N O T H I N G I S S A C R E D
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A year ago, I decided to create, along with a friend, an antidote for people who take themselves too seriously.
An online store for people who crack jokes at funerals.
An online store for people who crack jokes at funerals.
Named after the underlying Brand philosophy, Nothing is Sacred creates cheeky merchandise and twisted card/ board games for urban Indian millennials.
B R A N D
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1. Logo
Our brand was primarily based on dark humour - finding mirth in misery. Hence, for the logo I tried to combine a symbol of morbidity - a skeleton, with a symbol of whimsicality - a bubblemaker. Also, I specifically wanted an illustrated logo - to stand out amongst the sea of generic minimal forms we see everywhere.
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2. Brand Colours
An unusual, muted colour palette that contained all the major hues.
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3. Typography
Packaging design for board games calls for typefaces with character - hence I picked boxy Archive first as an accent typeface, then the surprisingly elegant Melbourne as a complementary display typeface and the ever-reliable Libre Franklin as the body typeface.
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4. Collaterals
The logo-form lends itself beautifully to monotone collaterals - T-shirts, Visiting Cards etc.
I also created a bunch of representative illustrations that we could pepper our Thank You Post-cards, Laptop-stickers, etc with.
I also created a bunch of representative illustrations that we could pepper our Thank You Post-cards, Laptop-stickers, etc with.
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5. Copy
We held a tight grip on the copy throughout, whether it was for an Instagram caption or the Landing Page, making sure it was resoundingly fresh, cheeky, irreverent and unpretentious. And yes, funny. We never missed a chance to take a dig at our consumer; we wanted them to feel like we were sharing an inside joke.
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6. Website
www.nothingissacred.in
www.nothingissacred.in
We set up a basic, functional eCommerce website on Wordpress - including essentials like a striking Hero banner, an upfront Product Catalogue and Customer Testimonials. Clicking on our products would take you to their respective Landing pages in place of traditional Product pages, and then subsequently through a standard Checkout Process.
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In January 2019, we collaborated with Tinder India to bring out a wretchedly funny card game for their #Adultingcanwait Campaign.
The brief was to create an Indian, Millennial/Gen-Zee version of the widely popular Cards Against Humanity - a kind of a Cards Against Adulting. We had to retain the basic gameplay and the wry, biting humour of the text, but devise the entire content, and visual design from scratch.
The brief was to create an Indian, Millennial/Gen-Zee version of the widely popular Cards Against Humanity - a kind of a Cards Against Adulting. We had to retain the basic gameplay and the wry, biting humour of the text, but devise the entire content, and visual design from scratch.
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Presenting, Adulting Can Wait Card Game - a game for all adults who can barely adult - who still double-text despite being ghosted, try hard to keep their plants alive, are slowly discovering that maybe Bollywood was wrong about love IRL, drown their sorrows in memes and struggle to keep their parents from finding out what they REALLY do in the weekends.
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The Process
This was a dream project - we were being paid to come up with punchlines. But we had to drive a stick in the sand first.
S t e p 1
We listed down the many facets of life as an Urban Millennial in India - be it the constant danger of being ghosted, resilient middle-class genes, or the alarming growth of gym-selfies and then zeroed in on 5 major concerns of Adulting - Living by Yourself, Modern Love and Dating, Modern Workplaces, Generation Gap between our parents and us, and Pop-Culture - all goldmines of humorous content.
We listed down the many facets of life as an Urban Millennial in India - be it the constant danger of being ghosted, resilient middle-class genes, or the alarming growth of gym-selfies and then zeroed in on 5 major concerns of Adulting - Living by Yourself, Modern Love and Dating, Modern Workplaces, Generation Gap between our parents and us, and Pop-Culture - all goldmines of humorous content.
We decided to keep 50 Question Cards and 200 Answers Cards in the game.
S T E P 2
Through several hair-pulling discussions and the occasional cold beer, we came up with tens of promising questions under these categories, and tens of funny phrases that could become their possible answers.
We listed them all on a matrix grid - Questions on the X axis, Answers on the Y axis.
