Context and description

The daily newspaper horoscope is traditionally presented in the form of a ‘star signs’ page in which the reader is supplied with an ‘experts’ interpretation of their stars, often accompanied with bland photo scenarios and wince inducing graphical details.

There was a time however, when the stars were mysterious, when people crowded round the fortune-teller’s tent in the hope for their future to be unveiled before their very eyes. Not just a case of ‘the same words, in a different order’. Though few people will analyse them religiously, for many remains a kind of daily entertainment.

The ‘Hidden Horoscope’ newspaper engages the user to search for their star printed at the bottom of seemingly ordinary pages. By using the heat of your hand, the body text disappears, revealing your hidden horoscope extracted from the text left behind on the page.

Hidden horoscopes was a response to a one week ‘pressure project’ exploring new ways in which people can interact with their horoscope.

Aims and objectives

It was important that the feeling of discovering your horoscope felt as if it were somehow magical. The prototype had to reflect this and be able to stand-alone so the true magic came from discovery and experimentation.

The body text around the horoscope was printed in thermochromic ink so when heated by your hand, a mug of tea or left out in the sun or over a radiator, it would seem to disappear leaving your horoscope left printed in normal black ink.

Stuart Wood and Phil Worthington, Royal College of Art, interaction design, 2004.