Silver A' Design Award Winner 2025
Benny Leung's Client Vs Designers Board Game emerges from the intersection of contemporary graphic design practice and participatory game culture, offering a witty meditation on the complex dynamics that characterize creative professional relationships. The work demonstrates considerable sophistication in its material execution, with the restrained gray packaging establishing an immediate impression of refined understatement that belies the playful content within. Leung's choice of a predominantly monochromatic palette, punctuated only by the warmth of natural gray tones and the stark graphic presence of black-on-white illustrations, suggests a deliberate engagement with the visual language of professional creative environments where such chromatic restraint often signals elevated aesthetic sensibility. The character illustration system reveals a masterful economy of means, wherein each portrait achieves distinct personality through minimal gestural strokes, evoking traditions of caricature and character design that trace lineages from editorial illustration through contemporary emoji and avatar culture. The transparent acrylic tokens function as both game pieces and display objects, their material clarity creating a layered visual experience wherein printed characters beneath become visible through their surfaces, generating an elegant dialogue between physical and graphic elements. The compositional arrangement of the photographed ensemble suggests careful art direction, with tokens scattered in purposeful casual array that invites tactile engagement while maintaining visual coherence. The game board glimpsed beneath establishes the occupational taxonomy central to gameplay, with role designations that will resonate immediately with those familiar with creative agency structures. This work invites consideration of how shared professional experiences might be transformed through ludic engagement into opportunities for reflection, humor, and perhaps reconciliation. One might contemplate how the act of play reframes workplace dynamics, transforming tension into collaborative amusement.
This is a board game inspired by the stereotypical adversity between clients and designers. With every experience, it is the foundation of a long lasting relationship. The concept originated from the game Animal Chest and it is a playful attempt to illustrate that every great relationship starts from a place of understanding each other. The inspiration comes from some of the key points that might frustrate each side to act as a trap. The key job positions of each side are chosen and given different rankings to battle and overpower each other.