Themed Costumes For Goldfish Swim School Mascot

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Goldfish Mascot Themes

Earlier this year I was hired by a chain of swimming schools in Wisconsin to design a mascot for their company, Goldfish Swim Schools. You can see a few of the initial sketches here. They named the mascot “Bubbles”, and they liked him/her/it so much that they asked me to create themed variations for use on calendars, removable tattoos, etc. They gave me a list of themes, and the above image is what I came up with.

I recently completed a second batch of themed costumes that I hope I can show soon, and now I’m doing some coloring book art for them featuring Bubbles. If you’ve got company or brand that could use a mascot, drop me a line. I’d love to chat about how I can help you out. You might also want to read my blog post, The Power Of A Mascot.

Packaging Art for Leahy’s Leprechaun Ears

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A couple of years ago I was hired by the owner of a small food company to design a mascot for a new line of chocolate covered cashews. His idea was to call them “Chocolate Covered Elf Ears”, since the shape reminded him of the ears on a small elf and he thought it would be a fun way to make his product stand out a bit from the other chocolate covered nuts on the shelf. I was asked to design an appealing elf character with chocolate ears—certainly not your everyday request—dressed in green so that he could be used for marketing pushes during both Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day.

Leahy's Chocolate Covered Leprechaun Ears

I’m not a graphic designer so the client hired another artist to design the label. Today I received a package containing the final product, “Leahy’s Chocolate Covered Leprechaun Ears”. Because of the word “leprechaun” instead of “elf”, and since we just wrapped up the Christmas season, I’m assuming this is the packaging that will be in stores for St. Patrick’s Day.

My family and I all agree, they’re delicious. The chocolate is smooth and rich, not dry or rubbery. It tastes like a quality product and I’m happy to recommend it.

So far the chocolate cashews are only available in one retail location, a Minneapolis specialty food store called Local D’Lish. If they become available elsewhere, either in stores or online, I’ll let you know.

Mascot Contest Winner Announced

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mascot-contest2

“Mascot Contest 2” officially ended on Friday. A lot of people entered and most identified all the mascots correctly. Those who did were entered in the drawing. I put the entries on slips of paper and my two-year-old daughter picked one out of a baseball cap.

The winner of the mascot contest is David Oldham. Congrats David! You’ll receive a free copy of Eric Goldberg’s new book Character Animation Crash Course!

The correct list of products is:

  1. Mucinex
  2. Progressive Insurance
  3. 9Lives cat food
  4. Booberry cereal
  5. Geico insurance
  6. Michelin tires
  7. Verizon
  8. 7-Up
  9. Kool-Aid
  10. Mr. Clean
  11. Mrs. Butterworth
  12. Wendy’s

It was a lot of fun for me to watch the entries roll in! Thanks to everyone who participated. To those who didn’t win, better luck next time!

Mascot Contest 2

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mascot-contest2

(EDIT: Contest is now closed. Winner and correct answers here.)

As a character designer I’m fascinated with product mascots. A good mascot, when combined with a strong ad campaign, can be an enormous benefit when promoting a product or service. My favorite freelance projects are when clients hire me to design a mascot or character, either for advertising or animation.

To help illustrate the power of a mascot I thought it would be fun to have another mascot contest, similar to the one I ran last year. A good mascot will help customers instantly recall the name of the product he/she/it represents. Can you name all twelve products/brands represented by the mascots above? (Hint: Some mascots share the same name as their product). Most are fairly well-known, but I’ve thrown in a couple of dated ones to keep it from being too easy.

animationcrashcourse

If you can correctly identify all twelve products I’ll enter your name into a drawing for a free copy of the book Character Animation Crash Course! by famed Disney animator Eric Goldberg. This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn not how to give your animated characters a sense of true personality and life. The book comes with a free CD and is chock full of great info. I happen to own a spare copy, hence this contest.

Remember, to be entered in the drawing you must correctly name the products, not the mascots themselves. The contest deadline is midnight (central time) on Friday, June 12. I’ll announce the winner on Monday, June 15. Send your answers to [email protected], along with your name, email address, and phone number. Please do NOT leave your answers as a posted comment. Such posts will be deleted.

This is not a scheme to add you to some sort of mailing list. This is just for fun. I promise I’ll only use the info to contact you if you win, and after the contest all the names and email addresses will be deleted from my computer.

Also, to view some of the mascots and characters I’ve designed for various clients don’t forget to visit the “Character Design” page on my website.

So….How many products can you name?

Some Character Design Sketches

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Here’s another project I can finally let out of the bag. A large regional company is in the process of rebranding itself and expanding its market base. I was hired by an ad agency to help develop an updated version of this company’s current mascot. After a couple of rounds of sketches the company decided to go in another direction with the project, so this is as far as my involvement went.

The agency has given me permission to post some of the development sketches under the condition that I don’t reveal the name of the company. As part of the deal, I’ve been asked to change the colors of the character’s clothes (he was wearing the colors of the company’s logo) and also erase the logo from an article of his clothing. So, here are some of the modified concept sketches.