Students from ECNU’s School of Design were conferred several international awards. Bone Conduction Sleeping Pillow was co-designed by two undergraduates majoring in Product Design, Wang Xinran and Yang Xinchen of Class of 2021, who won the Silver Prize of the 2023 MUSE Design Awards and the Gold Award of the 2023 French Design Award. There was also another design called Soaked In, directed by Tang Shiyu of the Class of 2019, an undergraduate majoring in Animation, who was nominated for the category of Student Films for two of the most prestigious international animation festivals, Animafest Zagreb and Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
Created in 2015, the MUSE Design Awards are co-sponsored by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and the International Awards Associate (IAA). MUSE is universally recognized as one of the most influential international awards in the field of international creativity. The French Design Award was also established in 2015 by the IAA, which offers global designers a broad platform to convey their design concepts, display design works, and lead on global design innovation. The award-winning designer products by Wang Xinran and Yang Xinchen are designated to the English course conducted by Dr Lin Jingjing from the School of Design.
Product’s Name: Bone Conduction Sleeping Pillow
Students’ Name: Wang Xinran, Yang Xinchen Tutor: Lin Jingjing
The Bone Conduction Sleeping Pillow adopts an irregular design based on ergonomics of a built-in device for bone conduction, equipped with pressure sensors and piezoelectric sensors. The contours of this device suit the user’s temporal bone, enabling effective transmission of specialty music to reduce tinnitus symptoms by performing bone conduction, which also provides functionality for those with hearing impairments. The user’s breathing and pulse frequency may be continuously monitored by the internal piezoelectric sensor, which can automatically stop playing music after the user falls into a REM sleep, making this human-computer interaction model a simple and intuitive process.
An incurable medical condition, tinnitus requires costly and long-term medical support. This pillow addresses the issue by doing away with the conventional speaker and sound by ingeniously integrating bone conduction devices to play specialty music, called Notch, while falling into a deep sleep, thus helping users reduce tinnitus symptoms. In contrast to wearing headphones (commonly known as ear-buds), the bone conduction pillow device uses vibration transmission to prevent bacterial infection caused by blockage of the ear canal. It can also effectively relieve the pressure of the ear canal caused by long-term wear, protect the hearing while not disturbing the sleep of the family and providing utmost care to the user with clean and sanitary conditions.
The Poster of the animation Soaked In
Student’s Name: Tang Shiyu Tutor: Chen Hailu
Tang Shiyu, an ECNU Animation Department undergraduate of the Class of 2019, directed Soaked In which has distinguished itself from other films in the two prestigious international animation festivals. At the Annecy International Animation Film Festival this year, Tang has received 3,250 entries from 112 countries, with only 2 directed by Chinese students; while the Student Films category of Animafest Zagreb consisted of 41 films selected from 830 submissions worldwide. It’s significant that Soaked In is the only one selected from the Chinese mainland.
Created in 1960, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival is an event dedicated to animation around the globe. It has been playing an important role in the animation industry while pioneering in international animation festivals. Annecy’s comprehensive ability to present and enhance the art of animation (in a variety of artistic expressions) has made it a notable gathering place for animation industry professionals from all over the world, and an important festival that will not be overlooked by the industry.
The World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb, established in 1972, is the second oldest film festival in the world that is completely dedicated to animation, and thus enjoys a prestigious status in the history of world animation. On a par with festivals in Annecy and Ottawa, Animafest’s Grand Prix winners directly qualify for the Academy Award and the European Animation Award.
nomination of the World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb
nomination of Annecy International Animation Film Festival
The creating process of Soaked In by Tang Shiyu
Soaked In was also nominated for the Anifilm Czech International Animation Film Festival and made its debut in Europe at the Animac Spain Animation Festival. Additionally, Tang Shiyu’s previous designer work, Borers, was nominated for 29 international film festivals, including the London International Animation Film Festival. During this year’s graduate application season, Tang has already received offers to continue in her design studies at CalArts, RCA, AIC and Pratt.
The screenshot of Soaked In
Copy editor: Melody Zhang, Mayfield Joshua Monroe, Philip Nash
Editor: Yvaine Lyu
