Magnetic Theatre

The Idea

Every new project starts from a few specific requirement: the target age, the piece count and the ideal price. The challenge here was quite hard, as we had to find a way to design an interesting product with just a few magnetic clips and 8 cubes available. Yes, 8. So, what can a 3-year-old kid child do with such a small number of cubes and clips? Perhaps 5 or 6 building activities, but nothing more. It occurred to us that maybe telling a story would make the playing activity more amusing, so instead of stick to neutral illustrations on the clips we decided to tell a story.

The Story

We had to choose a story well known by children of all nationalities. There are a lot of stories out there: The Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears just to name a few. We decided to design the game around the Three Little Pigs because it apparently was the best known story of all times in all nationalities. It was also a good fit for our game because it tells three mini-stories inside a big one: the first pig in the straw house, the second in the wood house, the third in the brick house. This translated in 3 different game configurations that could be achieved with only 8 cubes. That was a pretty acceptable result!

The Characters

Our illustrator designed the main characters of the story along with details of the surroundings. These could be attached to the faces of the cubes in order to build an interesting scene. The nice thing about these clips was that they could be repositioned every time you wanted, making it more fun for small children to invent limitless configurations. Moreover, the geometry of the cube itself made it possible to attach one clip to every side, enhancing the 3d feature of the game.

scene1 — Scene of the wolf hiding behind a tree and waiting for the pigs to settle. The scene is built with cubes and magnetic clips. The clips can be positioned on every side of each cube.

scene2 — Scene of the wolf blowing off the pigs' brick house. The scene is built with cubes and magnetic clips. The clips can be positioned on every side of each cube.

The Packaging

Once defined the characters and the game activity, we started focusing on the packaging. For this type of game we would normally have gone with a basic cardboard or a pvc box. This time though we thought that it might be even more interesting to have a sort of theatre in which every child could become a director. A tin box seemed to be the best option because it created depth along with a solid magnetic support for the cubes.

Now it was time to dress up our tin box and give it a style. Since the theme was a theatre, we decided to give it a Shakespearean mood with curtains and masks. The color palette was a result of the Magicube brand color (red) and a golden yellow which recalled classical theatre. The front cover of the box was crucial as it had to communicate the playing activity. We had to find a way to represent 3 elements: the theatre, the story and the magnetism. After different tries we came up with an interesting solution which depicted a stage with a brick wall and the cubes with the characters attached to it.

visual1 — First proposal of the Magnetic Theatre front cover. The idea of the Shakespearean theatre was well represented, but the playing activity was not explained at all.

visual2 — Second proposal of the Magnetic Theatre front cover. The Shakespearean note was kept in the typography and in the graphic elements surrounding the scene, but the main attention is given to the playing activity.

The second proposal convinced the majority because it communicated the playing activity in a better way. The same style was used on the sides of the boxes where we inserted additional information such as the piece account and the box contents.

Three magnetic scenarios were added to the box contents. These sheets were supposed to be placed inside the top cover of the tin box, giving the scene a nice background.

theatre components — Exploded view of the tin box and the scenarios. We identified two possible locations, outdoor and indoor, along with a parquetryto be used as a floor.

theatre open — Magnetic Theatre - view of the opened tin box. The scene represented is the wolf blowing on the first pig's straw house. The cubes can be dragged on the surface and moved around ad preferred.

The Booklet

Which story doesn't come with a booklet? This was designed as if it were a theatre script. The story was divided in Acts, each of them featuring specific characters from the novel. The style of the booklet followed the Shakespearean style of the tin box, with a theatre-like style emphasized by the curtains at the edges and a serif font for the headings. As a final touch, a surface polish was applied to the texture with the masks used as the background image of each page.