Building Futuristic Technology That Feels Real: Design Future Technology That Audiences Believe In

Taylor Turjanica is a designer and creative director specializing in speculative design, interaction design, and visual development for narrative media. Over the past fifteen years, Turjanica has worked with feature film studios, television networks, and technology companies to design futuristic interfaces, devices, and interactive systems that serve story first and spectacle second.

Turjanica's approach to design is grounded in a simple conviction: audiences can tell when technology is built to impress versus built to function. That conviction has shaped a career spent at the intersection of craft and storytelling, collaborating with directors, writers, production designers, and engineers to create technology that audiences not only see but believe in.

Turjanica has held senior design roles at studios including Microsoft Research and Frog Design, where the work spanned concept development for speculative products, interaction design for emerging platforms, and creative direction for entertainment clients. Projects have ranged from designing the in-world interfaces for award-winning science fiction films to leading research initiatives on how audiences perceive and evaluate fictional technology.

Outside of client work, Turjanica speaks regularly at design conferences and universities on the principles of believable futuristic design, prototyping methods for narrative media, and the ethical responsibility of designers who build visions of the future. Turjanica has been a featured speaker at SXSW, OFFF, the UIST Conference, and the Interaction Design Association's annual summit.

Taylor Turjanica currently lives in Los Angeles and serves as a design consultant for media and technology clients. This is the first book.