Wonderlab: Build a World with Rules, Not Just More Surfaces

Read the campaign story

A shop, a package and a film could feel like places in the same imagined world. Swarovski’s 2021 Wonderlab identity used vivid settings and octagonal forms across its presentation. Contemporary reporting described candy-like Instant Wonder stores; the April film extended the imaginative direction through moving images. The identity and stores were documented earlier that year, so the film is one expression of the wider family rather than its assumed starting point.

Editorial interpretation: a brand world is more demanding than a repeated colour or logo. It needs relationships that remain intelligible when the medium changes. A physical setting has to help someone orient themselves; packaging has to identify and hold an offer; a film can create associations through time and movement. The creative question is how those different jobs can feel connected without all becoming copies of a single composition. Coherence should make each expression easier to understand, not excuse one format for failing at its own task.

There is also a tension between fantasy and recognition. A vivid setting can make an object feel newly interesting while obscuring what is actually available. An adaptation should therefore include a way back from atmosphere to the product, its description and the conditions of the offer. The cited creator and contemporary accounts establish the 2021 visual direction and named contributors. Announced store expansion is not treated as verified delivery of every opening. No claim of universal inclusion, customer response, technical superiority or incremental commercial effect is adopted from the campaign’s aspirational language.

Write the relationships before the visual inventory

For an imaginary stationery range, a useful rule might be that every format makes a small object feel easy to explore. That is different from specifying a particular background colour everywhere. Define the relationship in plain language, then test several possible treatments. A rule should help decide what belongs and what does not, rather than merely describe the first attractive design. If it can justify any treatment after the fact, it is too vague. Keep the system small enough that another person can apply it without copying a finished layout.

Give each format a separate responsibility

Assign an explicit task to the fictional shop display, package and short storyboard. The display might make comparison easy, the package identify a variant and the film show an imaginative use context. Review each without the others before judging the collection. This prevents a compelling film from masking an unreadable label or a beautiful display from disguising poor orientation. The shared world should connect useful experiences. It should not demand that every surface repeat the same message or rely on background knowledge that a first-time visitor does not have.

Keep a plain route back to the offer

Atmosphere can invite exploration, but it cannot replace the information needed to understand what is being offered. Add a neutral description beside the most expressive treatment and compare the two for consistency. Ask which qualities are factual, which are emotional associations and which remain unknown. If the visual world implies a feature the specification does not support, change the treatment rather than bury a contradiction in small print. An imaginative identity can remain open-ended in mood while being precise about the practical promise it accompanies.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: invent a range of three paper bookmarks and one organising principle for how people explore them. Draw a display, a package front and a four-panel film storyboard. Give each a separate job and include the same plain fictional product description. Ask adult reviewers to explain the family resemblance, the useful difference between formats and any unsupported product assumptions. Use original forms rather than crystal imagery, logos, music or recognisable campaign designs.

Record whether people recognise the family without losing the purpose of each format. Compare practical comprehension with preference for the atmosphere. Identify any element that becomes attractive but confusing outside the full collection. These observations can refine a design system; they do not establish customer inclusion, willingness to pay or the historical campaign’s effectiveness.

Revise if the work becomes a close imitation, suggests unsupported product qualities or requires someone to infer essential information from colour and imagery alone. Keep the exercise fictional and do not build a public store or collect customer data.

• Write one useful relationship shared across formats.
• Assign a distinct task to every expression.
• Pair the visual world with an equal plain description.