Mori Hiro!
Fantasy trading cards without the waste
Mori Hiro began with an identified problem in the trading card industry; plastic packaging and unwanted cards creates mass amounts of waste that end up in landfill. My intention was to create a series of trading cards that were appealing to the intended demographic of pop-culture collectors while also having a circular product life cycle and minimising waste. I based most of the characters off my real friends, adapting them into mythical beings that you would find in a TTRPG.
The brand was originally planned to be named “Guardians of Morrow,” however it felt too wordy. Mori Hiro was incorporated due to the direct Japanese translation of “Forest” and “Hero.” With a forest theme to implement and my inspiration of Japanese style character designs, this felt more fitting while being easier to say. I began drawing concepts of characters traditionally, which was then moved to digital programs to assemble elements for printing. To add more items to the product range, I came up with the idea of a branded collector’s album and a display keychain, both popular items amongst trading card fans. Multiple printed and assembled prototypes were created of the product range to produce a variety of product shots, and a social media page was created to further solidify the brand identity of Mori Hiro.
Creating the brand identity of Mori Hiro was an interesting experience as I had to find a balance between capturing the essence of the brand while also creating something easy to print. The wordmark and sans serif typefaces were selected intentionally for this, as was the colour palette. I feel Mori Hiro was effective at giving me experience in developing my understanding of branding, product portfolios and social media marketing.
