Lovable Dog Mascot Needed for Delightful App.

PitPat

We make an activity monitor - for dogs! Find us on pitpatpet.com. It's a little widget that any dog owner can attach to their dog's collar, and a free app that tells you how much exercise your pooch is getting, how many calories they've burnt, and so on...

BACKGROUND:
Our current app is very simple and easy-to-use. But now we're developing a new version of our app that’ll introduce many new features, making it more complex and powerful. However, we want to maintain and develop the friendly, fun tone-of-voice that our app uses. To do that, we’ll carefully control not only the language the app uses, but also the visual appearance of the app.

As a part of delivering that visual appearance in the app, we want to illustrate key concepts and states of the app in the form of images of one (or possibly more) dogs whose presence on screen will both lighten the tone and reinforce the user’s understanding of where they are and what’s going on.

To do THAT we want to create a “mascot” - a character that appears in multiple locations across the app, and is capable of being owned by us from a brand perspective, and deployed in a variety of in-app situations not yet necessarily contemplated.

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GOAL: We are looking to create a character that will help give a loveable and personable touch to our app "PitPat".

The character we are wanting to develop should fit with our brand characteristics: friendly, welcoming, sociable, clever, humourous best friend. NOT a cynical, wisecracking, negative character.

STYLE:
• friendly/ personable
• loveable
• clearly a dog (not a dog-human hybrid)
• clean and clear

DESIGN REQUIREMENTS
Dog specific:
• Must be ORIGINAL and NOT be mistakable or confusable with any existing cartoon dog character including those supplied by us as inspiration.
• Must be recognisable as a “dog”, but must NOT be any specific breed.
• Must be “dog like”, not “human like”. We’re not looking for an anthropomorphic character, but rather an actual dog.
• A “lovable” character that every dog owner will recognise their own animal in.
• Appealing to both men and women, and all types of dog owner.
• Must fit with the PitPat brand = a friendly, welcoming, sociable, clever, humourous best friend. NOT a cynical, wisecracking, negative character.

Style/ Tech requirements:
• Visually simple to render clearly on small (phone screens) - may only get 25% of total area.
• Clearly seen to be wearing a stylised PitPat device at all times.
• Capable of being animated if required to illustrate simple actions.
• Capable of being used on a white, coloured and dark backgrounds.
• Capable of being deployed in multiple poses and with/without additional background / context / props to illustrate different concepts or states within the app.
• Capable of being deployed “as a whole” dog, and also in “parts” (just a head, paw, tail, etc) if required.

IDEAS:
– a simple, line-art style, and a dog whose breed is nondescript (so appealing to all dog owners) but whose lovability is undeniable (ditto).
– we’re open to other ideas. And would encourage creativity (please reflect on the above DESIGN REQUIREMENTS).

HOW IT WILL BE USED:
As the character will be used around the app to help explain certain new features etc. It would be great to see any of the below situations in your submissions. (showing some of these in your design would help us evaluate it):

– Waiting for an email to arrive.
– Forgetting a password.
– Wanting to go for a walk.
– Expecting food.
– Walking, Sleeping, Playing, Running.
– Pootling about the garden.
– Celebrating something.
– Meeting another dog.
– An unexpected error.

The file attached offers some inspiration, and communicates the kind of thing we have in mind. However, we're open to other suggestions for different approaches that might meet our goals.

The key thing is, we're looking for a character that can be re-used by us in a variety of ways, NOT a single iconic image.