The Makr

Branding For The Future

The Team:

Haili Wu

Lucas Cheskin

Sian Mackay

Zoe Reiful

The Project Outline:

As an important component of the modern living environment. How could the meaning of the bathroom change in the future? How can the change drive new demand?
In the project, we research the societal shift and speculate how we might live in the future, then identify branding opportunities based on the user demand we see.

Design Process

STEEPLE Card

The 'STEEPlE' card stands for 'Social, Technical, Ecology, Economical, Political, Legal and Ethical'. It allows me to systematically learn about the current world from a multi-dimensional perspective and track societal shifts. We are interested in the share economic and co-living trends that appear in our research, which an increasing number of people will face in the future. We follow up the finding by a speculation process, looking at how such a lifestyle could affect people's experience of the bathroom space in their house.

Design Opportunity

The bathroom, an essential component of the house, is often seen as a dirty place, a place people would compress and exchange for more living space. However, in the future, when share living becomes common, the bathroom will become one of the few places that can provide a private space for people. A place allows people to express themself truly, and temperately escape from the world. Therefore, what If we build a brand and products that encourage people to enjoy the 'me-time' instead of judging them for acting weird? What if we build a brand to make the moment even more playful? Helping people feel strong ownership of their life brings positive change to their mental state.

The Brand Moment Concept

We start to visualise how people use the space from the research and frame some moments we think it is a good opportunity for a brand and design.

Ideation

We noticed that the best way to improve ‘ownership’ is to allow them to express their identity through self-making, having the ability to change the space into something they want. However, changing the room’s interior seems less realised and sustainable in shared housing. Therefore, we start to think about using objects in that space to increase the personal attachment between the user and the bathroom. One good way to achieve that is to allow our users to make their products; we believe the making process creates a close feeling, making the space around it more personal, just like people will feel much settled when they meet someone they know at a strange place.
After knowing what experience we might provide, we start to imagine the characteristics of our brand. We began by making multiple mood boards and letting them inspire us on what the brand should look and feel.
The name ‘Makr’ can show our core product idea, which is self-made. The logo is simple; the ‘:’ in the logo indicates that anyone got the possibility to join us and become one of the ‘makers’. The space behind the ‘:’ means that there is always space for our user to enter.

Brand Story

The idea of our brand is becoming clear. However, we want people to feel our brand more directly and emotionally. Also, to understand why our brand will exist in the possible future.
Therefore, I take responsibility for my team to create a story behind our brand. I took inspiration from our previous insight into the future and the brand mood board and drew a story that can explain our brand’s existence in a possible future base on our research.

The Makr story: based on our future vision of 2030

Today, we produce about 300 million tonnes of plastic waste a year. Our oceans could contain more plastic than fish by 2050.
-United Nations
Environment.

The world population is predicted to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, that is a billion more people than there are now.
-United Nations

In 2030, the world will become overcrowded; more young people will need to share their life with others. They will share living spaces, work spaces, and personal spaces.

In a world full of improvisation and adaption, it is difficult to express one’s identity.

It is time to step back, take a break, and rethink who you are. Express yourself through creativity with us.

Just like back to your childhood; living in a content life. The fun moments you shared with your friends. A life full of opportunity.

Just like the first time you used play-doh, you believe the material in your hands can become anything. in this moment you share with friends ; you have countless possibilities in your hands.

In this moment, you are creating something for yourself. In this place, you enjoy the happiness that create by you.

In this moment, be one of us. In this moment, become one of the makers and express your personal identity.

The Makr Lab

We started to refine the brand and the products it should provide after we clear about what our brand is about. We aimed to develop the products and experience like an ecosystem because we believe a brand that is ‘tight’ can allow its user to understand quickly and maintain a harmonious user community that supports the brand. However, there are many small details that we need to due with during the design process. Therefore, we tried to use the benefit of group work, which is thinking and making decisions together, building different props by dividing the work. As a result, we can think and build very efficiently. However, I think the outcome will be even better if we spend more time thinking about the way to communicate our idea in the exhibition. During the brand refinement, I took the responsibility of designing the shop of our brand, where a place to set up our community and make friends with our customers. Therefore, I tried to deliver an experience to our user that fit our brand’s character. I combine design sketches and storyboard to refine my design.

Outcome

Make Brand Statement

In the future, young people living in shared spaces may lose their sense of individuality. Makr is a brand that encourages our customers to express themselves through creativity. Our experience allows our customers to create bathroom products that are personal and sustainable.