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This is not a Mockery
2025Art Direction
3d Conceptualisation
Product Photograpy
Graphic Design

“This is Not a Mockery” sits somewhere between satire and collectible culture, using humour, absurdity, and familiar forms to carry ideas that aren’t always that light. Built across art direction, 3D conceptualisation, and product, the project creates characters that feel playful at first, and slightly uncomfortable the longer you look.




It borrows from the language of contemporary collectibles, but pushes it just enough to question what’s being sold, and why




The project pulls from the language of collectible culture, where familiar characters are reworked into something slightly more reflective. What looks simple at first usually isn’t, and that gap is where the work sits.

The objects stay clean and recognisable, but carry just enough distortion to suggest something else underneath. Not everything needs to be explained, some of it works better when it’s slightly off.








The project begins with an observation rather than an idea. Watching cartoons again after years, it became obvious that what once felt simple now carried something much heavier. Scenes that seemed random as a kid suddenly revealed layers of satire, dark humour, and subtle commentary.

That shift became the starting point. Not to analyse cartoons as they are, but to understand how they work—how something so visually simple can hold meaning that isn’t immediately visible.



The focus moved towards exploring satire, social commentary, and absurdity, not as themes, but as tools. The aim isn’t to tell a clear story, but to create something that sits between clarity and confusion—where the surface feels playful, but the underlying message unfolds over time.

This approach allows the work to exist in two states at once. Something that feels familiar and accessible, but carries a second layer that challenges, questions, or even contradicts what you initially see.








The final object brings the project into a physical form, holding that balance between something playful and something slightly off. At first glance, it reads like a collectible, soft, rounded, familiar. But the proportions, the stillness, and the embedded details shift it away from being harmless. It sits in that space where it feels easy to understand, but not entirely comfortable to read. That tension is intentional. It allows the piece to exist in two states at once, something that could belong to a child, but speaks more directly to an adult.

















The decision to keep the figure completely white strips it back to its essentials. Without colour doing the work, the form carries everything. It feels quieter, more controlled, and closer to an object than a toy. The presentation pushes that further. The pedestal elevates it, while the translucent orange casing introduces contrast and distance, somewhere between packaging, display, and containment. You can see the object clearly, but there’s still a barrier, which adds to the idea of it being observed rather than simply owned.
 





Together, the object and its packaging sit between collectible culture and commentary. It looks resolved, polished, almost desirable, but holds just enough ambiguity to question what it is you’re actually looking at. It doesn’t try to explain itself. It just stays there long enough for the meaning to surface.




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