The Making of Jangan Togel: Part Two

Character Profile

But above of all, these characters are from all walks of Malaysian life. Any Malaysian teenager could find something they could relate to with our characters. Take Aru for example, he's a 14 year old Indian boy with bubbly personality. He's likeable but a bit heavy and due to his size, it slows his movement and as a goal keeper, that's not a good thing at all. But his team mates doesn't care about his weight - they want him to be a part of the team. He was our comedy relief.

Let's look at Boon - the geek who's not into sports because he has lacks the physical coordination to be an athlete but he handles computers and cameras well; he is destined to help the coach improve our team by reviewing their games.

Here's the emerging hero - 15 year old, budding footballer named Rizki. He lives with his brother, raised by a single mother whose husband passed away years ago from an illness. Despite not getting the best of nutrition nor education, he's shown enormous potential as a leader and footballer.

We have a few more but, with these, you should get the idea of where we were going character-wise. We supply enough information in the back story of each character to give readers a sense of their motivation and personality. But most importantly, they should convince the audience/readers.

Location, Location, Location

In the same spirit, we included locations where these characters dwell and thrive in yet retain the everyday images we see and equate as being "Malaysian" - the field sitting opposite low cost flats, the mamak stall and newsstand and Central Market.

We then work with an illustrator to set the images on paper, so to speak. This stage was critical because we had no colour palette to begin. But we knew that the story called for a unique look that does not distract the reader.

This part was the longest phase of development as we had to work out the story, send it to the client then work with our illustrator to make sure everything is in place for the coding team. Mistakes here could easily set us back weeks in production time. But we got lucky in a sense that Nike was excited after viewing preliminary sketches.

Getting the images daily, we started working on the navigation and fleshing out the content - bearing in mind that time is never on our side. Due to this, we couldn't add interactive comic strips complete with dynamic dialogues and larger environment to complete the story we started out with.

Next post: What Went Wrong/Right

The Making of Jangan Togel: Part One

What makes a great website?

Is it the idea or the interpretation of an idea? Why would anyone would want to return to a site again and again? Is it the dazzling subject, the execution or the chance to get some freebies? Who needs this site, the client or the audience? We ask ourselves these questions over and over again every time we sit for a brainstorming session.

Each site begins with its purpose defined and then the mapping of content: what goes where and when. From there, we figure out ways to find the best method of navigating through it. Otherwise it's just a mess of hyperlinks, text and graphical elements.

Now that you know how we work, let's start with the brief.

The brief: We want to engage our teenage audience.

Nike Malaysia specified in the brief for a campaign to engage football crazy teens. So we started kicking (no pun intended) ideas around Jangan Togel, a concept suggested M&C Saatchi. After the first and second meeting with the client and upon considering the prevailing trends of comics in Malaysia, we decided the best approach would be to tell them a story about Jangan Togel in a comic.

Apprehension.

"Jangan Togel" is catchy phrase, for various reasons. Togel, literally means 'naked', comes from the act of taking off your shirt after conceding the first goal - a practical and embarrassing method to differentiate the teams in a football match. As a title as well as a phrase, it means having the ability to stand with your head held up in the face of certain defeat.

But certain quarters took the word literally. We got a call from an official, concerned with the name being 'explicit'. Anticipating this, we explained to these officials that it's a football-driven campaign site - nothing is pornographic about it. Even though it was only one phone call, it was enough to sound the alarm bell throughout the office.

What's in a comic?

The Jangan Togel concept by M&C Saatchi was rough in the sense that it was only a direction. So we started outlining stories on paper to see which ones work best in the context of local culture and Malaysian football. We also had to come with several characters - each had to look and sound like a everyday teenager; meaning, they cannot have a too dramatic personality or background - and they must never outshine the story.

On top of that, each must have a clear, memorable and specific purpose to serve in the story.

But above of all, these characters are from all walks of Malaysian life. Any Malaysian teenager could find something they could relate to with our characters.

Next post: Character Profiling