The Road To STGCC: About That Foldout Catalog of TOYSREVIL-Exclusives

One of the things which I really wanted to attempt for this years' STGCC, was to produce a booklet - which essentially acts like a "catalog" - of my toy-exclusives and prints for my booth F51. The notion was to come hand-in-hand with the release of the *I LIKE TOYS* fanzine, but with this particular publication, was to be in full color.

The plan was to present each toy within a single or two pages of content, featuring the image of the toy itself, and a write-up, or interview, or even sequential comic-panels! But alas, I could not manage to pull the contents together coherently with whatever materials I had, and as well the production timeline dwindled ever so precariously, as the event loomed large for D-Day, on the morning of September 1st, 2012.

But I stubbornly refused to give the notion up so easily, even though at a juncture I decided that Issue #2 of the *I LIKE TOYS* fanzine will not happen in time, at the same time I decided not to customize toys of my own for display. Regardless of what I lacked, I could not do without the "catalog".

I remember an online conversation with Don Kratzer of Fig-Lab, who reminded me of classic foldout catalogs, for which I had decided to go to "Plan B", and somehow recreate the swell sensation of a foldout glossy catalog that used to come with Playmobil and other random toys from the past! And the die was set! (Thanks, Don!)

I decided to forgo cumbersome text (although on hindsight I should have included website URLs to the artists, but alas had no experience with color printing to be able to ensure integrity of readability) and feature IMAGES of the toy-exclusives instead, with simple item description and artists text. And the result is shown here via video:


NOW you know why this was the other reason I had requested for hi-res images!

Permit me a chance to gripe a tad tho … the print out was delivered to my house (for which I was grateful) on the day before the event launch at Sands Expo Convention Center, and I knew I had a night of folding to do (as the printout did not come folded nor were they 'scored' with fold-lines), but a dire surprise awaited me as well. The printout came with a white border all around, and was not cut to size as requested. Which meant getting my dad to help cut individual printouts for me (as I ran about town trying to sort out last minute stuff), and enlisting both my sister and mum subsequently at night - to fold each individual printouts - for use the next morning at STGCC.


So each and every catalog foldouts are painstakingly cut and folded by the Heng Family! And while I could go on relentlessly about "best laid plans", I was reasonably glad I was able to make the catalog happen, and the experience I had "gained" would stand me in good stead if ever I decide to do it again.

This catalog was given out with every STGCC-item purchased at both Booth F51 and via my online sales of said item/s. The production was at my own cost, which I had intended for it to be a promotional collateral for TOYSREVIL. Ironically, the cost spent would have been a nice slice of financial savings, if not "profit" for STGCC lol

I hope you enjoy the catalog, folks!

Cheers
Andy