Prior to the V&A's launch of China Design Now, Airside were pleased to win the commission to design the exhibition's accompanying microsite.

The exhibition explored the recent explosion of new design in China and required a site able to reflect both the traditional and modern aspects of the Chinese aesthetic.

Airside's response was to create a playful site focused on beautifully crafted interaction. Our goal was to create a microsite that would be both lively and engaging; a site that not only reached a gallery-going audience, but a site that was enjoyable enough to be visited independently. To drive the gallery's footfall, the microsite offered the visitor an exciting, engaging experience, whilst remaining usable and accessible to all.

The game we developed allowed the user to create their own Chinese horoscope character and use it within applications such as Facebook and Flickr. The game was designed to be as universal as the V&A's audience - anyone from 8 to 80 could play.

On the first day of going live over 1,500 Chinese horoscope characters were created and posted to a dedicated Flickr page. As the exhibition continued the microsite was visited by over 200,000 people.

1 x Exhibition microsite
1 x Interactive game

"We loved the look and feel of the microsite developed for our China Design Now exhibition - and the fantastic online game built specially for Chinese New Year! We used the game in a viral email, and were amazed at the amount of traffic it generated back to the microsite. It was great to work with such a responsive, creative and enthusiastic team of people."

The V&A Museum

V&A China Design Now microsite
V&A Zodiac interactive
V&A Zodiac characters on Flickr