Hello, my name is Jasmine McCoy and I am a graphic designer at Sacramento State. This is a case study for the SquishVille Series 2 mystery squad by Squishmallows redesign. The project was to redesign an experience I was highly interested in. I collect Squishmallows and as a collector, there isn't very much information about full squads and when and where consumers can buy them. I wanted to redesign and rebrand this series to give collectors a full list of all 24 squishes included, as well as a brand update.
The experience as a whole, is collecting SquishVille Series 2 Squishmallows. The experience starts with seeing a social media post for the new SquishVille Series 2, which the Squishmallows company currently doesn't do. Then they would be sent over to a landing page that explained the series as well as showed all 24 possible characters you can get, and what stores carry this series will be listed. Then while they are waiting, they would see "SquishVille Series 2 sold here" signs or wall stickers at various stores so they know where to go to buy the Squishmallows. Again, they currently don't do anything like this just a list of stores that may carry any Squishmallows on their website, and they usually don't carry this special series. Then at the actual experience, you would see the retail display that is in brand and draws you in. I also designed a box that the plastic capsule would be inside of, that the Squishmallows are inside of .After you have made your purchase and you are home, you open the plastic squish capsule, and your SquishVille character will be in there plus the clothing item and a newly designed bio tag/checklist. Each tag would be specific to each character and have a mini bio and custom background. They currently do this with their other bigger Squishmallows but not SquishVille Series.
I started by doing all of the research for every touchpoint; I did proto personas, a UX questionnaire, a heuristic markup, a competitive analysis, and finally a comparative analysis. Then I re-branded and then sketching for all of the touchpoints. Then I hard-lined all of the designs. I tried to stay on top of completing a big task every week so I didn't fall behind.
My main goal was to have the user be excited and curious as to what 24 characters are included and also compelled to collect all 24. The main call to action is to purchase a SquishVille Series 2 mystery box and want to keep buying them to have a whole village or potentially to trade with friends. In addition, I wanted the user to be clear where to purchase this new series.
Currently the company doesn't do a very good job explaining where specifically this series can be purchased, that's why the first three touchpoints highlight where to purchase the set. Squishmallows also does not have a full list of all the characters included specifically in this series. So I made sure to list them and use their names and the actual characters in the series in the branding throughout all 5 touchpoints
Logo
The current brand doesn't really have a color scheme (maybe a quad) but I wanted to trim down on the colors and just use tints. I also don't think having every letter on a different baseline is working or the blue background around the letters.
The retail branding is slightly more cohesive but I still wanted to make everything feel like one system. The plastic wrapping around the plastic capsule is extremely hard to remove, so I designed a box for the plastic egg to go in. I also re-designed the retail display because I always have difficulties grabbing multiple in the box.
Capsule
Retail Display