instructions, it suggest that they do so through the pattern: a selection of 'seed' objects makes up the backdrop. Second, it sets up a grid and asks the user to break it; applying this graphic design technique to the user's objects creates visual tension, and makes their placement appear non-random (even if it is).

This never-been-published project was designed for Tapetenstiftung in 2006. Nowadays, Sarah is one half of the awesome design studio Kueng-Caputo.