MAHARLIKRONS: A Paper Craft Activity Book (CAPSTONE PROJECT)
2022
Book cover design.
MAHARLIKRONS is a capstone book project that involves DIY paper craft in which the reader would cut out individual pieces of each robot and assemble them together to form the robot figures. We have also incorporated traditional weaving patterns into the designs of each robot and is intended to help promote the art of weaving.
The name MAHARLIKRONS comes from the word "maharlika", which means noble warrior, and the book is inspired by popular Filipino toy series Foldabots, created by Jomike Tejido and originally published in K-Zone Philippines.
The robots.
The project is intended to be nostalgic to those that grew up with Foldabots, while also being a fun toy book that is easily approachable by younger audiences. Avid travellers and commuters would also be able to appreciate fun facts about Philippine transportation, their designs as robots, and also allow readers to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for traditional Filipino weaving patterns that can be found throughout the different regions in the Philippines.
Design
While designing the page layouts for the book, I had to keep in mind that each page for the robots should have: a description, a section for a character portrait, a section for trivia about the robot's representative vehicle/object, and a larger space for writing instructions.
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The retro / cyber aesthetics of the book is inspired by Transformers G1, and goes all the way to the style of each portrait and even their coloring.
Because of this, the typefaces I chose were:
Maria Stellar X, by Filipino designer Aaron Amar (Behance)
Source Code Pro, for flavor text and the credits page. (Google Fonts)
Both of these typefaces is inspired by the futuristic / cyber aesthetic, while I had used League Spartan, for instructions and descriptions due to their clean design. (Google Fonts)
Typefaces used for this project.
Each robot figure incorporates a traditional weaving pattern design into their vehicle, which are better showcased in the pattern gallery section of the book where we included short backgrounds on each pattern's origins and symbolism.
Output
We managed to be able to print a bookbinded copy prepared, but not with the desired paper that we were initially going for (C2S Paper), but the assembled figures were still able to give us an accurate representation of how they would look like, as well as show what the flaws are in our initial design.
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While the current sizing was close to our original vision, assembling the figures became a challenge as some of the connectors between each piece was too small to be pasted securely. The paper also made it difficult for the flag pole of Vintron to be rolled, so a different folding method must be done as a workaround to put up the Vinta sail.
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Overall, the book did not have any other issues and would only be needing minor revisions in the sizing of the cut-out pieces.
Credits
