Around the FabCafe World in 180 Days Vol.3 Kuala Lumpur – The role of Playfulness in Creativity and Design

Finding issues, solving problems, and coming up with ideas. There are many projects and plans being created every day in the world. However, one thing that often happens to all kinds of projects is that they somehow tend to be “well-behaved, serious, and rigid”. You’ve gathered a wide range of talents and data, coordinated with stakeholders, and put together a feasible plan, but somehow people don’t get involved and the project doesn’t continue, or in the end, you don’t even want to do the project that much…

People will not be moved by “what should be done”. People are more likely to get involved in something which makes them feel like they themselves want to do it at each individual level. This kind of fun project can lead to a chain of chemical reactions to bring others on board.

The theme for Around the FabCafe World in 180 Days (AFW180) vol.3 is “playfulness”. What are the kinds of designs that  increase the fun and excitement of a project, that doesn’t impose theory or just good intentions, will be discussed by the two groups that are developing activities with the keyword of playfulness. These two groups are the two representatives of FabCafe Kuala Lumpur and the two members of the design unit Playfool.

Dan and Saki from Playfool are professionals who design things that are fun and exciting. In 2018, they won the Good Design Award for their “PLAYFOOL Workshop”, a toolkit for creative thinking developed with Mimicry Design. Also in 2020, they created a YouTube video that expands play by combining Legos and paper. Their video has over 2 million views, and the number of subscribers to the channel has grown from 20,000 to 75,000 in three months (currently 130,000 are subscribed). In 2021, “Forest Crayons“, a crayon developed for the WOOD CHANGE CHALLENGE to explore the possibilities of domestic Japanese wood, was shortlisted in the Product Design category of the Dezeen Design Awards.

The following message is written on their website:

We believe play has the power to engage people in unusual and innovative ways, and it is our mission to show how embracing a little play can make a big impact.

The approach of Playfool will give a hint to anyone involved in any business or project who feels that “something is missing”.

「Forest Crayons」, crayons with colors extracted from tree trunks

FabCafe Kuala Lumpur opened in 2020 as the 11th FabCafe. Co-founder Andi Permadi has worked in the advertising industry as an art director, and Gwyneth Jong has been involved in commercial facilities and office design as an interior designer. Since FabCafe Kuala Lumpur opened, they have been working energetically on projects such as biomaterial research and product development, not to be outdone by the pandemic. Both of them have experience in the creative business field and what they have in common is a playful design that excites people. At the Global Goals Jam (a design workshop to tackle the SDGs held simultaneously around the world), which was held in September 2021, they collaborated with organizers from Japan and Bangkok and facilitated three workshops. They led the team to an output that was not just for good intentions but engaging with fun games.

FabCafe, which was born in Tokyo in 2012, has now spread to cities around the world. Each FabCafe is carrying out creative community activities for society through unique and experimental approaches. In many cases, the Founders of FabCafes around the world had their own career and projects with their own unique backgrounds, skills, savviness in technology and communities before they launched their own FabCafes. They empathized with the spirit of FabCafe and then opened cafes in various places to further expand their activities. One team is developing biomaterials with a research institute, another is organizing a global SDGs educational program, and in response to the corona pandemic, there are also teams that are contributing to the needs of medical professionals by organizing a system to increase production of much needed medical equipment.

With the characteristics of each branch and the scope of their activities ever expanding, we are starting a series of events where the leaders of each branch can introduce their activities in a marathon fashion in order to reconnect and show the diversity and strength of the FabCafe network. This series is called “Around the FabCafe World in 180 Days”, named after the novel “Around the World in Eighty Days”. Join us as we unravel the activities and unique leaders of each location!