HAC!BD Landing Page and Concept Case Study

A fun and exciting project I got to work on recently is the UI/UX and campaign concept for HAC!BD Comic Con presence as part of skill test for Zitec. Zitec is a really cool company located in Bucharest, who creates designs and software for a variety of brands in the software, hospitality, media, and lifestyle fields.

HAC!BD is the main comics publishing house in Romania region and their most important comics series is Harap Alb Continua! (HAC!) based on the Romanian fairytale called Harap Alb. The comics magazine series can be purchased individually or as a bundle at the website www.supererou.ro.

HAC!BD participates for the first time at Comic Con and they want to create a campaign to drive awareness and also to build a loyal fan base who loves fairytales and comics.

Design a landing page for the event and come up with creative ways of generating leads and awareness.

Even though I must admit I haven’t really purchased a comic magazine before, I was very familiar with the story of Harap Alb and the Romanian folklore, therefore I was very excited to have the opportunity to imagine a concept for this campaign.

Since this story is something I grew up with and was dear to me, I was keen to get reacquainted with beloved characters designed in a comic book style, and after this I decided I must have the entire collection! 🙂

The first step I took was to write a series of questions that would help me better understand the design brief, as well as how this campaign can serve HAC!BD’s fans in a meaningful way.

I started with questions like “who are the competitors?”, “who are similar?”, “how can I create a well fitted branding guideline?”, “who is the audience and why should they care about this?”, “what emotion am I trying to convey through this landing page design?” – followed by research regarding comic books and comics conventions.

Since this was HAC!BD’s first time being present at Comic Con, I wanted the design to be addressed to people who might not be familiar with Harap Alb Continua! but might love other comics or fairytales, as well as people who like Harap Alb Continua! but might have never participated at Comic Con.

I decided upon using an earthy color palette (dark greens, burnt sienna, gold) inspired by nature, forest and organic elements. It symbolizes Harap Alb’s humble origins and transformation, and it’s inspired also by HAC!BD official colors and Harap Alb’s outfit.

The font used for titles is a gothic, fantasy, style font, highlighting HAC!’s roots in folklore and magic.

Inspired by Harap Alb Continua! main character named Stefan (nicknamed “Harap Alb” by his arch nemesis) – who initially doesn’t possess any special powers, but gains them through overcoming the harsh challenges thrown his way in his journey – I came up with a slogan (and hashtag) for the campaign:

• “Si Tu Poti Fi Supererou” (translated means “You can be a superhero as well”)

Other strategy parts: incentivize sign ups through gamification and prizes, like t-shirt giveaways. Encourage loyalty and returns to the landing page and mobile tablet app through periodical “drops” and points collection based games – like the interactive trading card game where Harap Alb measures its superpowers against other heroes from other games or universes.

This also serves as a great way to introduce the character to comic lovers who are not yet familiar with Stefan, but know other characters.

I thought it would be helpful for the ones who participate at Comic Con to also have a downloadable map of the venue with a location of HAC!BD stand.

All points can be saved and viewed in the iOS or Android app where you can also read all the HAC! magazine issues available.

The HAC! card game exists as a physical pack of cards, but I thought it would be a great way to use the same idea in the digital realm in order to collect points and reward the most loyal Harap Alb lovers with nice prizes and personalized special offers. My idea was to have an easy and fun way to keep someone’s curiosity going. Also a small excuse to use glassmorphism in a subtle way 😅

Number of redeemable points necessary for each HAC! bundle.

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