Designers
Designers
Designers
LINKIE
A playful and educational blind box aimed to make culture playful and easy to understand
Key Words
Designers
Xiaoyu (Drizzle) Zhong
SUMMARY
The starting point is modern travels make culture visible but not truly understood for tourists via a few trips. Meanwhile, young people are relying on blind boxes like LABUBU and soft toys like Jellycat to relieve spiritual pressures. My initial purpose is to make blind boxes more meaningful. Through some design research, there is a gap between cultural depth and emotional playfulness. New blind box LINKIE aims to transform blind boxes into playful collectibles with NFC technology to fill this gap, which makes it much easier for users to connect with each other and receive more in-depth cultural learning.
challenge
There are differences among stakeholders, including tourists, young generation, blind box collectors and cultural organizations. As souvenirs are homogeneous and travel experiences become surface-level photo snapping, tourists can't fully understand culture. Young generations and blind box collectors hope to receive emotional comfort from blind boxes, but existing products lack in-depth cultural narrative. Cultural organizations want to expand cultural influences but fail to discover creative solutions. This business gap indicates a need for playful design medium that makes culture easy to understand and accessible.
Outcome
LINKIE is an innovative cultural collectible brand that integrates visually appealing figurines with digital technology. The first series is about festivals, and it consists of 8 characters to directly showcase diverse cultures around the world. Each character is followed by an NFC chip, which enables users to unlock digital characters, to learn more cultural knowledge, and to connect with each other via a fan community. Finally, LINKIE offers more meaningful cultural takeaways to tourists, more layered emotional experiences to young generations and collectors, and a creative solution for cultural organizations to spread cultures easily.
MEET THE Designers:
Xiaoyu (Drizzle) Zhong