Redesigning Gru's Freeze Ray for Climate Change
Project type
Duration
Role
The Story Starts Here
Intro
I took a comedic movie prop and redesigned it into a climate solution. Here's how fictional thinking led to real design insights.
Picture this
Gru's Freeze Ray is hilariously chaotic in the movies. No interface, no safety features, just point-and-freeze comedy. But what if we took it seriously?
The challenge
Transform a fictional gadget into a thoughtful climate intervention tool while keeping what makes it fun.
Research Question
Why This Matters Beyond the Movies?
Getting Into Gru's Head
First, I had to understand my "user." Gru isn't your typical product manager, he's a reformed supervillain with three daughters and a love for dramatic flair.
To visualize Gru’s mindset, I mapped his thoughts, feelings, and actions across both mischief and defense modes. This empathy map helped translate his personality into practical interface needs.
Task 2 - Defending Against Threats
From there, I broke down Gru’s actions using Hierarchical Task Analysis for each mode. These diagrams helped me understand how Gru operates under different emotional states like what decisions he makes, and in what order.
The Design Journey
Act 1: Paper and Chaos
I literally built a paper freeze ray with household items. Sounds silly? It wasn't. Holding a physical prototype revealed something crucial: where you put the screen changes everything. Low Fidelity Paper Prototype
Decision Medium screen on top, facing the user. Why? Try aiming something while looking sideways. It's terrible
Act 2: The Figma Breakthrough
Moving to digital, I created interfaces for both of Gru's modes. Early feedback was brutal: "These icons are confusing." "What does this button do?" Medium Fidelity Prototype
The Fix Mode-based design that adapts to emotional state. Playful colors for mischief, urgent reds for defense, calming blues for climate work.
Act 3: Making It Real
The high-fidelity prototype brought everything together. No more confusion in testing. Users instantly understood what each mode did and how to switch between them High Fidelity Prototype
Bringing It to Life
The static prototypes were good, but this project needed motion. Building the story was an iterative process. I explored multiple directions before refining the one that best balanced mischief and meaning. Now, it was time to prove the interface could actually work in the real world.
I developed a compelling narrative arc spanning the device's journey from Gru's comedic mishaps to serious climate intervention. Creating relatable characters and establishing consistent visual language helped map the user's journey and ensure the story aligned with expectations.
Before jumping into After Effects, I sketched key scenes and interactions to identify pacing issues and improvement opportunities. Multiple iterations refined rough sketches into polished frames, incorporating feedback while maintaining visual consistency.
What I Learned
The Real Discovery
This wasn't just about redesigning a movie prop. It was about finding innovation in unexpected places.
The breakthrough: Different emotional states need different interfaces. When you're being playful, you want exploration and feedback. When you're saving the world, you need clarity and speed.
This insight now influences how I approach every design project. Context isn't just about use cases. It's about emotional states.
