De Stijl
Tumbling Tower
THE CHALLENGE
The MoMA design store wanted a fresh giftable product for their wholesale catalogue. Proposals should match the globally-renowned MoMA brand, communicate their function at a glance, and be remarkably simple to produce.
THE SOLUTION
A straightforward but yet unexplored take on the classic Jenga game. By coating the blocks in the signature De Stijl colors and straight lines the unmistakable aesthetics of this art movement comes to life. Cleverly referencing De Stijl ideas of balance and dynamism, the composition evolves as each player makes their mark.
TOOLS
Procreate
Shapr3D
Illustrator
DURATION
7 weeks
CLIENT
MoMA Design Store
Role & Collaborators
MY ROLE
Lead designer
WHAT I DID
Ideation, naming and copuwriting, low-to-high-fidelity prototyping, design specs, pitchinnegotiation, client relations
COLLABORATORS
Moon Cho-Li: Product Manager (MoMA)
Gabrielle Zola: Assistant Director of Business Development (MoMA)
Sinclair Scott Smith: Industrial design advisor
Kimaya Malwade: Specification sheet advisor
Clear, low-risk, and classically modern
MoMA's products require all three.
Not all concepts are appropriate for MoMA to wholesale under their brand. In the post-pandemic era, the product's aesthetics needed to be contemporary and "global" while also easily manufactured, affordable, and resilient to supply-chain challenges.
An under-explored icon
Mondrian, father of modernism, is everywhere. Is there room for new?
There’s a million wares slapped with Mondrian graphics. There's also plenty of products with angular bodies that get split into primary colors and outlined in black. But all these have something in common: they’re static, and need not be.
Balance in asymmetry
Extrapolating the core ideas
of De Stijl movement.
Mondrian was concerned with questions about balance through asymmetry, and so was the broader De Stijl movement, which he founded. De Stijl compositions guide our gaze in a dynamic journey. I saw an opportunity to translate these ideas into a dynamic product.
Applying form to function
Modernist balance in action. Testing the concept with key stakeholders.
This prototype aimed to quickly communicate the concept and gauge MoMA's interest in further development. Shown alongside dozens of other concepts, MoMA's Associate Director of Merchandizing gave the green light.
Refining the CMF
Dialing in line and color with adaptive prototyping.
Finding the equilibrium between the colored faces and the lines would take trial and error. How to keep the prototype fast and lean? Using sticky black tape, I tested and found the sweet spot for De Stijl's classic black lines.
Cutting down to 3 blocks
Streamlining the block variations for production constraints.
MoMA announced wanting to bring the design into production. The challenge was now to simplify the prototype for manufacturing so that with the least number of block variations the same varied De Stijl effect could be achieved.
Product success
MoMA Design Store sells $87,000 worth of units within three months.
During the peak holiday season, MoMA Design Store features the De Stijl Tumbling Tower on key environmental signage. Architectural Digest, the international design authority, promotes the product in its magazine. Within three months of product launch, MoMA places a re-order with the factory.
Takeaways
Next steps
1. Designing is as much about designing the thing as considering how that thing will be made.
2. All ideas should have a home in sketching, even those that mentors said not to consider.
3. There is a sweet spot between where creativity thrives and plausibility exists. It's a pleasure to seek it.
Once MoMA makes the product available, I'd like to run user interviews out of curiosity. I'd like to learn how the game is performing at a mechanical (is the friction right?), visual (is DeStijl coming through?), and emotional level (what are users' reactions?)
Also, I'm preparing to pitch two other products to MoMA and a competitor.