THE MATCH AS A MYTH
For BIRKENSTOCK's 2026 World Cup campaign, I was commissioned to interpret “The Match as a Myth” through an original sofa-pillow artwork.
The brief approached football differently. Rather than treating the World Cup as conventional sports merchandise, it explored the experience around the match: sitting, waiting, leaning forward, resting and sharing long hours together at home.
My role was to translate that strategic direction into a visual system that connected football, movement and BIRKENSTOCK's philosophy of comfort, then carry the idea into a physical product.
The original brief specifically encouraged symbolism, abstraction and pattern while avoiding team identities, national flags, stadium scenes and literal football imagery.
PROJECT INFORMATION
Client
BIRKENSTOCK Singapore
Year
2026
Role
Commissioned Surface Designer
Scope
Visual Interpretation / Moodboard / Symbol System / Surface Design / Product Mock-up / Material Direction
Final Output
Sofa pillow in two colourways
01 / THE BRIEF
Football as context, not aesthetic
The main challenge was creating something relevant to the World Cup without relying on the visual codes normally associated with football.
BIRKENSTOCK wanted the pillow to feel like a considered object for the home rather than event merchandise. The World Cup provided the cultural context, while comfort, movement and everyday rituals needed to remain at the centre of the design.
The brief also established clear boundaries: no team logos, national flags, official tournament marks, literal players, scores or stadium scenes. The design instead needed to work through ritual, movement, rest, symbolism and pattern.
02 / FINDING THE VISUAL LANGUAGE
Starting with meaning rather than decoration
I began by looking for visual ideas that could connect the physical experience of football with BIRKENSTOCK's own design philosophy.
Both worlds contain ideas of:
movement
direction
grounding
support
rhythm
Rather than illustrating these ideas literally, I explored how they could become a vocabulary of abstract forms.
Initial design direction developed in response to “The Match as a Myth” brief.
03 / BUILDING A SYSTEM OF SYMBOLS
Each form needed a reason to exist
Building on the symbolic territory of the brief, I developed the artwork as a vocabulary of repeated forms.
Some symbols explored ideas of direction and movement, giving the pattern a sense of rhythm and progression. Others referenced grounding, support and footbed-related forms, creating subtler links back to BIRKENSTOCK’s product philosophy. One of the strongest visual references came directly from BIRKENSTOCK footwear.
The distinctive bone-like footprint pattern found on the footwear base became the starting point for a new graphic motif. The objective was not to make every reference obvious at first glance. The design needed to work first as an abstract surface, while revealing deeper product and brand connections through closer observation.
The original brief similarly connects grounding, footbed contour and directional movement with BIRKENSTOCK’s philosophy of natural movement and support.
04 / FROM SYMBOL TO SURFACE
Creating rhythm through repetition
Once the graphic language was established, the next challenge was composition.
A surface pattern has to behave differently from an isolated graphic. The individual forms needed enough repetition to create continuity across the pillow while retaining enough variation and negative space to avoid becoming visually mechanical.
I explored scale, orientation, spacing and density through product mock-ups so that the artwork could be assessed at the proportions of the final object.
The mock-ups helped reveal which elements were adding meaning and which were creating unnecessary visual noise.
A visual vocabulary built from match rhythms, movement and BIRKENSTOCK’s product DNA.
05 / REFINING THE DIRECTION
Simplifying the system to strengthen the brand connection
Following the first proposal, BIRKENSTOCK felt the overall direction was close but asked for further refinement to make the designs feel more premium and more distinctly tied to the brand.
The feedback led to a more reduced approach. Rather than using the full symbol library at equal intensity, I developed two clearer surface directions:
Design 01 — Bone Symbol Pattern
Built around a single repeating “bone” motif derived from the distinctive footprint pattern on the base of BIRKENSTOCK footwear, this direction translated a recognisable product detail into a bold and brand-led surface graphic.
Design 02 — Simplified Symbol Pattern
A reduced composition using a smaller selection of symbols from the original system, allowing more breathing space and a more restrained overall expression.
This refinement became less about adding visual information and more about deciding what could be removed while preserving the original concept.
Brown bone-pattern pillow shown in final campaign styling.
06 / TWO PRINT DIRECTIONS
Two ways of expressing the same idea
The final development resulted in two separate print designs, each responding to the same campaign territory through a different level of visual complexity.
Material had to support both the artwork and the brand
The initial material direction considered linen. I recommended exploring velvet as an alternative because the surface needed to support not only comfort, but also the visual depth, colour richness and premium character of the final designs.
The decision became especially important once the two print systems and colourways were refined, as the material needed to reproduce both the simplified graphic forms and the BIRKENSTOCK’s blue with enough clarity and richness.
This shifted the conversation from simply asking:
What material can this artwork be printed on?
toward:
What material allows the design and brand experience to work best together?
The final pillows were produced in a velvet-silk fabric.
Final velvet-silk production detail with BIRKENSTOCK trim and label.
07 / FROM CONCEPT TO CAMPAIGN
Taking the work into production
The final artwork progressed from the initial proposal and symbolic system into a produced physical object for BIRKENSTOCK's 2026 World Cup campaign.
What began as an abstract strategic brief ultimately became something consumers could see, touch and use: a home object that connected the brand's comfort philosophy with the cultural experience surrounding the World Cup.
Final pillow designs featured in BIRKENSTOCK Singapore's World Cup 2026 campaign.
FROM BRIEF TO OBJECT
This project reinforced how I approach design: understand the strategic intent first, find visual meaning within the brand itself, then refine the system through feedback, colour, material and production until the idea works as a complete physical experience.
