I am pleased to have had the opportunity to design the Wapuu for this year’s WordCamp Atlanta. Thanks to Diana Nichols and Kathy Drewien for roping me into it!
I want to share some of the design process for arriving at this little guy. But first, here’s a little background for the uninitiated.
What is a Wapuu?
The Wapuu is essentially a mascot for WordPress. It’s supposed to appear inviting and make web development seem more accessible. According to wapu.us:
This cute little Japanese monster had its start in 2009 at the WordCamp Tokyo after-party. Matt Mullenweg asked Japanese users for ideas to promote WordPress in Japan. One suggestion was to make a mascot in Japan for WordPress.
Once unveiled, the Wapuu mascot grew in popularity. Now, meetups, conferences, and brands within the WordPress community create their own Wapuus.
The Atlanta Wapuu Design Process
The theme of this year’s conference is “Tech City South”, but we decided it would be a good idea to create a Wapuu design that would represent Atlanta more generally, as opposed to the conference specifically, and could be re-used for future WordCamps in Atlanta.
First Round of Sketches
After discussing these sketches with Diana and Kathy, we decided to try and take this in a more peach direction. However, Diana and Kathy also liked the Phoenix Wapuu and the Kaiju Wapuu, so I decided to try and explore those designs further.
Second Round of Sketches
Everyone’s favorite ended up being the Kaiju Wapuu hugging the “ATL”, so I’m glad I decided to keep working on that idea!
Vector Illustration of Wapuu Design
After selecting an idea, the next step was to create a polished, vector version of the illustration. Once I completed the vector version of the Wapuu, it became a lot easier to iterate through different color variations.
My personal favorite was the “dope palette”, but we were having trouble selecting one to use. Then we had the realization that the Wapuu should employ the color palette of this year’s WordCamp, allowing a revised Wapuu to be created every year with the new palette.
So, I updated the color palette, added the year “2019” onto the ATL blocks, and an annual Wapuu template was born.
Enamel Pins of Wapuu Design
James Tryon from wapu.us helped us put together the enamel pin order. Thanks, James!
And here are the completed pins:
Conclusion
I committed the design to the Wapuu API on GitHub. You can find the Atlanta Wapuu specifically in this repo.
If you’d like to see more of my illustration work, check out these other projects I have worked on.
Interested in working on an illustration project with me? Let’s talk!