Everyone's A Little Weird
Job Description
Create a brand campaign for a webcomic centered around a teenage boy with Obsessive Compulsive Disroder (OCD) with a virtual influencer as part of a self-expressing OCD community and education of OCD.
Timeline
June. 2021 - April. 2021
Category
Brand Campaign Design
Role
Graphic Designer
Tools
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects​
Background
What is this project?
Everyone's A Little Weird is a brand campaign that aims to educate the general public about OCD and increase awareness of my OCD-themed webcomic, 'Tall, Fair, and Peculiar'. The concept of this brand campaign was inspired by the 'virtual influencer' Lil' Miquela who had gathered a lot of attention and debate. This project was my graduation thesis project.
Background
What's the problem?
For a bit of context, TFP (Tall, Fair, and Peculiar) was created for Gen Z readers in order to reduce stigma surrounding people with OCD. It tells the story of Oswald, a boy in high school who has OCD and tries his best to hide it yet struggles to. This is a story I hope OCD sufferers can relate with as I myself have OCD, and the experiences I write into the story are based on my own.
However, since TFP is a newly created webcomic series, it hasn't been able to gain a lot of traction. The webcomic has yet to reach the target audience, mainly because the posting schedule was inconsistent and no further marketing efforts had been done.
After a bit of brainstorming, my thesis professor suggested me to create a brand campaign that could solve the webcomic's problems as well as be adapted into a thesis material.
So, the goal is...
To research and create a unique brand campaign that raises awareness of the webcomic TFP, as well as educating people about the struggles of living with OCD.
Workflow
Design Process
First, I need to determine the target audience. I came up with the prerequisites, as follows:
Male or female
10-24 years old
Lives in big cities
Likes reading comics
Wants to learn
about OCD
Has read TFP
Webcomic before
Since this campaign is supplementary to the webcomic, it needs to have the same design guidelines and branding style as the webcomic.
The webcomic has a strict color palette consisting of shades of blue and white only, therefore the brand campaign needs to adapt the same palette.
Elaborating further on the brand campaign brand identity and style, I decided to take a flat design, Memphis style approach. The Memphis style is a design style recognizable from its usage of simple geometric shapes, highly contrasting colors, and the presence of lines and abstract shapes. To me, this approach fits the theme because people with OCD tend to have a lot going on inside their heads.
After that, I had to plan out the campaign timeline. Over the course of 4 months, educational OCD content would be posted weekly on the campaign Instagram account. Above is the mock-up Instagram post and the 3D model of the virtual influencer Oswald.
Next up is the logo for the brand campaign. With the slogan already decided, the only thing left is the design. There wasn't any particular inspiration for the logo. I just wanted to make it look like a sticker or a label.
To leave a deeper impact to the audience, merchandise also need to be designed. Merch would be distributed as purchasable items or giveaway prizes. The merchandise for this campaign are a coffee
mug and a sticker set of TFP characters.
Not forgetting promotional materials, there's also the brand campaign poster and booth for event purposes. The brand campaign poster depicts the four main characters of the webcomic and holding out a QR code that could take scanners to the webcomic site. Meanwhile, the booth features the webcomic logo and the main characters.
And as mentioned before, this brand campaign plans to utilize the presence of a virtual influencer. The main character Oswald was made into a semi-realistic 3D model for that purpose.
Lastly, this is the design of the an Instagram Feed post for the campaign. It features the same supergraphics as depicted in the brand campaign style.
User Research
Design Validation
To validate the prototype designs shown previously, I enlisted the help of 3 extreme users and 3 expert users. The extreme users are young adults in university who read comics in their spare time, and the expert users are webcomic authors and graphic designers who have experience in the field. I also did a survey on a 100 participants with the qualifications mentioned here.
The key takeaways from both research methods were analyzed and concluded into these points:
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The 3D model's hair and face needs to be refined more.
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Logo needs to look less corporate and showcase the 'weird'.
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Instagram content design looks too generic and too safe.
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Mug as merch looks boring, and stickers need more variety.
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Promotional poster has no storytelling and looks too plain.
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Booth doesn't look fun and inviting, too simple.
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Overall, the designs lack effective storytelling, identity, and doesn't really emphasizes the webcomic's visual branding and intent.
Solution
Design Results
After thoroughly filtering and analyzing the feedback received, I revised and did many adjustments to various designs, and here's the final results of the brand campaign's designs with a comparison as well.
The logo of the brand campaign was redesigned to less stiff and look more related to a webcomic, with a brush stroke outlining the logotype, and the word "Weird" was designed to have stand out more, with a different logotype and having stylized hatches. On the right are the alternatives.
The mug merch was also changed into exclusive t-shirts; there are two designs featuring the character Oswald and Azusa. The t-shirts were designed with the campaign's message in mind: not afraid of being different.
New stickers were also added to the previous set, increasing the number from 4 to 8 stickers. Some of these stickers could also have customizable dialogue, and available both digitally and printed.
The promotional poster was redesigned to look more interesting. It tells a story in a comic format, and shows the reader a sneak peak of the protagonist's personality. It is also inquisitive to the reader and persuades them to find out more by showing the webcomic's QR code.
The booth was redesigned to be more interactive, inviting, and interesting with the addition of a photo standee. The booth also only features the webcomic logo and tagline.
Oswald's 3D model was slightly adjusted to look younger, and the hair redone to better resemble the 2D character art.
Lastly, the Instagram Feed post mock-up was also redesigned to be simpler, less cluttered, and implements illustrations to give a sense of correlation to the webcomic.
Accolades
Intellectual Rights Grant
Tall, Fair, and Peculiar was granted an intellectual rights certificate for a brand campaign design poster detailing the brand campaign elaborated on above in a short and concise manner.
Thanks for reading!
Want to see my designs for Jakarta Post's special news coverage about electric vehicles in Indonesia, or my work for an epilepsy first aid app's social media? Click here to go to the main page.
Let's collaborate together.