Earlier this year I was approached by the folks at Hockeymom.com to design a mascot character for their brand new website.
This is the initial design. It was requested that I use Sarah Palin as the main influence.
Eventually my original design was scrapped and I was tasked with doing some new sample sketches. This time they wanted two characters, a blond and a brunet. I guess everyone involved in the making of the site had different ideas of what a Hockey Mom should look like. So the sketches were going to be used to help them decide on one.
The original design for the brunet character included a little daughter with sparkly boots and a doll.
Later, they decided to change the daughter to a boy decked out in hockey gear. They also had me tweak the facial features on both the blonde and brunet to make them a little less cartoony. Personally, I like the cartoony features better. I think it makes it more appealing and recognizable. This is especially important when creating a character to be associated with a brand. But I'm sure they had their reasons for taking in a more subtle direction.Unfortunately, due to budget reasons this is as far as the project went and my designs weren't used on the final website.
