Major Project 1 - Task 3: Concept Presentation

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05/03/2025- 19/03/2025 (Week 5-7)
Lizzie Tanaka (0362065)
Major Project 1 | BDCM | Taylor's University
Task 3: Concept Presentation



INSTRUCTIONS


Weekly Progress:
  • Week 5-6
a. Logo Process 
Me and Aisya are the ones in charge of making the logo while Sheryne and Ying Ying focus on drawing the illustrations for the cards. We think that this way, we could divide the workload a lot better. 

This week (W5), Sheryne and Aisya was sick so we couldn't meet up for 2 days like usual. When we met again in week 6, Aisya came up with the idea of having the 'Pohon Wayang' as our icon. I decided to work on the pohon wayang since it's quite intricate and spent a whole day making sure the curves look good :D After the icon is done, we voted on several fonts and chose the one we liked. 

Fig 1.1 Logo attempts and sketches

Fig 1.2 Logo process

Fig 1.3 Icon process

We decided on a final logo and created a simple guide sheet to send to Ms. Vitiyaa and Ms. Anis for approval and feedback. 

Fig 1.4 Logo Guideline #1

Me and Aisya were also in charge of the packaging design, so we discussed on how we want the box to be. Our focus was making the card packaging a bit better and fancy (?) while keeping it simple as well. We came up with two ideas and sketches as seen in Figure 1.5.


Fig 1.5 Packaging sketch



b. Book Layout
To keep our branding more consistent and cohesive, we used our curves from the pohon wayang to incorporate it in our book layout. I worked on the book layout in InDesign and Aisya worked on the cover & the chapter dividers. 

Fig 2.1 Layout attempt #1

Fig 2.2 Booklet cover design exploration by Aisya


We did a test print of the layout with regular printer paper but there was some mistakes in our side so the result wasn't as neat. However, we just wanted to see if the text was legible and clear as well as if the colors showed up nicely. The booklet was in A6 size. On week 6, we showed Ms. Vitiyaa and Ms. Anis our booklet. They gave us a few feedbacks on the layout. 
  • Consistent grid layout. Keep the content more on the left side of the page, leaving white space on the right area. 
  • Simplify the use of ornaments in the cover & in the dividers
  • Simplify the cover
  • Add information details about the book and the publishing in the first page right after the cover. 
  • Gameplay page: can be divided into 2 pages instead of pushing it into only 1 page. 

Fig 2.3 Layout test prints with feedbacks on W6


c. Cards Design: Narrative and Character Cards

Simultaneously, we also worked on our card designs. I worked on the narrative card design while Sheryne and Ying Ying focus on the illustration. This was done at the same time Aisya was doing the covers and chapter dividers. 

The narrative cards were designed as simple as possible since we wanted it to balance the detailed character cards. We think that if it's more straightforward (since there's more text), it'll be more comfortable for the players. 

Fig 3.3 Card designs attempt and test prints
  • Week 6-7
Finally reaching the final week of this semester, there were quite a lot we needed to do. For my part, I finalized the layout for printing and worked on the 3D packaging. I volunteered to make the mockup ourselves using Blender, which proves to be a stressful process since I barely ever used the software :D

In the last week, Sheryne and Ying Ying focused on doing the illustrations since we planned to print out 6-8 character cards. It doesn't help that we were on very narrow time limit. Aisya focused on making the packaging dimensions and the design itself as well as the covers and chapter dividers for the layout. She's also in charge of importing the illustrations to the card design. Thankfully, the main layout of the book and card didn't have too much revisions from the last feedback. Sheryne also did the patterns as she sketched out the batik patterns of Sumatra and Java to find the similarities (see Figure 6.2).

Moreover, Ying Ying attempted our stickers merchandise in which she drew in a chibi style. 

Fig 3.4 Merch



a. Booklet Layout & Design
Based on Ms. Vitiyaa's feedback on week 6, we revised our booklet layout to be more consistent and neat in terms of typography as well. Below is our final layout design. We tried to reuse more of the ornaments from our logo as well. We did attempt to put an Indonesian version, however, we thought we could just focus on the English version first. 

The booklet is only designed on 2 regions: Sumatra and Java. 

Fig 4.1 Final layout design of booklet


b. Packaging Design
For our main packaging, we thought of doing a flap box hardbox where there is 2 slots; for the narrative cards and the character cards. There isn't much to be included in our box so we thought a simple and straightforward approach is better. Aisya worked on the 2D dieline since we needed to count the sizes as well. 


