Hey Pixapals, welcome back to another post! We hope you’ve had a pleasant start to the new year so far – and can you believe it’s almost going to be February?! Time sure does fly! Anyway, in today’s blog post we’re going to take a step back and talk about one of our most adorable, joyful and unique additions to our Pixajoy family: the Joikins! If you’ve visited our website, Facebook or Instagram, you might have noticed the small and cute-looking cube figure (or block-shaped character) that has recently been in the spotlight – whether in terms of them appearing frequently on our social media, contest posts, and even among our social media community(#Joikinpixajoy).

 But how many of you know how the Joikin came to be? Did they just mysteriously appear? Was it a planned thing or were they added on just on a whim? So in order to provide you with some useful insight, today’s post is going to be dedicated to the Joikins and the top 3 facts you should know about them. 

Meet The Joikins!

Since 2018 and all the way throughout 2019 (and early 2020), you’ve probably seen the Joikins steadily making frequent appearances on our social media channels. These joyful, paper-bot avatars come in a host of different patterns, facial expressions and even ‘skin tones’ – each one just as unique and diverse as real people. If you’ve somehow managed to miss out on seeing them on social media (highly unlikely but hey – anything is possible!), then we bet you’ll want to get your hands on your own Joikins after getting to know about them today! 

 With they’re compact, unique and cute appearance, the Joikins quickly stole the hearts and attention of our community since it was first created back in 2018. For a limited period of time, the Joikin paper-bots were included FREE with every product order made and a special BIG Joikin paper bot was even given out as a gift during contests and sweepstakes. 

Originally designed and created in May 2018, the Joikin paper-bots were inspired by a variety of paper crafts – such as origami, scrapbooking, card making and more. The original purpose of the Joikins was to provide our users with something fun, unique and creative that they can put together – or have their children put together as a way to foster more bonding experience between parent and child. 

 But after conducting more research, we’d discovered that paper crafts such as this one were immensely popular not only locally, but worldwide – even among those who did not have children. If you were to do a quick google search, you would be able to see various 3-D papercraft and paper-bots that were inspired by famous people, video games characters or cartoons which were created with a varying range of difficulties.

 The Joikins themselves are also a type of 3D paper craft, but they’re far easier to build as they were designed with a simple cube shape with easy to follow instructions on how to put them together. Additionally, the Joikins also feature little tabs and slots so that you can build them without ever having to use a pair of scissors or even glue. While a majority of papercrafts in the market today are inspired by famous characters, the Joikins were especially designed to be as unique as you! Standing at 90mm tall, the Joikins were created to be truly one of a kind from head to toe, featuring attractive themes, clothing patterns, facial expressions and unique tribe numbers (aka serial numbers). This means you’ll never find two Joikins that are exactly alike. They might share some similarities due to the theme, but just like your fingerprints, there is enough variance to ensure that each Joikin possesses their own unique features.

 As for the name, the reason why we decided to call the paper craft bot as ‘Joikin’ is fairly simple. The name Joikin is derived from the words ‘Joy’ and ‘Kin’ – Joy for Happiness and ‘Kin’ for family, which ultimately translates to ‘happiness with family or a ‘ happy addition to your family’. Since the Joikins were originally designed and created to foster more wholesome interactions between parent and child – by having them spend a bit of time together to build the bot – the name represents the objective behind the creation of this unique paper-bot.

 Pro Tip: If you’re looking for a cool way to spend quality time with your kids and put an end to excessive screen time, the Joikin papercraft bot will be an excellent DIY project that will keep both you and your kids occupied for a while. Furthermore, as the Joikins are small, compact and weigh a measly one gram, even a three year old can build it by themselves – which is a great way for them to practice their fine motor skills.

Unique Designs For Unique You.

Designing a character is not easy. It requires the designer to have logical thinking, research, ideas, inspiration and more effort to create them in a way that people would love to see and have them, especially when it comes to creating a papercraft character. In this case, we should say that our designer is pretty talented and made a wonder by creating such an adorable and unique-looking Joikins! 

 The designer draws inspiration for creating Joikins with eye-catching designs and uniqueness had come from a project known as “Bo&friends” which is basically an artwork of an artist called Kamwei Fong. The project was originally about a cute little ceramic fish, that has been created into a cheaper and simple papercraft version as a replacement for the original ceramic fish which is quite expensive. 

 By taking this incredible idea as inspiration and with proper research, the designer had drafted out the character of Joikin and have started the process of designing them by deciding the patterns, reactions and the colour tones. Based on the research that has been done by the designer, the first batch has been created with 10 different looking Joikins, with 20 faces and 4 skin tones.

As the Joikins had a good response and demand, the designers had constantly worked on to create different patterns for the next batches. For example, the 2nd batch theme is Fifa related and the third batch is travel-inspired. When it comes to faces, The 20 faces of Joikins are quite expressive and are super cute. Here is a list of face reactions available for the Joikins:

The Joikin’s unique designs and portable characteristics have made them a fan favourite amongst adults and children alike. In fact, the Joikins have even gone on to win an award at the Asian E-commerce Awards 2019 – beating out big-name competitors for the coveted title of Best e-retailer in the Entertainment category. Following their success, the Joikins have also been made into soft toys – making their first official debut in the 2020 Chinese New Year Movie, ‘A Moment of Happiness’ – a lighthearted movie starring Min Chen Lin, Tul Pakorn, Chan Fong, Danny One, Thian Siew Kim and with special appearances of Happy Polla.

The Joikin Parade! (Gamification)

While there are various types of Papercraft characters available on the internet and the physical market, our Joikins have the added benefit of allowing you to connect with other Pixapals from all over the world via the interactive Joikin Parade. As we have mentioned before, every Joikin from Pixajoy is in possession of a unique tribe number or secret pass that can be found on the send-out-sheet and the bottom of the Joikins head. Working a little like your Joikin’s personal identification card, this secret code will allow you to enter your Joikin into the Joikin Parade – a space on the internet where your Joikin can come to life, dance, pose and even join a flash mob!

 The Joikin parade is a place where Joikin tribe members (people who own Joikins) from all over the world come together to showcase their uniqueness and diversity in a parade. The interactable Joikins in the parade will be able to do an array of emotions including 80s dance move, Michael Jackson moonwalk, hello or greetings and flipping actions. You’ll be able to play and have fun in the Joikin parade whether with the individual’s collection only (hence your party), or a bigger party globally with everyone’s collections.

Fun Fact: The main purpose of the Joikin Parade is to encourage gatherings and invoke a sense of community.

To wrap it all up, the Joikins are one of a kind paper crafts that’ll be an avatar that uniquely represents you. If you’ve wished to have a Joikin whether the small and portable Joikins or want to snuggle with the Joikin soft toy feel free to visit the Pixajoy website and choose your favourites!