Silhouettes and some sketches

basically just playing around with ideas. I like the idea of giving the character a lab coat, glasses or a combination so they look scientist-like. I imagine some kind of scientist working with radioactive materials at a plant or something. Could be anthro or humanoid, and perhaps mutated? (i.e. 3 eyes, 2 tails etc).

Cartoon and themed Influences

Here are some characters/themes/mascots that could be of use for reference (fast, futuristic, science, atomic/radioactive, retro, mutation themes):

Character Designing for a brand

For Assignment 2 we have been briefed to design a character for an existing brand and encapsulated the values and essence of the brand and include a prop or background etc as a secondary component. I have chosen illustrator and photoshop for the developing of my character, with the final output likely to be in illustrator.

I really like drinking coffee so I listed down a bunch of coffee places that I know of both available in NZ and internationally. I also included some of their aesthetic differences:

• Havana coffee – factories, industrial, Cuban colours and designs, culture etc
• Atomic coffee – atom, nuclear, retro-ish sci-fi, serious look
• Café l’affare – French scenery, café scene
• Moccona - luxurious colouring, red seals etc
• Jed’s coffee – simplistic and basic  designs
• Supreme - gold, luxury, hipster look, looks old school/ retro, businessman look?
• People’s coffee – local, jungle, casual daily activity look, giving back to the hard workers
• Gravity coffee - planetary? Bold, strong shapes, bland little to work with but could be developed?
• Robert Harris – serious, simple, modernist designs (plants, butterflies, natural objects on packages)
• Kiwi coffee company- kiwi as a coffee cup, simple design, korus, smooth flat colours
• Nescafe- very general design, home brand, most of their recognition is in the name design, red
• Starbucks- logo with girl with crown, green, hipster, modern, fast moving and attentive to consumer
• Flight – planes, yellow, hipster, zappy logo, retro, 1920s/30s theme
• Raglan roast – kiwiana designs, hipster, eclectic, edgy, laid back feel 

In the end I picked Atomic coffee because I'm interested in developing a kind of sci-fi-ish themed character. Atomic also has quite a limited theme currently so that gives me more room for imagination in the development of the mascot.