For my Advanced Graphic Design class, I was assigned to design a toy and its packaging, with the target audience being a boy aged 6-8. The result was Creeps Of Creation, which is a mystery box containing 4 educational cards depicting real bizarre creatures, and 1 plastic bug toy, in this case an Australian Horror Moth.
My professor had his two boys, ages 6 and 8, come visit our class with their toys for us to observe them. I noticed two things: 1. They liked things that were both cool and creepy (some of their toys were monsters and super heroes) and 2. They liked collectible items. I decided to develop the concept of Creeps Of Creation based on these findings.
I built the moth toy itself in Blender, exported it to be 3D printed, sanded it, and painted it with acrylic paints and gave it a finish with sealer.
The cards were designed and illustrated in Adobe Illustrator. I had made a list of about 20 creatures and narrowed it down to 4 that I thought would be the most interesting to a child to look at and read about. The backs of the cards were also made in Illustrator. I had them made by a custom playing card company.
The packaging was made using the design of the backs of the cards and a template I had found online for a pillow-shaped box.
Upon research with a relatively small sample size (my professor’s two children) it was found that the 6-year-old tested did not care about the creatures. The 8-year-old however found much enjoyment about learning about new creatures and had many questions to ask.
The style and branding was inspired by old horror comic books, especially Tales From The Crypt.
