For the September 2024 semester, I was enrolled in a subject called Public Relations: Campaign, during which we were tasked with planning and executing a campaign from scratch. The class decided that we should have a mascot, and I volunteered to illustrate one.
As our campaign, Headspace, was centred on raising awareness about the importance of good mental health, we wanted a brain as a mascot. There were several different styles that were suggested, including a brain in the style of a Jellycat Amuseables plush toy, something more abstract, and finally, a comic-styled brain. Below are my sketches for each suggestion:
In the end, we voted for the first option as it seemed the most friendly and approachable, which is what we wanted to accomplish with our campaign – making mental health accessible and less scary. From there, I refined the sketch.
Here is the final logo of our campaign, with Buffy the Brain as our mascot:
I also illustrated Buffy in several other poses to align with the events we had planned:
Bringing Buffy to life was so much fun and he definitely brightened up our campaign by a huge margin! Many people made positive remarks about the cute and friendly appearance of our mascot, and the demand for Buffy merch was so high we ended up printing stickers to hand out to participants and visitors!