Character Design Today: 200 Powerful Characters and Applications

by P.I.E. Books

Today, a character serves as one of the most powerful communication tools with which to convey a clear message from a company to its target audience, and differentiate its product from the competitors. This collection presents over 200 recent characters used in posters, catalogs, packages, in-store designs, T-shirts, key holders, and more. The book follows design concept, how a character is created according to the company’s marketing plan, each character’s statistics, such as place of birth, family, characteristics, hobby, etc., and is also described in the text so that readers can see how a character is defined and positioned for a particular promotion of a product or service. In addition, there are three brief case studies where the process of creating a character from scratch is featured, showing "brief idea," "rejected design," and the "adopted design" of a character as well as its application in the end. About 90% of the characters in the book are created in Japan, the most character-rich country in the world.

Genres: Design

232 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2008

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why do the Japanese get all the cute characters? The product or service can be more boring than dust, but does that stop them from developing an irresistable mascot for it? No. Take the electric-pink bunny, "Sakuretsu Kun," developed for Sakuraya Co., a "electric household retailer." Here's his description: "Designed to be a somewhat zany creature that would reflect the power of the giant home-appliance retailer yet be loved by all." And: "Ever bouncing about for the sake of the customer."



Meet "Umatase!", the horse who advertises for the Tokyo Metropolitan Racing Association: "His tongue sticking out in a lax sort of way, a sharp look in his eyes as if he has something to say. By no means a flatterer, he has a venomous look. Not simply cute, he was fashioned as a character than can be a spokesman of human motives and complaints. He is meek, serious, willing, but lazy." OMG and that's just one of the hundreds that you need to know about.

[Wens Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating how the Japanese create various kawaii characters with profiles, families, storylines, and accompanying accessories to market their products. Manufacturers (e.g. Aijinomoto panda), media companies (e.g. NHK's Domo monster), public organizations (e.g. Post Office's Masumasu-kun), all have their kawaii mascots.