TIMELINE:
1 MAR - 7 MAR 2026
RESEARCH METHODS:
STORYBOARDING, SPEED DATING
TEAM:
VIBHOOTI • AMITA • EVANDER • VANA • YUKI
Fourth Wall:
Week 4
brief.
"Express the inner life of a building on its outside."
Overview of Week
For this week, we focused on storyboarding and speed dating to create more closely with people at Bold (as identified last week). We also iterated our approaches with the themes identified through creative toolkit.
Research
Storyboarding + Speed dating
We developed storyboards to express the key themes that emerged from affinity mapping (synthesis of research). This helped us create stories out of the ideas and material exploration and show them in a more concise manner.
Sarah and Sammy were able to give us feedback, and we were able to further narrow down potential directions that could work for this project.
Speed dating conducted with Sarah and Sammy.
Some of their feedback on the ideas, they were most inclined towards giant, surreal puppets.
Participatory Research - Creative toolkit
"If Bold were a character, who would they be?"
We used creative toolkit for qualitative insights through physical materials. We were able to conduct it with Catriona and Hannah in-person.
Since most of Bold's stakeholders were occupied and it was difficult to run in-person creative toolkit sessions, Sarah helped us by emailing the stakeholders. The responses were descriptive, imaginative, and some also included images. This helped us further affirm what Bold is to the people that use it.
Synthesis of this data helped us create a stronger visual of Bold.
Creative toolkit conducted in-person.
Email replies to creative toolkit.
Synthesis of data from creative toolkit.
Narrative
Narrative - Old Magical Creature
What - Extending the warm hug that people feel when they walk into BOLD.
How - Personifying BOLD as a wise, old magical creature...
Why - ...who encourages you to take the first step toward whimsy and creativity.
Through projection mapping and lights, we made the setup of the wizard. These resources were a relatively quick and easy way of making the setup more interactive and less static.
Wizard puppet that can be interacted with by high-fiving and hugging.
Materials used were paper, cloth and cardboard.
Addition of a cauldron and lights inside it.
Sound and projection mapping on the cauldron made it more 'alive'.
Feedback
Although the wizard represented our creative toolkit and research, it was largely interpreted as a creepy white old man. This was something Bold is not.
Staging Interactions
Through the use of mic, speakers, and lights we staged an interaction through the inside to the outside and tested a low-fidelity puppet.
While we attempted to use projection mapping, the results were quite poor and it was extremely difficult to set up the projector with the road and footpath right outside. We limited our tech to speakers and lights due to ease, less risk of theft, and better outcome.
Hanging a frame to the outside.
Interacting with the text letters.
On the spot improvisation from the inside to the outside.
Refining direction
To make things easier, we decided to use the visual language from Alice in Wonderland as a base for our project. A lot of elements from the creative toolkit aligned with the story, and helped us narrow down our moodboard. It also helped us to avoid using one face for Bold.
Collection of images from Pinterest we used as a moodboard to keep ourselves grounded with prop visuals.
Reflection
The people at Bold were really inclined towards a digital or hybrid outcome, and this was a suggestion they gave us frequently. By going with structured ideas and speed dating them, we were able to get more feedback on the ideas and less about the medium.
By using a mannequin, we had more room to experiment and were less afraid of getting it wrong.