We matched every answer to every question - An answer had to work well (ie. make you laugh out loud - not snigger, not smile) with at least 20-30 questions to qualify for the game. Similarly, a Question had to have at least 40-50 possible funny answers for it to be shortlisted.
We listed them all on a matrix grid - Questions on the X axis, Answers on the Y axis.
We matched every answer to every question - An answer had to work well (ie. make you laugh out loud - not snigger, not smile) with at least 20-30 questions to qualify for the game. Similarly, a Question had to have at least 40-50 possible funny answers for it to be shortlisted.
S T E P 3
We came up with a rough draft of the game and vigorously play-tested it across various social groups, observing them intently to see when they laughed at a card and when they didn't, which cards had to be explained, which cards would pass through the game unused.
We used their feedback to ruthlessly axe any cards that didn't muster a laugh, and came up with a final set, reviewed and approved by Tinder India.
We used their feedback to ruthlessly axe any cards that didn't muster a laugh, and came up with a final set, reviewed and approved by Tinder India.
S T E P 4
We wanted it to look visually dissimilar to CAH, and its other Indian spinoffs in the market - hence, we created a a playful artwork comprising of multiple doodles of the perils of Adulting in India for the packaging.
250 Cards, each matt-laminated with rounded corners, packed into a cuboidal box with a vertical sleeve, accompanied with an instruction manual. ___
The Campaign
The game was launched at the Under 25 Summit on 2/02/2019 in Bangalore, which sees a footfall of over 10K spirited young adults.
Over the course of 4 weeks, the game was heavily featured on Tinder India's Social Media, wherein they ran contests and gave away free decks to winners. Over 25 wildly popular Influencers, from stand-up comedians to emerging actresses, posted about the game, reaching a staggering 5M+ followers in total.
Over the course of 4 weeks, the game was heavily featured on Tinder India's Social Media, wherein they ran contests and gave away free decks to winners. Over 25 wildly popular Influencers, from stand-up comedians to emerging actresses, posted about the game, reaching a staggering 5M+ followers in total.
It was the reception from our actual customers though, that truly thrilled us. We assured them of a laugh riot, and we kept our word :)
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Landing Page
www.nothingissacred.in/acw
www.nothingissacred.in/acw
We had gotten the word out, now we had to convert them into sales. We created a punchy Landing Page with a singular CTA - Buy a Deck. We tried to make the transition from user to customer as easy as possible - mandatory social validation in the form of Customer Pictures (including popular Influencers') and Testimonials, upfront info on what's in the box and how to play the game, and confident, lively copy and prompts to Buy a Deck at the end of every section.
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Facebook Ads
We ran a Facebook Carousal Ad for a small albeit successful test-run - Human Faces (especially dramatic expressions such as these) grab the highest number of eyeballs, plus instantly demonstrate how the user will feel upon using the game, which is really the selling point for any commodified experience.
We had tested other ads, and this one performed the best, unsurprisingly.
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We had tested other ads, and this one performed the best, unsurprisingly.
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Related Merchandise
The content and artwork spawned a supplementary chain of merchandise - an easy way to increase the basket size. The doodle-artwork easily made its way into boxers and tote-bags, while the some of the funniest Q/A combinations went on Tees in the form of Google search Autocomplete modules.
Our first creation was Would You Rather, a party game that lets you openly judge your friends, ask strangers inappropriate questions and steadily get hammered, all under the guise of 100 hilariously awkward questions around love, career, bodily functions, sex and your own personal demons.
A game built for some memorable, alcohol-aided conversations as your friends explain their poor life choices, or question others'.
A game made to save your house parties from soulless small talk; unearth old, juicy anecdotes on a weekend trip with close friends; and maybe even move things along on a second date ;)
A game built for some memorable, alcohol-aided conversations as your friends explain their poor life choices, or question others'.
A game made to save your house parties from soulless small talk; unearth old, juicy anecdotes on a weekend trip with close friends; and maybe even move things along on a second date ;)
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The Process
The game started out simply as a group of friends trying to outdo each other in asking the harder Would You Rather question on a night out drinking, and we had such a blast that we decided to keep the best ones in a shared google document.
