Venturing into the 90s Through An Illustrated Book

The creators of the national best seller book “Generation of the 90s” visited UMN through umn’s RAK (Talk Book) event, Thursday (3/3). They share stories about the origins of illustrated books that can take their readers nostalgic back to the 90s and the production process to become a work loved by the public.

The first edition of the “Generation of the 90s” originated from a final task project of Marchella FP—the author—whose concept is a 100-page book of illustrations that must be completed within 6 months. It is a challenge for him because he is not proficient in drawing so he has to learn digital printing.

Like the creation of the final task, the process is quite long including research and dissemination of quisioners. Unexpectedly, his quisioner received a good reception, he managed to get more than 100 respondents, who also provided a lot of inspiration for the contents of his book. In addition, he also created a twitter account for the “Generation of the 90s” which turned out to be able to gain up to 9000 followers.

The plan after the hearing, Marchella wants to close the twitter account. But his followers were disappointed, they wanted to see the results of the project. This is what makes him dare to send the work to the publisher. It was rejected and the idea of printing itself, but the publisher KPG came and offered to print it in 500 hardcover and the rest softcover.

“At that time we had doubts, who would want to buy a picture book? Maybe it won’t work. It turned out that after two days the book was immediately sold-out. It even opened pre-orders in gramedia.com,” Marchella said. To this day, the first edition has reached its 6th print.

The first book was made with the concept of a time machine, inviting readers to be grateful and feel the simple happiness of the 90s. The result was also a proud achievement, namely National Best Seller and top 5 in the Indonesian Readers Award 2013.

In addition to books, “Generation 90s” was eventually developed into a brand of its own, developed through social media such as Facebook, Instagram and LINE, and launched a variety of merchandise. Then, there are also interesting events such as “Time Machine” (2014-2015) with the concept of events that prioritize music events, film screenings, jajana and traditional games that are put together in one place, with the aim of inviting visitors back to the 90s. There is also an event “Kopdar” or Kopi Darat Generasi 90s which brings together between book readers and authors, and has been held several times in Jakarta.

Successful with the 1st edition of the book, Marchella again held the “Generation of the 90s” edition 2 by collaborating with two friends who are reliable illustrators, Yoshua Meyer and Sesotya Jodie. They make a different thing in the second edition, namely making characters for each concept to be raised. There are three characters that represent the game, music and snacks typical of the 90s. The character is an elementary school child who is affected by his brother…. Not to forget, in the second book there is also a tutorial page that contains how to play a traditional game or make traditional toys.

The story of making the book “Generation 90s” provides its own motivation and inspiration, especially from Marchella as a member of the DKV study program. “Small things that are taken for granted can actually be developed into something more valuable. So if you have the work of tasks do not just throw away, “he said.

This event was held at umn lecture hall, a collaboration between KPG, student association of faculty of arts and design (HMFSD) UMN, umn library and UMN FLY (Friends of Library). (*)

Kuliah di Jakarta untuk jurusan program studi Teknik Informatika | Sistem Informasi | Sistem Komputer | Akuntansi |Manajemen| Ilmu Komunikasi | Desain Komunikasi Visual, di Universitas Multimedia Nusantara. www.umn.ac.id