Juan Zitara

The CicLAvia puzzle hunt was a 9 piece puzzle distributed to different sponsor booths at 5 hubs in the South LA event. It encouraged engagement between participants and sponsors by giving them a chance to speak about what they do, how they do it, and reward participants in the process. My contributions to the project were mockups for the puzzle and other possible directions, custom logo, event leaflets and signage, and an Instagram story announcing the puzzle hunt.

CicLAvia wanted to increase engagement and participation between attendees and smaller sponsors.

Through interviews we learned that many loyal participants look forward to collecting the commemorative pins that are given out at each event. Our field observations also showed that people love free products. Booths that gave out merchandise were the most popular and received the highest amount of foot traffic.

Our solution harnessed the power of adventure and merchandising by distributing 9 pieces of the puzzle along with a frame to many different booths. This way those who wanted a full puzzle would have to traverse the whole route and go up to booths that may otherwise go unnoticed. Feedback from sponsors and CicLAvia themselves showed that it was very successful in opening conversations between participants and sponsors.

The focus of this project was to redesign the French toy car manufacturer Majorette. The brief was based on the brand wanting to expand to the American market and needing a new identity in order to stand out among its competitors Hot Wheels and Matchbox.

Majorette is relatively unknown in the US. In 2017, after an 18 year absence in the country, they partnered with Toys R Us to sell their products. However, Toys R Us’ bankruptcy the following year severely reduced the brand’s visibility. There are currently two large brands that control most of the US market: Hot Wheels and Matchbox, both owned by Mattel. Majorette is almost exclusively available at Target stores and relegated to a very small section of the toy car aisle.

I started with a creative brief where I studied the brand. I researched the history of their logo, milestones, their core values, brand attributes, their mission statement, target market and competition. After researching its history, competitors, values, as well as its social media; I found that they are very proud of their heritage and kept that in mind as I was redesigning their identity. I ideated ideas for a new logo that would respect their heritage while pushing forward into the future. A key element I found amongst most of their logos is that the "ajo" in “Majorette’ forms a person riding in a car, and I kept that in the new logo. The “J” has also become its own graphical element.

The solution is a bright, simple redesign that looks modern while still being playful. The colors and packaging stand out from the light blue used by Hot Wheels and the orange used by Matchbox. As previously mentioned, I strived for preserving the “ajo” driver motif found in almost all previous iterations of the logo. The final design uses the colors red, white and blue to emulate the French flag and maintain a consistent design theme that stands out amongst Hot Wheels and Matchbox packaging. A blue and white stripe is used as a primary design feature along with the stylized J motif.