The Junk Drawer is a hands-on store experience where visitors transform discarded objects and forgotten toys into new creations.
What began as a graphic identity and visual concept evolved into a fully realized 3D environment, exploring how the original world could function as a physical space through environmental design, wayfinding, interactive signage, and branded touchpoints.
The original project established the world, characters, and visual identity of The Junk Drawer.
Revisiting the concept through an experiential-design lens revealed an opportunity to explore a question the original project hadn’t answered: what would it feel like to actually visit The Junk Drawer?
With that question in mind, I began translating the world of The Junk Drawer into a fully realized 3D store environment, considering how spatial layout, wayfinding, environmental graphics, and interactive touchpoints could shape the visitor experience.
Visitors navigate the store through a six-station Junk Journey, with each station featuring charismatic characters and a distinct visual identity to guide the experience.
Playful wayfinding graphics, signage, and environmental elements encourage creativity and exploration, guiding visitors through the process of transforming discarded objects into unique, lovable creatures of their own making.
Rather than treating each station as an isolated attraction, I designed the experience as a connected journey.
Each destination introduces a different form of participation while signage, characters, color coding, and recurring visual cues help visitors understand where they've been and where to go next within the space.
The store experience begins once a guest enters the space. A welcoming sign and wayfinding leads them over to the Registration Station, where visitors check in to The Junk Drawer, learn about the Junk Journey process, and gain tools they'll use throughout the experience.
At Destruction Station, visitors dismantle pre-approved toys, stuffed animals, and other small objects to uncover how they're constructed and discover reusable parts within. The hands-on process reveals the “anatomy” of objects normally understood only as complete things, encouraging experimentation as guests select components that inspire the foundation of something new.
At Excavation Station, visitors dig through bins of random junk pieces and repurposed materials to find the perfect parts for their junk creature.
This station gives new life to assorted parts, obtained from Destruction or safely donated by outside sources, turning leftover components into a treasure hunt full of unexpected possibilities and inspiration, where a wide variety of shapes, textures, and functions are collected and combined to form an unexpected friend.
The station stretches across the surrounding wall rather than occupying a single concentrated area, creating multiple access points while keeping circulation open between Excavation, Creation, and Temptation as guests move back and forth for materials.
Temptation Station is an optional stop within the Junk Journey, offering themed treasure bags and surprise Junk Capsules for junkers interested in additional styling and customization.
The station was designed as an enhancement rather than a requirement, allowing guests to create complete junk creatures without needing to make an additional purchase here. For those who choose to participate, the station offers greater choice, surprise treasures, and personalization while maintaining the store's ideology on reuse.
Themed Treasure Bags let guests intentionally choose additional parts based on the direction of their creation, offering customization without making upgrades necessary to participate.
Playful signage reinforces Jibz's treasure-hunting personality, framing the station around curiosity and discovery rather than conventional retail messaging.
Junk Capsules offer a lower-cost, randomized alternative for guests who want an extra surprise, expanding the station's choices without making purchases essential to the experience.
At Creation Station, junkers transform their collected parts into their own junk creatures using a wide variety of safe materials and crafting tools.
This hands-on space encourages experimentation, problem-solving, and self-expression as guests bring their ideas to life through customization, combination, and creativity.
Creation Station was designed as a playful, treehouse-like hub where guests can settle in and create together. Its open, central placement maintains sightlines to nearby stations, allowing visitors to move freely between Creation, Excavation, and Temptation as new ideas emerge throughout the building process.
Circular seating gives each guest an individual workspace while keeping everyone part of a shared making environment. Supplies remain accessible without separating visitors from the activity around them.
Designing The Junk Drawer as a physical space meant looking beyond the six main stations and considering the experience from a guest's perspective. What might visitors need, where could they encounter difficulties, and how could the environment respond? Asking these questions led to additional features that support the flow of materials, encourage creativity, and make the overall experience more intuitive.
Once a guest is happy with their creation, they return their now-empty Builder Bucket before continuing to Adoption Station. Because buckets are only needed during the building portion of the journey, a dedicated return point keeps them circulating for future guests rather than carrying unnecessary equipment into the final experience.
Open-ended creativity—especially after collecting materials and beginning the build phase—can feel overwhelming. Located beside Creation Station, Imagination Station provides an evolving gallery of completed junk creatures made by other visitors, turning examples of past creations into encouragement for new ones and bringing the store's “Reuse, Recycle, Reimagine” philosophy full circle.
Mobile Binny carts provide nearby return points for unwanted pieces and parts, reducing clutter around the Creation Station while keeping reusable materials in circulation.
Hands-on dismantling and building can get messy, so a dedicated wash station gives guests an intuitive cleanup point before continuing to Adoption. Multilingual instructions and playful graphics make handwashing feel like part of the experience rather than an interruption.
The final stop of the Junk Journey shifts from making to meaning, inviting guests to slow down
and see their finished creation as more than assembled materials. Through naming, storytelling,
and playful interactions, guests begin to imagine their new friend's personality and identity.
Adoption certificates, imaginative photo opportunities, and take-home packaging extend the
experience
beyond creation, transforming a unique junk creature into a lasting companion and memory.
Guests give their creation a name, backstory, and personality through an official adoption certificate. This activity turns a finished build into a character, encouraging emotional attachment and a sense of pride in their junk friend.
Wayfinding leads guests into the Adoption Station, where a more enclosed environment creates a quieter, more personal setting for the final stage of the Junk Journey.
Guests can celebrate their new junk friends through themed photo sets and Googz's interactive photo booth. These playful experiences invite guests to imagine where their creations might live, how they might behave, and what makes each one unique, while capturing a personalized keepsake to remember their visit.
Miniature themed environments provide imaginative backdrops for guests to photograph their junk creatures, from dreamy cloudscapes to enchanted forests. Each setting encourages playful storytelling, allowing guests to place their creations into little worlds that reflect their imagined personalities.
Photo sets translated into the 3D environment, preserving each theme’s distinct visual identity.
The Imagination Station was created for guests who may need
reassurance or inspiration during the junk-creation process.
While developing
Googz’s Photo Booth, I saw an opportunity to extend that idea into
a creative cycle: guests can contribute a photo of their finished
creation to the same inspiration board using the Imagination Drop.
Today’s creation becomes tomorrow’s inspiration, allowing each
visitor to contribute to the creative junk journey of the next.
Before leaving, guests package their new junk friend in a dedicated Junk Drawer take-home carrier, completing the transition from loose discarded materials to a creation worth caring for and bringing home.
The exit arch marks the completion of the journey, sending guests home with a final sense of accomplishment—and a new friend made entirely from what others left behind.
What began as a fictional storefront created for a branding exercise eventually became an opportunity to ask a larger question: how would this world function beyond the screen?
Returning to The Junk Drawer through the lens of experiential design meant moving beyond its original visual identity and considering how people would actually navigate, interact with, and contribute to the world. Spatial planning, environmental graphics, character design, wayfinding, accessibility, and real-world guest behaviors transformed the concept from a playful premise into a complete physical experience.
In the process, the project itself began to reflect the philosophy at its center: Reuse. Recycle. Reimagine. An existing idea was revisited, expanded, and given a new purpose—becoming an exploration of how discarded materials, unexpected possibilities, and playful design can turn almost anything into something worth keeping.
