2023

2025

2020

2019

2018

2021

2022

2024

2026

Afshin Mehin

Mark Choi

Levi Joo

Individual Credits

Lead Designer

Design Company

https://opensea.io/collection/card-79-collection

Profile Website

Project Website

Design Team

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIb8D3k1oTM

Video (direct link)

Card79 strongly believes in innovation and the importance of adapting to meet the evolving needs of people’s daily lives. Imagining how the metaverse will potentially impact people’s lives in the future is why we created Kintsugi Upgrades. 

Kintsugi Upgrades is an NFT collection that uses the Japanese mending technique of Kintsugi to combine ancient artifacts with high-tech functionality, creating a product that exists in a purely digital realm. 
This project takes a liberating perspective on creating NFTs by focusing on creating a digital product that could only possibly exist in the metaverse and never be feasible in the real world. The project was initiated by gaining access to high-quality 3D scans of ancient cultural artifacts that were in the highly secure permanent collections of world-famous museums. We would never be able to get our hands on the actual artifacts, but the 3d scans of these artifacts are available for anyone to download. By democratizing access to these artifacts, we were opened up to so many new creative possibilities.

After numerous experimentation, we developed a new 3d process that begins with selecting an artifact from the museum’s digital collections that we would then digitally shatter into multiple pieces. We would then see what could be salvaged and begin reassembling individual pieces and introducing new components in place of certain fragments in order to augment the functionality of the artifact.  While the core utility of the object still serves a purpose, like vases and water containers, the technology required to elevate their functionality is still far from reality. Each design's strength is seeing the beauty of the original historical object reimagined with futuristic functionality and advanced technologies yet to exist.

Innovation is a core value of our design studio, so we have begun designing for a virtual world that will soon be our future. NFTs are digital versions of rare assets that maintain great value. Merging significant ancient artifacts with futuristic functionality is the driving theme and purpose of the Kintsugi Upgrades. This way of creating NFT using 3d scans of ancient artifacts is something we have not seen anywhere, making them a valuable asset in the past, present, and future. 

With Kintsugi Upgrades, we are pushing the creative design discipline to consider how utility and functionality will play a role in digital spaces. Our NFTs show the innovation behind turning physical assets into digital commodities and the plausibility of transitioning more of our lives from the physical world into the digital. We are compelling design disciplines to start considering how utility and functionality will play a key role in digital spaces while sparking the conversation of accessibility within the digital realm. 

Kintsugi Upgrades is an NFT series sold on the OpenSea site at a fixed price with plans for auctions in the future.

Gold Winner in Virtual Reality (VR) Design for Digital Design

Gold Winner in Digital Art for Graphic Design

Kintsugi Upgrades