Gone are the days of film, vinyl, cassette. The storage devices that held significant moments and memories have been transcribed into digital data. As the physicality of these mementos diminishes into files buried deep within our hard drives, it is difficult to not feel a loss for what was once tangible.

For her thesis project at Isituto Europeo di Design, Vanessa Redondo sought to bring back the memento for the digital era with a series of artfully designed USB drives. Each drive was designed with a theme in mind: life, secrets, and work. Life, intended to store photos of vacations, celebrations, etc, is a series of white branches that fit together into a single, large tree limb. Secrets, a drive in the form of a feathered pendent hanging from necklace, keeps those private conversations, secrets, and naughty pictures close to the chest. Perhaps the most visually compelling of the series is Work, a series of jagged porcelain sculptures in soothing shades of aqua, green, and white on glossy wooden docking base.

Memories is not about practical storage or advanced design as it is about creating an embodiment for the simple files that hold so much importance.