Rationale

Rationale

For this brief, I designed a mascot for the New Zealand beverage company ‘Teza’. Teza drinks were launched in 2007 and specialize in producing organic iced teas, that are bought in sold in cafes and food stores throughout New Zealand and Australia. They have a number of brand values upon which they pride and distinguish themselves on, including: 

-Their teas are organic and environmentally friendly
-They brew their drinks from real leaf tea
-Their unique marketing tool, their grass covered cars

My character embodies all these qualities through her simplicity and leaf like form. She exhibits the silhouette of a tea leaf, and maintains the lightness and purity they often express.  She also reflects Tezas current design aesthetic, which is flat design. This reinforces their friendliness and sincerity towards their natural tea brewing process.

Final Poses

These are the final poses of my Teza mascot. I decided to ditch the iced tea glass pose, and focus more on developing the other poses. The Teza car I made alot more grassy through adding strands, and I chose to have the falling Teza land in water to emit a sense of harmony rather than pain.

Developed Poses

I decided to experiment with some new more interesting poses for my mascot sheet-

Car now appears more grassy

Falling motion is more leaf-like

More interesting scene than staring upwards

More detailed iced tea scene

Added mango flavour male leaf

Teza Design Aesthetic

Teza use flat design throughout all their advertisement campaigns and their bottle packaging. I feel if my mascot character was going to be used throughout their packaging and promotion material, it should also reflect this design to avoid looking out of place.

More pose ideas

Decided to rough up some more exciting poses, to show how the leaf would move around in a 3D space.

Posing Reference

I created a cut out of my teza leaf character and experimented with a bunch of different poses. This way, I have reference when mocking up my mascot with how she'll move and stand.

Developed Mascot Poses

These are the poses I have initially put together for my mascot. I tried to get a range of poses that showcase the flexibility of her form, and the ways she would move around if animated.

hero pose

riding teza car

falling downward

bathing in iced tea

looking up curiously

noticing friends

Playing with cars

It took me a while to find a suitable car for the teza leaf to ride. I wanted it to be as simple as a toy car, but complex enough to reflect the actual teza grass cars. These were the finalists-

Reference/ Mood Board

A moodboard I put together to use as reference for all my character poses.

Character Development - Colour

Trialing various colours for the Teza leaf based off their existing flavors and packaging colours.

Going Vector

I moved onto Illustrator, and created my latest Teza sketches into a vector. I re-sized and changed a few of his features around, in particular her face looked strange at its originally sketched size, so I made it smaller. I also added eyelashes to distinguish that the Teza leaf is a girl.

Experimenting with Props

Experimented with fun props for the Teza leaf to interact with, such as the Teza car, a cup of ice tea, tea seeds, etc.

Character Development

Silhouette - Veins

I decided to explore different approaches I could take with veins, and using them to imply hands, face shape, clothes, etc.

Faces

Experimented with various face types to see which would best suit the Teza leaf.

Character Development - Silhouettes

Character Development

Decided to revert back to keeping the character just as the leaf, as his silhouette was too cmplet with the tea plant on his head. Now focusing on continuing flow through his limbs, and thinking about how he would move if animated.

Character Development - Expressions

Experimented with expressions and various moods of the leaf.

Character Development

Developed the most successful characterized leaves, and work on trying to make it come alive, thinking about how it would sit in a 3 dimensional space and its overall form.

Adding Character

I decided to experiment with adding character to the still object of a leaf, by drawing different faces on and playing with their movements.

More about Tea!

Process of creation

Tea Plant

Tea Leaves

Tea Infusing

Leaves

I decided to look further into leaves, as they currently exist on Tezas bottle packaging. I gathered a bunch of different shaped leaves, and experimented with their silhouettes and form. Overall, aiming to give character to an inanimate object.

Character Development & Props

Experimented with more seed characters. In particular, trying new silhouettes reflective of tea seeds. I also looked at potentially having a miniature version of their infamous grass cars or a cup of ice tea as a prop for the mascot to interact with.