Yeti #HugBuddy

CLIENT:

Marklyn Group Co.

THE ASK:

Design cute or cool characters that will be made into new #HugBuddy cell phone holders using six colours or less. Keeping in mind arms and extremities will need to wrap around a phone or device. Suggested characters included: Yeti, Sasquatch, narwal unicorn, robot, monster, cactus, dog. However other characters were welcome as well.

MY ROLE:

My immediate instinct was to start with the robot (see other character concepts). I started researching different shapes: head, limbs, faces, and seeing what I could mould together. Blue seemed to be the least threatening colour to go with.

Since I was brought into meetings discussing the yeti character specifically, I had a lot more to go off of. We had looked at other yeti characters and found attributes we liked and didn't like. Put together details from things we had discussed like colour ways and accessories. However, to create a character that wasn't a direct copy, I would need to dig a little deeper for the body of the yeti. Next I stared looking at gorilla like characters to see if I could borrow some attributes form there. Slowly, the body came together. The face, was tricky; it had to be non threatening, and happy, but not dumb. For this, I looked into facial expressions from "cuter" monsters.

SOFTWARE USED:

Adobe Illustrator

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

The Yeti #HugBuddy was put into production and will be sold at WalMart USA as part of their automotive program.