This letter/A4 size chart called the „ARCHETYPER” shows a collection of the most important archetype models out there to give writers a starting point for creating believable, realistic characters for books or scripts. Recently, designers have discovered the power of archetyping to create compelling product brands. Therefore this is a practical reference guide not only for writers of scripts and novels but also for brand designers (It’s also great to check if a role was well crafted and casted in a blockbuster movies)

Who should get this chart?

Anyone who wants to write a good movie script or novel and has been left confused by the different models out there on how to craft a great character. Anyone who needs a general overview over the important archetype models before leaving the threaten path or creating something from scratch. And, anyone who wants to define the important aspects of a product service brand for a brand styleguide, creative brief or client presentation. This chart wants to help you decide and refine your creation.

What's on this chart?

The archetype ideas of:

assembled into a single chart with 12 columns. Each column lists an archetype’s main aspects and contains everything you need to craft a rounded (non stereotypical) character with lifelike strengths and endearing flaws:

For brand designers, each column represents a target audience. It shows you everything you need to know about the inner needs and motivators of that target audience, so you can craft a brand that reflects the needs of that audience. And also: the colors used in the different character entries are the most favourite colors of people with that character setup. Use these colors if you design for that particular audience and you get a higher chance of emotional acceptance.

There are 3 sections on the chart. What’s that all about?

The middle section describes 12 Archetypes the experts we mentioned see as being " essential character template groups" most (if not all) humans fall into. There are many more variations and mix types, but these 12 seem to be the basic set.

The upper section shows an interesting secondary way of interpreting Archetypes. According to some of the experts, the 12 Archetypes can be aligned along the structural backbone of a good storyline. (See the  storymeter on the steps of a good storyline). Placed like this, each of the 12 archetypes becomes a step in the developmental journey of a character in a story. At first, it seems confusing how the 12 archetypes can be both templates to create characters AND story stages of one individual character, but, there you have it. If it makes sense, use it. In each step of a story, a character learns something. This newfound knowledge enables him to move forward to the next story stage. For some reason currently unexplained by science, a character in a crowd-pleasing story does in fact run through all archetype stages on his way to the climax. He doesn’t mutate into the archetypes, but instead, learns their lessons and gains their abilities ’his way’. This particular kind of learning and growing while staying true to one's own archetypical character seems to resonate with an inner need in our shared human psyche and also, strangely enough, it reflects the order of the Western astrological zodiac system. Figure that.

The lower section of the chart shows how each character archetype of the middle section can be associated with one of the zodiac signs. If you are modeling your characters close to the archetypes, this can give you further character details like date of birth and all the other character traits associated with the different zodiac signs.

Why do the archetypes, the western zodiac signs and the steps of a storyline all fit together?

It seems strange that models which were created by scientists, artists and philosophers from different fields of thought who have lived hundreds of years apart can be combined into a logically coherent chart. Being extremely happy with the discovery of so many consistent elements, this charts leaves any further scientific, religious, philosophical or spiritual explanation to others. This chart just wants to give writers and designers a comprehensive, logical tool with which to create compelling characters or brand personalities.

How do I use this chart in my everyday writing or designing work?

The most common use would be in the planning stage of a writing project. This chart can help you to pick main characters that have well defined, strong and realistic likes or dislikes for one another, because for who they are and what they stand for. The 12 archetypes can be used as a basic blueprint for creating character pairs or groups that are eternal enemies, grand lovers, soul mates or perfect friends, despite all odds you throw at them in the course of the story.

You can also use this chart to quickly understand the systematic behind the main character setup in movies. Often the roles that actors are cast into not only match their personal archetypical character setup (although we don't know if the people who did the casting were logically aware of this structural match or just followed their intuition), but also seemed to be precisely modeled after the Love/Hate pair logic in the chart. An example of a casting that matches the archetype structure on the chart both ways are the two main characters in  body of lies played by Leonardo di Caprio and Russel Crowe. Not only are their roles typical archetypes 1 and 9, but their zodiac sign fits as well. Another great match is Hugh Laurie in  House, who would be a 3, both in the show and in real life (When an actor shares the same zodiac sign attributes with the role he plays, he or she seems most convincing) Leave the mystical explanations for this phenomenon aside and you can use the logical system behind it to your advantage to strengthen the conflict setup in your story.

For designers, the 12 archetypes represent the main target groups for brands. A brand that is modeled after one of the archetypes is perceived as "one of us" by this target audience and will enjoy extreme, almost religious brand loyalty resulting in high sales figures. Use the archetypes to define all conceptual aspects of the brand as a basic roadmap for the logo designer or the advertising creative. The chart even shows you what color range the brand should use, in order to fully integrate itself into the psychological setup of the target group.

Should I know the archetype models brought together in this chart?

Yes. You can read a lot out of this chart right from the start, but not everything can be understood without background knowledge about the models. You should at least be familiar with the psychological interpretation of astrology signs before this chart really makes sense, and be willing to see it as something other than a mystical belief system. If you want to read further: Most of the experts who's models are features on the chart have written books available on Amazon and other major book stores, so it would probably be a good idea to get some of the books to enable you to fully extract and make use of the compressed knowledge on this chart.

How accurate is this?

