Meet Visme’s Animated Mascot and See How it Personifies the Brand
Choosing The Right Type of Mascot For Our Brand
A brand mascot is a common visual tool for any company to connect their client base. It creates relationships with users and takes a brand name to a whole new level. After 6 years since we Launched Visme, it was time to introduce a mascot that is a reflection of our brand and helps to bring it to life
When we started brainstorming a mascot or character that would represent us, we had to consider a number of different things. First, the Visme brand is all about pushing boundaries in the ever-expanding visual communication niche. Second, our tool helps non-designers in all fields create virtually any type of content while also maintaining our own sense of personality.
We knew we needed a character that was unique and different from what you would expect from a brand mascot. Looking at other mascots used by a number of companies, some of them are robots or a type of artificial character. Other brands use animals or animal-like creatures as mascots.
While doing some research about mascots and brand characters we discovered that sometimes the character is depicted only in the logo while in others it is alive and has adventures or experiences that depict the brand. The Mailchimp logo, for example, used to be more of a mascot than a logo but is still remembered fondly. The Kellog’s frosted flakes tiger is a classic example of an anthropomorphic character personifying a brand.
Then, on the other hand, are the Android and Vidyard robots that have a limited range of action and emotion. Even the cute MeedEdgar octopus is a static character. The closest thing to what we were envisioning, neither animal nor robot was the animated M&M’s. But still not quite right for us.
Our mascot had to be different. As much as we love happy robots, cute animals, and anthropomorphic chocolates, they weren’t the right choice for us. Robots depict automation, the future, and advancement. Animals (such as chimps, penguins, etc) give a positive vibe and can easily depict emotions. I felt that our mascot needed to depict both sides of the coin, with a different angle. We needed a mascot/character that would tell the right story and be unique to Visme.
Striving for Emotion and Authenticity
The Visme mascot needed to be a sidekick, a complement to everyday visual content creation. We wanted to have a character that showed emotion while also representing a semi-artificial intelligence. The Visme character needed to be friendly, helpful, relatable and inspiring all rolled into one.
Brainstorming with the team we noted that animal mascots were cute and friendly, while robots were fun and cool but also emotionless. We wanted our character to be a mix of both. It needed to personify the Visme brand as flexible, fast, powerful and friendly, sometimes cute, funny or even a little cheesy. It needed to be some kind of humanoid that could show emotion.
It turned out to be much more difficult to achieve than we initially thought.
How could we create a character that wasn’t human or animal but could also carry emotions?
How could we create a mascot that had emotions but would also resemble AI capabilities?
Creating the Backstory for the Visme Mascot
Once we knew what we wanted for our mascot in a broad sense, it was time to get to the nitty-gritty. It was time to create a visual story for a character that would personify our brand. We had to create a backstory from our brand values to then give life to a character that would represent everything that Visme stands for.
Visme as a brand strives on being unique, original and inspiring. As a team, we stand for empowerment, inspiration and a strong human connection. The Visme brand does not discriminate nor marginalize, it’s used by both large companies, small businesses, and individuals. We are serious professionals but we’re also not that serious.
Visme, as a product, thrives on being a powerful and easy-to-use tool. It’s fierce but not scary, it’s diverse and versatile. It’s different but still recognizable. We wanted to portray interactivity and animation, ease of motion that lets the imagination fly.
Creating a story for our mascot required us to look at how Visme could be personified. How could an all-in-one visual communication tool be represented as a friendly pet or companion? A sidekick type of character that could empathize with all of our users, regardless of their industry or visual creation needs.
With all these considerations and a good idea of a backstory, we started to brainstorm and sketch.
Behind The Scenes Look at The Design Process
Our team designer, Monfa Cabrera got down to business and began the design process for the Visme character. Monfa knows our brand very well, I work closely with him regularly and together designed a number of illustrations for our website. You could say he has the Visme visual brand in his blood.
Let’s follow the design process and how our character/mascot came to life with Monfa designing and me supporting.
Taking into account the Visme brand logo and all visual aspects of design, we looked for ways to incorporate the logo into our mascot. It was important to give him big eyes to represent friendliness and personify the visual importance of the brand. His body needed to look strong and powerful, almost like a friendly giant we could count on.
Monfa’s first set of sketches had a positive outcome. The first iterations of the mascot looked like a happy giant with a wide torso and powerful legs and arms. Monfa used the brand colors to design a type of hairstyle, along with a number of different eye styles and body positions.
After some revisions, we kept the hair idea but used the exact shapes from the logo so it had a more direct visual union. The brand logo was transformed into a digital crest with natural movement on the mascot’s head and we all loved it! The eyes were also given the same design as the circle in the Visme logo and the face was done.
This iteration of a strong and friendly giant looked fun, powerful and could portray emotions, but it needed something more. It lacked agility and ease of movement. The legs were turned into a futurist transformable wheel and rocket base, the torso was minimized to match the base and the hands were given more human features to portray better body language.
All the joints from the original robot were transformed into magnetic connectors that permitted a larger range of movement. With these changes, the character could roll, fly, and move in any direction smoothly and gracefully.
In the end, after a long design process, our Visme character has a fun and positive visual appeal. A mix between a robot and a humanoid full of emotion and a little bit of sass. Its agile body shape represents the way that Visme inspires smooth content creation processes. It has large eyes that gives him a friendly appearance, which along with its colorful crest, is a playful use of our logo.
The Visme character isn’t just the Visme mascot, it IS Visme. It personifies the brand more than any animal or robot mascot ever could.
Creating The Character’s Animated Universe
Once the character was finalized visually, it was time to bring it to life! All the considerations we had for designing the character also applied to the animations and videos we wanted to create around it.
The mascot’s movements and interactions needed to represent all of Visme’s ambitions, powers and sense of humor. Just another flat illustration or simple motion graphic design wasn’t going to cut it. We needed it to be different, to visualize the next level and the next generation.
When animating the character, it needed to have gestures that would empathize with the viewer. They needed to be relatable and inspire smiles and positive emotions. When animating the mascot, it was important to portray a feeling of constant movement and a seamless change of direction.
The animated environment around it needed to be timeless yet futuristic, human, real and people-centered. A white infinite background adds to the endless possibilities of creation and ideation. White is timeless; it also gives a sense of cleanliness.
What’s Next for Visme, The SaaS in The Cloud?
The most important aspect of Visme’s brand is that people always come first. That’s why the Visme character is both a sidekick for existing users and an invitation for new ones to discover. We have lots of plans for Visme to show the possibilities of our tool in many different ways.
Its purpose is not to sell our product, but to show how Visme can turn the world of content creation into a more agile space. Visme is an expansive creative space to be discovered and this character is here to show everyone all the adventures that can be had in it.
This is just the beginning, a stepping stone into what’s to come. We will see the Visme character in lots of situations, having many adventures which we’ll share with everyone. Thanks for joining in for the ride!
