byond: Play!

Role Researcher, Motion Graphic Designer
Team Alfred M, Nabilah N

BA (Hons) in Design Practice

TV Commercial (Alfred M as DoP)

The Project

Brief: Create a brand from [research topics from the previous semester] and design a campaign to go with it.

Every day, 76% of unwanted wooden furniture is thrown away, resulting in an enormous amount of waste. By working together with residential communities, byond: Play! aims to reduce furniture waste and raise awareness through collaborative efforts, making big changes achieved through seemingly insignificant but smart acts.

byond: Play! envisions a world where play is not just play, but a world-building opportunity. Through the cultivation of long-lasting habits, the campaign aims to empower children to build their own future by first building their own playgrounds.

The Research & Branding

In the previous school semester, our course tackled the brief from SG Eco Fund. It produced several unique sustainability projects in our class, and each of our team members had distinct research topics. The challenge for this term was to somehow build a brand from the combination of the three projects and design a sustainability campaign based on it.

With this, we set our intentions to be an impactful brand that pushes our audience to take action for the betterment of the environment, even if it takes small steps at first. This led to our brand philosophy, which is based on two things: the butterfly effect and the compound effect. Once we decided to use the butterfly as a central motif, our branding journey soon started, birthing byond.

Brand Pitch

Brand Guide (Arranged by Nabilah N)

With the branding settled, we started building our campaign by researching how people take small steps to achieve big goals. Instead of looking into the gaps in systems or hidden issues, we approached the project by literally activating users from the start—from early—by focusing on child users.

As we researched current trends in children’s behaviours and preferences, we discovered that—as tech-savvy as they are—children actually yearn for more tangible forms of play, as evidenced by the widespread popularity of immersive “sandbox” games like Roblox and Minecraft. Leveraging this demand, we looked into case studies abroad on child development and play, and found gold when we pivoted to experiential play. There were copious amounts of case studies that we took inspiration from—self-directed learning kits, risky play, adventure playgrounds, and unsupervised playtime—and we were able to do so while incorporating an eco-sustainability issue: excessive wooden waste from discarded furniture. We devised a system where unused wooden furniture will be dismantled and reprocessed, becoming building materials for our young users to build and play with. This was then developed into the campaign, byond: Play!.

The Campaign

Campaign Pitch

The multimedia campaign involved several deliverables (including the above TV commercial):

Interactive pre-play collateral to build anticipation before the users proceed to the play space.

Web poster that leads residents to a donation portal, encouraging them to send their furniture for repurposing.

Floor visual encouraging children to build on each other’s structures, enforcing communal play. The placement is such that the play space can be identified from above when the children are looking out their window.

A foldable version of the A1 presentation board, made to be read and kept by exhibition visitors.

A1 presentation board detailing the project and its design outcomes.

Motion poster encouraging residents to donate, providing them with a scanable QR code leading to the web poster.

The Journal

The project’s research was documented and collated into a Creative Process Journal (CPJ). The journal was almost entirely self-produced (some printing was outsourced), from binding to trimming to inserting actual sketches and notes. The journal was also recognised as one of the most comprehensive ones in the class.

Peep the full CPJ rnnnn. ;P !!

Book 1: M1SHMASH, focusing on the initial ideation and first ever pitch of the brand.

Book 2: EXPAN2ION, focusing on the creation of a subsidiary brand.

Book 3: SYNTH3SIS, focusing on the resynthesis of the brand through a campaign.

Book 4: ENDG4ME, focusing on production and the conclusion of the project.

Project Gallery

Exhibition Views

Next of Kin

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) Student Showcase

Next of Kin

Singapore Design Week 2023