As accurate as the models are which you can see on the chart. There seems to be no scientific explanation as to why this logical system of character templates exists and has been described so similarly by science, mysticism and art over the past centuries. That said, what this chart does is to create an overview of the current knowledge base on that subject, assembled on a belief-system-free overview chart. With this chart, writers and designers have one more tool besides talent and intuition to use when creating characters or brand personalities. The chart can help writers and designers make well crafted decisions based on existing knowledge about the subject. In terms of storytelling structure Truby’s „The Anatomy of Story” and Vogler’s „The Writer’s Journey” seem to be more accurate than others, therefore their story structure models appear on the chart as an exemplary story backbone on which to align the archetypes, but they can potentially be exchanged with any of the other existing structures out there.

What are these color bars?

There are two sets of color bars. The upper bars show the steps in the backbone of a good story and how archetypes can help understand the lesson of each of those steps. Take a look at this contextually adjacent overview chart on the subject of storytelling, called the  storymeter.You can take the archetyper and tape it to the bottom of the storymeter. The color bars will continue and show you a detailed description of each story phase. A color code with a gradient symbolises the character development and increase in tension.

The lower bars represent the 12 archetypes. This time, the color of the bars are archetypical colors. At the bottom of the page the bars merge into a calendar. Here, the colors indicate the element (earth, fire, water, air) of a zodiac sign.

Is this your opinion?

No. While this kind of work cannot be accomplished without some form of generalization in closing logical gaps or pinning down the position of elements, it is not a spiritual but a logical piece of work. It is free of personal opinions or belief systems on archetypes, astrology or psychology and just based on the facts at hand. It simply connects the dots. An insane amount of hours has flown into creating this overview and trying to make it as general as possible and now it should be pretty accurate as a general reference on character creation that still leaves enough room to let you come to your own conclusions.

Who created this?

Petra from cartafina. Petra is an Information Architect and Interaction Designer who helps large companies create valuable customer experiences on the web. With this chart her goal is to make complex information accessible and understandable for creative people so they can make fast, informed decisions. This chart wants to take some of the planning difficulty out of people's writing project so they can focus more on the creation and less on the organisation of information.

Can I print this chart?

Yes. It fits on „Letter” (US) or „A4” (Europe) size paper where it is readable with regular eyesight. It is created in vector format, so you can scale it up (or down) to any other paper size without loss of quality. That is if you find it hard to read or want to hang it on the wall, for example. You could print it two times for example: once in larger format (Ledger or A3 for example) for best viewing and the second time in comfortable Letter or A4 to put into binders. For the greatest aha effect use this chart together with the moviemeter or novelmeter or  storymeter by simply taping it to the top or bottom end. The lines will continue and you will have one gigantic chart showing you the plot points of all relevant story models, in what section they should happen in work, and what character they correspond to.

Can I edit this chart?

Yes. You can open the file and edit it, write on top of it or copy the text and graphics and use them in your own artwork. The only requirement would be that whatever you do with it adheres to our terms and conditions outlined in the disclaimer. If you're looking for a quick and easy digital whiteboard for outlining your story, have a look at the timeliner mini and timeliner maxi. And the artboarder mini offers the same functionality, but adapted for visual story creators.

Can I duplicate and / or distribute this chart?

Duplicate yes, distribute no. Make as many digital copies or printouts for your own personal use as you like, but distributing or selling it is not the cartafina way of doing things. The price of each chart is roughly that of a restaurant visit (sometimes even less) but a cartafina charts should have plenty more satisfaction value for years to come. So please encourage your friends to get their own copies. That way they will also become official members of the cartafina clan entitling them to free updates and other member benefits. (Read our disclaimer for more information.)

Will this chart be updated from time to time?

Yes. The chart started with version 1.0. We are currently at 1.1. which has spelling corrections and a layout update. Buyers of this chart will automatically get the latest version. If small corrections or updates are made, cartafina will send an updated charts to all previous buyers of this chart free of charge. (please allow 1-2 weeks for this to happen. There is that day job.) And just as with updates of software, big changes or additions will require a new purchase or an upgrade fee. If you bought this chart at some point in the past, come back to this page from time to time to see the latest version.

What do I get when I buy this?

You get a PDF document that is about 1 MB large which you can download immediately after your payment. It can be opened on any computer or digital device that has the free Adobe Acrobat Reader installed, or that can display PDFs with another type of software. (On the Mac, simply use the pre-installed Preview to view it) It fits on Letter or A4 paper and can be scaled up or down for printout on larger or smaller paper.

Got an unanswered question? Mail it or proceed to yet another add-to-cart opportunity:

Tape the
archetyper to the bottom end of the storymeter and you get one gigantic chart showing you the plot points of all relevant models and in what section they should happen in a novel or a movie script. (works with the moviemeter and novelmeter, too)

All pages of this site in a neat column

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storymeter

archetyper

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novelmeter

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You can use cartafina charts as a reference in any of your creative projects. Print them, frame them, blog them. As often as you want, anywhere you want. For commercial use in courses or learning materials, please contact cartafina. Read the disclaimer for more information.

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Cartafina is Petra's Information Architecture Store. Petra is an Information Architect and Interaction Designer who helps large companies create valuable customer experiences on the web. Petra is passionate about finding and telling the magical story around a product or service and offering simple solutions to complex navigational problems. Contact herfor employment or project inquiries.

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