Client
Stratagem. A brand that aims to bring affordable gear to the underserved niche of tabletop gamers that would love to transition away from DIY solutions.
MEEPLES OF MIGHT & MENACE
Role-Playing Miniatures Collection (2020)
Audience
Role-playing gamers looking to expand their meeples collection.
Brief
Create unique heroes and monsters as wooden meeples for role-playing gamers to use during their games and also provide a place to store them.
Role
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Product / Packaging Design
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Art Direction
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Identity Design
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Co-Illustration
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Print Design
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Type Design
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Packaging Engineer
Need for Products
Bring a little character to your tabletop RPG with these unique wooden meeples, featuring barbarians, rangers, warriors, mages, dragons, orcs, and more. Each features a unique look to add personality to every character, whether a lowly barkeep, a mighty heroic fighter, or a vicious rival NPC. Also, every monster deserves a little personality, whether a lowly goblin, a shambling zombie, or a vicious Big Bad.
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As a game master, use these meeples to fill your world with characters and monsters both big and small, for all manner of delightful, deadly, and devilish, encounters. As a tabletop gamer, upgrade favorite games by replacing pawns, meeples, movers, minis, and miscellaneous game pieces with these bold and unique characters. These figures measure approximately 16 mm (with variation, to account for scaling) and each set includes a magnetic carrying case for easy transportation.
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After marketing conducted research, they found that many of the affordable meeple offerings were poorly made and ugly. It was decided to create two sets to start a series of these fun characters that were better made and custom illustrated to entice customers. Later, it was decided to make the packaging durable for easy storage and use. Parents have even used these to start teaching their kids how to play D&D as both adults and kids enjoy them and these characters' personalities.
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Logo Lockups & Product Artwork Executions
After creating custom type for each package, yet keeping them similar to keep with a line look, it was decided to partner with another illustrator to take the initial title lockup, the line art illustrations for the meeples, and packaging artwork through the finish line. Collaboration was key during this project by giving art direction and then working with another illustrator to execute the vision. The artwork is based off Adventure Time with some other twists to fit under the Stratagem brand. Figure studies were sketched to understand each position every meeple would take and then simplified meeple shapes were created based off those initial figure studies. After the shapes were chosen, then the character illustrations were created using line vector drawings. Once the line drawings were done, these were handed off to the other illustrator to add color and create color variations. While she worked on color, it was decided to focus on packaging.
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Packaging Execution
Early on it was decided that these characters needed to be stored in a book. After experimenting with multiple packaging dielines, these came to be. Both packages are made to look like storybooks and include magnets on the sides to keep them shut during travel. The books are made with a thicker grey board to ensure these packages will last. The artwork for each package showcases some of the meeples belonging to that set with the title as the main focal point. The meeples to standing on rocks to set them a part from the beautiful and stormy skies. Each book has a spine with the title and and other important information. On the inside cover, the other set is being showcased as a reminder to customers, that there is more than one and these can either be bought separately or bundled together. Besides the spine, the other sides of the book show page edges to let customers know that this packaging is meant to look like a book.
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Packing
These packages were made to fit not just a set of meeples, but also some dice or even a small booklet and pencil to make travel easy. The magnets hold the books shut, providing an easy way to close and reopen the book. These diagrams show how all the packaging pieces come together to create these books.
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