A character system for a children's science center

The problem

Orrery was reopening after a renovation with four new galleries, and its old mascot, a cartoon atom with a bow tie, had quietly become an embarrassment. The education team wanted characters that children could relate to and that teachers could put on worksheets, while the marketing team needed something that would also hold up on a bus shelter.

The real constraint was maintenance. Orrery has one in-house designer and no illustration budget after launch, so whatever I made had to be extended by someone who does not draw. Characters needed to print in one color on budget worksheets, read clearly on wayfinding signs at three meters, and come apart into poses and props that could be recombined without me.

Process

1. 01

   Characters from real questions

   I spent two mornings in the old building listening to the questions children asked at each exhibit and grouped them into five temperaments: the measurer, the taker-apart, the stargazer, the collector and the one who asks why. Thumbnails went through two rounds of feedback from a group of eight-year-olds, who were far harsher critics than the board.

2. 02

   Constructing for reuse

   Each character was built from a small set of shapes on a shared grid, with consistent line weight and a fixed head-to-body ratio. I drew a palette that works in full color, in two colors and as single-color line art, and checked every pose at sign size and at the size of a worksheet corner.

3. 03

   Vector library and guidelines

   Finals were drawn as vector in Illustrator with grouped, named layers: 40 poses, 60 props and 12 backgrounds that snap together. I wrote a 24-page guide covering scale, color, what the characters never do, and how to build a new scene in about ten minutes. I then trained the in-house designer in a half-day workshop.

Selected images

Outcome