We started listing questions under 4 major categories - Safe, Gross, Meta and Awkward. There were two conditions for any question to qualify - the answer should reveal something about the person, and make his ears burn.
It gradually evolved from a free-wheeling document to a structured card-game with a defined gameplay, through multiple playtests over the course of an year. We tested alternate ways to play the game, pruned the cards to a saucy 100, and rephrased each question to get the maximum response.
We started listing questions under 4 major categories - Safe, Gross, Meta and Awkward. There were two conditions for any question to qualify - the answer should reveal something about the person, and make his ears burn.
It gradually evolved from a free-wheeling document to a structured card-game with a defined gameplay, through multiple playtests over the course of an year. We tested alternate ways to play the game, pruned the cards to a saucy 100, and rephrased each question to get the maximum response.
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The Engagement
Would You Rather is a highly charged game - whether it a particularly audacious question or a hilarious punishment for not answering one - creating many memorable moments that provide good fodder for either Social Media or morning-after-conversations.
At a superficial level, it's a fun drinking game that breaks the ice at a house-party. But the real gift of the game is the unexpected intimacy that develops amongst the players as they discuss the merits of losing someone they love versus slowly growing to hate them, or cheekily guess which player is more likely to have a secret fetish or reason why they think the player on their right would make a better parent.
It's a sly way to lead conversations into places they would never have otherwise.
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At a superficial level, it's a fun drinking game that breaks the ice at a house-party. But the real gift of the game is the unexpected intimacy that develops amongst the players as they discuss the merits of losing someone they love versus slowly growing to hate them, or cheekily guess which player is more likely to have a secret fetish or reason why they think the player on their right would make a better parent.
It's a sly way to lead conversations into places they would never have otherwise.
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Landing Page
www.nothingissacred.in/wyr
www.nothingissacred.in/wyr
We created an experimental Landing Page for this game, shorn of typical Landing Page features like Customer Testimonials and How-Tos. It was a unabashed train of sleek, punchy copy from start to finish. An exercise in parody. The testimonials were hilariously fake, the warnings were punchlines and the final CTA sarcastic. We wanted the page to retain an air of exclusivity and intrigue, for the game is not meant for everybody. Only a few with an ear for secrets and a nose for trouble.
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Buy Would You Rather Card Game here.
P R O D U C T # 3
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Pixel Pyaar Merchandise
Why should humans have all the fun, eh?
A series of prints of pixellated animals doing the deed that would go on (strategic places) on our merchandise.
A series of prints of pixellated animals doing the deed that would go on (strategic places) on our merchandise.
Guaranteed to start conversations - with you, or behind you.
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Pixel Pyaar Products
Two in the Bush T-shirt
This adorable pair of donkeys is neatly hidden inside your pocket, till its summoned at will. Could almost make up for your lack of social skills.
This adorable pair of donkeys is neatly hidden inside your pocket, till its summoned at will. Could almost make up for your lack of social skills.
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Forrest Hump Dual-printed Tote-Bag
Bleeding heart on the outside, shagging little cute animals on the inside. This bag has a split personality to match yours.
Bleeding heart on the outside, shagging little cute animals on the inside. This bag has a split personality to match yours.
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Forrest Hump Cotton Boxers
Boxers are the unexpectedly fitting places to show your support for freedom of love.
Boxers are the unexpectedly fitting places to show your support for freedom of love.
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A Wild Ride Ganjees
So here is the bare minimum clothing that can still pass off as respectable outside. Well respectable on the front, at least. If you turn around, you’ll hear a gasp running through the room.
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Pixel Pyaar Birthday Greeting Card
Nothing like reminding your friend about how he came into this world on the day he did.
Nothing like reminding your friend about how he came into this world on the day he did.
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Facebook Ads
A Facebook Carousal Ad set that let the products do the talking - showcasing them against pop-coloured backgrounds, accompanied with zesty captions.
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Promotional Posts
Intermittent posts on Instagram to build the buzz around the merchandise - utterly brazen, and all the more memorable for that.
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