Fig 5.1 Packaging 2D


I started out by creating the 3D mockup in Blender (also because I couldn't find a box with 2 slots for some reason). This took me days because I struggled so much with the camera and lighting. Initially, I planned to have 2 mockups; an opened and closed version of the box. However, I thought that it would look better when combined in one frame. 

Fig 5.2 3D Rendered Packaging

As for the design itself, I used Photoshop to turn it to a more complete and finished mockup scene. I traced the box using pen tool to make it into a shape where I made the blending mode to multiply. Applying the design, I used the vanishing point feature in Photoshop to ensure the perspective was accurate. I completed the scene with a shadow overlay and played some more with the contrast of the scene. 


Fig 5.3 Applied design to packaging

Aisya also explore several ideas for the packaging design itself, as seen in Figure 5.4. 

Fig 5.4 Packaging design exploration by Aisya


c. Card designs
Our card is based on the Tarot card size at 70mm x 120mm (width to height). We chose a bigger size because we wanted to ensure that the description would be clear and visible. Sheryne had sketched the overall card design and Aisya traced it in Adobe Illustrator. The batik patterns were also made in Adobe Illustrator, sketched by Sheryne and digitized by Aisya. 


Fig 6.2 Card design digitization by Aisya


I did the narrative card design since it was quite simple. We decided to remove the whole outline thing we had in the previous design and kept it really straightforward. We still incorporated our logo and added our ornament. We thought that the simple design would balance the intricate illustration and patterns that the cards have. 


Fig 6.1 Narrative Card Design
    

After sending the print files, we worked on completing our PPT first. For the cards, we chose Artcard 310GSM for our main material, along with glossy lamination. For the booklet, we chose Artcard 310gsm with doff finish for the cover and artpaper 157gsm for our content. Our booklet is staple binded. 

Fig 6.2 Final Results 

We also changed our PPT color theme to better fit our visual identity since we have an established one now. 

For more details on the illustration process and other designs, click here for Aisya's blog, here for Sheryne's blog and here for Ying Ying's blog. 


Final Result



Fig 7.2 Final Presentation PPT


Fig 7.3 Booklet Flipthrough

FEEDBACKS

Week 5
Feedback in Task 2 Blog

Week 6
  • Logo: The icon in the middle of 'Cerita' and 'Rakyat' looks better in composition than the the icon being in the left and having the 'Cerita Rakyat' stacked. Typeface is already good. 
  • Card design: Make the characters more dynamic, similar to the triptych concept. Description of characters is already good and interesting, keep it that way to intrigue players. Have the batik patterns look similar from afar but different up close (find similarity in the batik patterns of each region and try to incorporate them seamlessly).
  • Booklet: Make the grid layout more consistent (leaving some space on the right side of the page). Simplify the use of the ornaments, don't overuse it. Book cover should be refined and revised. 

Week 7
  • Character design: Art style should be more consistent, in terms of shading, face shape, the height of the character in the cards, line art, color palette. 
  • Logo design, packaging design, layout design is already good. Try to be more consistent with the ornaments being used across the design assets. 
REFLECTIONS:
Experience:
Task 3 is easily the most time consuming task. But it's also probably our fault since we had some miscommunication and didn't know we had to make our logo by week 5. We ended up having to do a lot since after the branding is done, we had to change a lot of things to align it with our branding. In the last week, we stayed up until dawn almost everyday because it was so time consuming. Nonetheless, during task 3 and its hurdles, I feel like our group bonded a lot more as we spend more time together. 

Ending the first half of my major project, I'm thankful and very very grateful that my groupmates are all so cooperative, active, and hardworking. Ideas were poured every single time we meet and everyone visibly tries their hardest in their own parts while still helping the others. Honestly, it makes MP2 seem less daunting.

Overall, I'd say I'm pretty proud of this project. We had physical mockups and I learnt a lot throughout this semester. I braved myself to venture out my comfort zone and challenged myself, such as in doing the 3D packaging. While MP1 is hard and this past 7 weeks have been challenging, I feel like we're all satisfied and proud with the result. 

Observations:
I observed having 4 brains in a group can be a wonderful thing if used correctly. Thankfully, our group communicates well thus making the process enjoyable. Without proper communication, having too much ideas will leave us more confused than ever. Also, trying to have the same style with 4 people is so so so difficult. Me and Aisya struggled in having the same end results even though we were only using the same ornaments, yet the final ones really looked like 2 people did it. I observed that our group mainly struggles with having the results consistent. 

Findings:
I find that being able to directly communicate well with your teammates will really ensure that the work is done quickly, effectively, and correctly. I also find in this task that teamwork is so crucial. Without teamwork, I don't think this task will have satisfying results. 

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