Hidden realms of the natural world came alive at the Mandai Wildlife Reserve with the opening of Exploria in March 2026. Spanning 10,000 square metres, Exploria is one of Southeast Asia’s largest indoor, nature-themed multimedia attractions, inviting visitors to experience extraordinary environments and phenomena rarely accessible to humans – from prehistoric eras and extreme habitats, to microscopic ecosystems and the depths of ocean darkness. Through immersive architecture and responsive media, Exploria reveals nature at scales and perspectives beyond everyday reach.
Mighty Jaxx, commerce retail partner of Mandai Exploria, had the opportunity to create a series of plush blind boxes for the Exploria experience. We also got the opportunity to take over the Exploria shop with Mighty Jaxx's Exploria collection.
The first stage of the Exploria Shop launch was to create a skin for the store's exterior space -- starting out with a hoarding that signalled something special coming soon, and finally the store's window decals in the second stage.
The graphics were adapted from the packaging and product's concept art, diligently created by both our graphic and product team! The idea of the window decals were to emulate the environment that our plushies lived in along the Exploria shop facade, while allowing for passersby to peek in to get a glimpse of our retail offerings in the store. The Mighty Jaxx branding was used minimally as this project was more focused on it as a collaboration with Mandai Wildlife Group, rather than a Mighty Jaxx solo product. It was so cool to see and take photos of the store's window decals, and I always get the warm fuzzies when friends who visit Mandai send me pictures of the hoarding I designed! hehe
Moving onto the main store space, I was tasked to work on the photo op space of the Exploria Shop, that led from the actual Exploria experience. Building off existing recess wall spaces built by Mandai's team, we wanted to create a really adorable display space for people to take photos at and with. The bigger recess wall space was used to create a layered cut out environment of our cute little plushie characters inviting customers to "explore their world". The smaller recess wall spaces were used to display the plushie samples in a miniature layered cut out environment. We made sure to keep the recess wall open so people could touch and feel the plush material of the actual product.
These white LED strips actually change colours throughout the day, changing the vibe of the display and photo op!
The rest of the store space was designed by my team mate, Ruoyi!
Working with such a cute series of characters was a really big change! Mighty Jaxx's product offerings tend to lean toward a more masculine and edgy look, with its popular XXRAY dissected stylisation, so working on a project with a different art direction than usual was really fun! I personally love working with cute mascot characters, so it only made the project more enjoyable. Additionally, the opportunity to work with one of Singapore's largest organisations, Mandai, was such a dream come true! I also really looooooove animals, so creating an experience where people could bring their own cuddly friends home, was a super entertaining journey!
As this was one of my first major projects as a VM designer, I got to learn a lot about spatial design (in Sketchup)! One of the biggest obstacles faced was also learning how to read technical layouts and drawings. Mandai had already designed the whole store space, so we were tasked to take their technical drawings to create designs with. Unfortunately, as I was out of the country during the initial site visit, I had a hard time understanding the dimensions and layout of the store space, which made designing for the space slightly more difficult. For all our subsequent local projects, we've always made it a point to conduct site visits with the designers and project managers involved in the project to ensure everyone is on the same page about the layout, making communication and planning easier!
Hidden realms of the natural world came alive at the Mandai Wildlife Reserve with the opening of Exploria in March 2026. Spanning 10,000 square metres, Exploria is one of Southeast Asia’s largest indoor, nature-themed multimedia attractions, inviting visitors to experience extraordinary environments and phenomena rarely accessible to humans – from prehistoric eras and extreme habitats, to microscopic ecosystems and the depths of ocean darkness. Through immersive architecture and responsive media, Exploria reveals nature at scales and perspectives beyond everyday reach.
Mighty Jaxx, commerce retail partner of Mandai Exploria, had the opportunity to create a series of plush blind boxes for the Exploria experience. We also got the opportunity to take over the Exploria shop with Mighty Jaxx's Exploria collection.
The first stage of the Exploria Shop launch was to create a skin for the store's exterior space -- starting out with a hoarding that signalled something special coming soon, and finally the store's window decals in the second stage.
The graphics were adapted from the packaging and product's concept art, diligently created by both our graphic and product team! The idea of the window decals were to emulate the environment that our plushies lived in along the Exploria shop facade, while allowing for passersby to peek in to get a glimpse of our retail offerings in the store. The Mighty Jaxx branding was used minimally as this project was more focused on it as a collaboration with Mandai Wildlife Group, rather than a Mighty Jaxx solo product. It was so cool to see and take photos of the store's window decals, and I always get the warm fuzzies when friends who visit Mandai send me pictures of the hoarding I designed! hehe
Moving onto the main store space, I was tasked to work on the photo op space of the Exploria Shop, that led from the actual Exploria experience. Building off existing recess wall spaces built by Mandai's team, we wanted to create a really adorable display space for people to take photos at and with. The bigger recess wall space was used to create a layered cut out environment of our cute little plushie characters inviting customers to "explore their world". The smaller recess wall spaces were used to display the plushie samples in a miniature layered cut out environment. We made sure to keep the recess wall open so people could touch and feel the plush material of the actual product.
These white LED strips actually change colours throughout the day, changing the vibe of the display and photo op!
The rest of the store space was designed by my team mate, Ruoyi!
Working with such a cute series of characters was a really big change! Mighty Jaxx's product offerings tend to lean toward a more masculine and edgy look, with its popular XXRAY dissected stylisation, so working on a project with a different art direction than usual was really fun! I personally love working with cute mascot characters, so it only made the project more enjoyable. Additionally, the opportunity to work with one of Singapore's largest organisations, Mandai, was such a dream come true! I also really looooooove animals, so creating an experience where people could bring their own cuddly friends home, was a super entertaining journey!
As this was one of my first major projects as a VM designer, I got to learn a lot about spatial design (in Sketchup)! One of the biggest obstacles faced was also learning how to read technical layouts and drawings. Mandai had already designed the whole store space, so we were tasked to take their technical drawings to create designs with. Unfortunately, as I was out of the country during the initial site visit, I had a hard time understanding the dimensions and layout of the store space, which made designing for the space slightly more difficult. For all our subsequent local projects, we've always made it a point to conduct site visits with the designers and project managers involved in the project to ensure everyone is on the same page about the layout, making communication and planning easier!