Bánh mì Nom Nom
My first big “oh, so this is what it means to make a toy real” moment — part design story, part R&D spiral, part production bootcamp.
Duration
June, 2023 - May, 2024
Client
Madlad Figures
Services
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Product Development
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Design
Overview
Bánh mì Nom Nom is a sofubi art toy created as a playful love letter to Vietnamese culture.
Rather than approaching culture through symbols that felt overly formal or expected, we wanted to work with something warm, everyday, and instantly recognizable — something that people in Vietnam feel close to, but that people abroad could also immediately connect with. The project became our way of translating a very local thing into a form that could travel.
My responsibilities:
Toy design development
Sofubi R&D and mold/process improvement
Plastic sourcing, vendor coordination
Technical and art-direction lead
Production refinement for manufacturability
CMF guideline, packaging development
Preorder, and delivery support
The Problem
Art toys and sofubi have always been more than just collectibles — they’re also little carriers of identity. Different scenes often build their own visual language around what feels culturally theirs, whether that’s kaiju, retro robots, folklore, street aesthetics, or local character design traditions.
For us, the question was: what could a Vietnamese sofubi look like if it wanted to travel well? We wanted to make something that felt culturally specific, but not closed off — something that could introduce a piece of Vietnam directly to the global art toy community in a way that felt charming instead of explanatory.
Research
We started with a very basic question: when people abroad think about Vietnam, what do they instantly recognize? The answer we kept circling back to was food.
To this day, it’s one of Vietnam’s most globally visible cultural exports: Vietnam ranked fourth among the world’s 15 most enticing food destinations in Condé Nast Traveler’s 2025 readers’ awards, and bánh mì was named third in CNN’s 2026 list of the world’s 25 best sandwiches.
From there, the internal conversation got very real, very fast:
Phở? Coffee? Bánh mì?
And then at some point it was just like — wait, no, it has to be bánh mì.
It had everything we wanted. It was recognizable. It was playful. It had strong silhouette potential. It already carried a lot of affection, both inside and outside Vietnam.
The next question became: how do we turn bánh mì into something sofubi people would want on a shelf, while still making it cute enough that even non-collectors could immediately vibe with it?
During those discussions, artist Thân Trọng Hiển came in with the early sketches that eventually shaped the direction of Nom Nom, and the whole team had the same reaction:
Yep. This is it.
Discovery
What clicked for us was that the answer wasn’t to make bánh mì feel overly literal or overly “souvenir-coded.” It needed to feel like a real character first. The cultural reference had to be immediate, but the emotional read had to be even faster: cute, approachable, slightly odd, shelf-friendly, and still distinctly sofubi.
That became the sweet spot. Not just “a bánh mì turned into a toy,” but a bánh mì with enough character logic to belong in the art toy world. Something local enough to feel rooted, but open enough that someone with zero connection to Vietnam could still instantly get why it was lovable.
Design Process
Once the concept landed, the work moved into actually making Nom Nom real. The first concept sketches were handed over to me, and from there I took on the 3D development while the team and I kept pushing the sofubi process forward in parallel.
The first proof of concept was targeted for Color Fiesta in August 2023, so the early phase was very much a mix of shaping the toy, improving the mold quality, and finding workable material options fast enough to get the object out into the world.
Fun fact: in the very first iterations, those 4 toppings didn't even get to sit properly! haha
After that first reveal, the project kept evolving. I continued refining the toy with production in mind, and later the file was redesigned to better fit sofubi manufacturing.
I also developed molds further, worked with vendors on fixtures and cooking equipment, sourced Japanese plastic that better matched the feel we wanted, and built clearer guidelines for color and coatings.
Later on, I decided that the packaging should hold onto both the spirit of traditional sofubi and the specifically Vietnamese character of the project.
Final delivery
Nom Nom first entered the world as a 5-piece proof of concept shown at Color Fiesta in 2023, then later grew into a full preorder release. The preorder opened in early 2024, the product and packaging were pushed toward final production, and the team completed delivery by the end of May 2024.
For me, the nicest thing about Nom Nom is that it never felt like “just a cute project.” It felt like proof that a very ordinary, very loved piece of Vietnamese life could be translated into an art toy language and still carry warmth, humor, and identity with it. Tiny guy, big cultural agenda.