Secret Print Club
The Task: Create and sell a series of twelve prints depicting characters from a new shared universe with an inter-connected lore. This backstory is partially shown in the prints, and expanded on via clues and riddles shared by a fictional detective agency that participates with followers on social media.
My Process: Brainstorming, thumbnailing, illustration, animation, video production, social media planning and scheduling
Stakeholders: SPC’s followers and customers, myself
Methods + Tools: Procreate, Photoshop, After Effects, Meta Business Suite, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Squarespace Commerce, Tiktok
Results: A complete set of prints shipped to customers across the US, animated reveal videos for each character, 40+ clues published across social feeds, 30000+ impressions
Origins
Secret Print Club began with a desire to take my illustration more seriously. Putting finished pieces on sale gave me incentive to make the prints as polished as possible, and the connected world of SPC spun out as I found ways to make the project as interesting for myself as I could.
I was inspired by the concept of a Dutch reverse auction, in which the price of something rises at fixed intervals. For SPC, it would begin at $10 for the first week with only a handful of clues about the subject. In the second week, the price would rise to $20 and the silhouette would be revealed along with additional clues. At week 3, an animated reveal of the character would be posted as the price stopped at the final $30 price.
The Connected Universe
It quickly became clear that I needed to organize the SPC world and create a background understanding of the connected lore so that I could weave things together in a way that had some logic and consistency.
I began the spreadsheet that you see below. The SPC world is deeply magical and inspired by the lore of media like Adventure Time, Spirited Away, and dungeons and dragons. I wanted to create a variety of elemental types or biomes within the world, as well as implying an overall plot I had developed about a magical disaster that destroyed an arcane academy. The prints are also out of order in time, and range from primordial forces to post-apocalyptic eras.
The Clues
For each print, I prepared multiple clues that would give some sense of what the print could be, while incentivizing interactions with the SPC accounts. I used multiple types of cyphers and riddles, and began illustrating the clues themselves more and more over the course of the project.
utSifraEchvElfuYdcbpeOyUrtTsglhHbskEaiwNh!
A mysterious set of numbers and letters was written on HQ's chalkboard when we arrived this morning. 🤔 Can you decipher what they mean?
Today a dictionary was dropped of at HQ with all of these words highlighted. 📖 We're sure there's a connection to the case, but what could it be? 🤔
A new case has been assigned! 🚨 And this time, we've already found the first clue... 🔍👀
We found this stone fragment near HQ today. Does it have to do with the character from this month's print? Last month's? Next month's? These mysteries may go deeper than we knew... 🔮
The last clue was referring to the time period of the secret character... 🤔 but what is this! Maybe a hint about what they're doing? 👀
Another stone fragment has been discovered! It must have something to do with this month's print 🔮 👀
The final clue for this month's print before the #reveal! // bláfuglasalir enn ekki rennblautir // What could it mean? 🕵🏻♂️
☀️ "trahere industriam in antiqua arbore" ⚡️
this was just dropped unsigned in HQ’s mailbox: “found this scrap of vellum in an abandoned arcane laboratory; thought it might help the investigation”
pick your poison 🧪🕵🏻♂️
Another inscrutable scrap of parchment was left at SPC headquarters today. What could it mean? 🕵🏻♂️
What would we find up there; hiding at the edge of the sky? Has anyone ever looked?
Circling the heavens every night in a recurring dance 💫
Chasing each other around the earth for eons; what could they catch other than feelings? ✨
🔥👀 // SPC August #clue1
We've located a scrap of an old map! 🗺 What section of the realm might it describe? 🪨🪄
🔥🏔🌫
Reveal tomorrow ✨🌋✨
.....s s s s s s s s s s s.....
September‘s third clue! 🕵🏻♂️✨ Print available at secretprint.club 🔍
One more clue for this month's print is coming later this week!
The monks don’t like being misunderstood as cruel. If you do not seek to harm this world, you have nothing to fear.
Print 11 is here! ⏳
After the initial discovery, the researchers believed they might discover something fundamental about their world. What could the substance unlock? ⚗️💎🔮