Hopescotch
Thinking*Room• Date added
27 July 2023
Hopescotch is a commemorative initiative project designed to celebrate the Chinese New Year of 2023, paying tribute to the Year of the Water Rabbit. Inspired by the mischievous hops of rabbits, the traditional hopscotch games and hopes for the year ahead, Hopescotch takes the form of a wall scroll calendar named "Born Hopescotch".
Bandung and Jakarta-based branding and design company Thinking*Room initiated the Hopescotch project. The team was in charge of conceptualising, designing and producing the calendar with the aim of encouraging individuals to embrace each day with a sense of renewed hope and mindfulness.
Client
Thinking*Room
Year
2023
Creative Director
Eric Widjaja
Art Director
Ritter Willy Putra
Ira Carella
A beloved childhood pastime, the hopscotch game is known for its diverse patterns that vary across countries and regions worldwide. Recognising the versatility of hopscotch, Thinking*Room seized the opportunity to design a functional and meaningful product for their annual Lunar New Year initiative projects. The result was a fitting embodiment of their vision – a wall scroll calendar featuring 12 boxes that represent each month of the year, ingeniously forming a rabbit head figure to be hopped upon. The similarity between hopscotch and a calendar lies in their shared journey, where individuals navigate through each box and day to achieve completion.
“The Chinese zodiac has long been a familiar culture for us, and has become something that we look up to every year. We have dedicated ourselves to exploring the Chinese zodiac for years, and we constantly strive to find exciting new ways to deliver the output but not in a literal way. We want everyone, not of a particular ethnicity, to be able to be part of the celebration, and feel seen or relevant.”
The Chinese characters 兔子 (read: Tùzǐ) representing the word “rabbit” played an integral role in shaping the identity of Hopescotch. Thinking*Room transformed these two characters to resemble the number '23', while retaining a sense of fluidity reminiscent of water. The resulting design, with its rounded contours and whimsical nature, pays homage to the water rabbit while serving as key traits that influenced the Hopescotch logotype. A custom display type was combined with Thinking*Room's own typeface, TR Grotesk, for a more unique and eye-catching composition.
In terms of practicality, the scroll calendar was printed on Tyvek – a durable and lightweight material known for its resistance to tearing and moisture. To ensure stability and ease of use, an acrylic rod was incorporated at one end, ensuring the calendar remains secured in place as the months unfold.
Through Hopescotch, Thinking*Room aspires to embrace a prosperous journey by taking positive steps forward, guided by the modern-day ‘enlightenment’ derived from the water rabbit which conveys the notion that success is shaped by relentless efforts and dreams rather than mere prophecies.
“We look inside and out of the zodiac signs, seeing from various angles and perspectives, intertwining them with different objects, cultures, languages and colours in order to come up with a new interpretation of each zodiac. Ultimately, the exploration is a result of respecting the tradition through the eyes of today’s graphic designers.”
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