Designer Baby Project
What choices should we be allowed to make when it comes to genetically modifying babies? This project mimicked a fictional company offering genetic modification as a service, allowing users to experience how they might "order" a child online.
The main challenge was balancing realism with fiction: it had to feel plausible without being mistaken for an actual service. The storyline was designed so that user choices grew increasingly complex the further in they went, while not every disease was explained in detail adding to the sense of overwhelm and lack of control. To avoid the monotony of one long form, aesthetic traits like eye and hair color were presented through playful body-part radio buttons.
The project was created in 2021 together with science journalist and author Torill Kornfeldt, coinciding with the release of her book The Unnatural Selection of Our Species. At the time, we set a fictional launch date of 2027 for the company. In 2025, we decided to move this date forward—only to be alerted shortly after that a real service of this kind had appeared.
Technical implementation in HTML and CSS, concept and visual design.