Client: adidas Thailand · adidas Maker Lab @ CentralWorld · 2023
TAPHIAN — the woven palm-leaf fish, a Thai symbol of abundance and a quick, agile swimmer — became the identity of the adidas Maker Lab at CentralWorld, Bangkok. I designed a 3.39 × 2 m low-relief Badge of Sport with fish and river waves raised inside the bars and brought it to life with projection mapping, plus a ceiling of hanging taphian fish over the LED floor and a tee sold in store. The wall has played its loops since 2023 and still runs today, with my name and the story on a plaque beside it.
My role: concept · relief form & build drawings · motion content (After Effects) · on-site projection mapping · hanging installation · tee graphic
01 Concept · 02 Build & Mapping · 03 Three Loops · 04 Ceiling & Floor · 05 The Tee · 06 Still Running
01 — Concept: Taphian
Pla taphian is a Thai woven palm-leaf fish — a craft that stands for abundance, and a fish that swims fast and nimbly, like an athlete. I started from the three bars of the adidas Badge of Sport, curled their edges into Thai-style river waves, and folded the fish out of three stripes with the logo on its body. Sketched by hand and on iPad, explored in a few directions, then worked out in 3D — fish parts, depth levels, colour and light — before the final relief.
02 — Build & Mapping: Line to Light
The relief is 3.39 × 2 m: a timber frame clad in 25 mm plywood, sprayed matt white, with the fish and waves raised at different depths so light can wrap around every edge. I drew the front view for the build team, then went on site to fit the projection — aligning the projector to the relief and masking every motion loop to its cut-outs, live against the wall. Five days in January 2023, from installation to final mapping.
03 — Motion: Three Loops
I built the content in After Effects as three 60-second 4K loops that play in rotation on the relief: taphian schools swimming under sunlit river water, a Thai-tile pattern made from the logo, and the fish passing the Bangkok skyline. Every loop is masked to the relief edges, so the light stays inside the bars. An earlier option cycled bold BKK colourways.
04 — Ceiling & Floor: Taphian Mobile + Digital Floor
Above the lab, the same fish hang like a traditional taphian mobile: folded fish with three-stripe fins and the Badge of Sport on the body, strung in rows with blue and white mirror-acrylic diamonds and discs that catch the store lights. I designed the fish, the cut files and the string layout, and tested a prototype at my desk before the strings went up. Below them runs the LED floor, whose motion content I have kept designing ever since; for it I also drew the taphian as a “flexible area” concept — line fish, then built in 3D for screen.
05 — The Tee: Sold at the Store
After the install, the team asked me to turn the wall into a tee sold at adidas CentralWorld: the adidas กรุงเทพฯ (Bangkok) logo filled with the same river waves and taphian fish. The same year I also designed a tuk-tuk tee for the store.
06 — Still Running
Since 2023 the wall has been one of the store's photo spots, and it is still running today. A metal plaque beside it carries my name and the story of TAPHIAN. When David Beckham visited the store, the relief was his backdrop.
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