Mazuma

Role: Illustrator, 2D Animator, Graphic Designer

Tools used: Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

As an in-house illustrator at Ecorenew Philippines, Inc. from 2018 to 2019, I contributed to a wide range of creative projects for Mazuma, a UK-based mobile phone refurbishing brand. My responsibilities included a wide range of creative tasks like storyboarding, social media graphics, character design, technical illustration, and 2D animation. I worked both independently and collaboratively, gaining valuable experience in the diverse creative needs of marketing and advertising!

Here are a couple of things I was able to contribute to:

Mascot Redesign

A project to revamp the brand mascot, Maz, and to design an additional mascot with the concept of being a nurse, working with Maz to refurbish mobile phones to like-new quality again.

Working with the creative guidelines communicated by the Creative Team Lead, I worked to add more details to Maz (gadget upgrades, if you will). I explored the ideas of adding a jetpack so he could fly, trying a version with wings and another with thrusters like a rocket. I also experimented with detail changes of my own idea like a visor, a wave pattern on the front side screen, roller skate wheels, and a color palette change from red/blue/white to purple/orange/white/teal.

For the new nurse mascot, I took care to select shapes, colors and details that would make her distinct from Maz but at the same time, keep her congruent and look like she lived in the same world and was on the same team. This would also ensure she remained on-brand with the Mazuma brand. Just like Maz, I designed a version with a robot mask on and included a concept with the mask retracted, showing the human wearing the robot suit.

Additionally, I designed vector illustrations of her face to demonstrate her silhouette: potentially useful in marketing creatives.

Mazuma Japan - Promotional Animation

A 2D animation I created as part of Mazuma's plan to expand into the Japan market. The team 3D animator, Karen, contributed as well, translating Maz' base design and 2 of my variant designs, and my pose storyboards into 3D image sequences I could include in the main project!

After discussions about Japanese graphic design and consumer trends with the Creative Team Lead and Marketing Manager for the Japan market, I designed variations of Maz, the brand mascot, in different visual styles. Among the styles were anime and manga, pixel art, pastel chalk and watercolor effects, and 3D. Suffice it to say that the creative variety and the opportunity to use my 2D animation skills made this project extremely exciting!

Stitching together the various art styles into one fluid movement sequence was challenging but also very fun. Being able to see and work with the layers and frames in Adobe Photoshop's Timeline window made this possible and manageable.

There were plans to use the costume variations in future creatives, so I also put together facial expression sheets and notes about how Maz's face-to-mask transition would go. The variant outfits afforded new opportunities for different transitions!

Social Media Creatives

Keeping in mind design choices that tend to be appealing to the market in Japan, I created a couple of concepts and final images for Mazuma Japan's social media headers and an Instagram image post. What was ultimately different from designing graphics for Western markets was the amount of visual information included. To a consumer in Japan, the trend was the busier and more detailed the information on the graphic, the more trustworthy. I also translated this into the amount of visual detail in the illustrations while still making use of good image composition practices like the use of positive and negative space.

I also designed small image games for the Mazuma UK socials. These ran as a series to catch, generate, and retain attention. Working with the Creative Team Lead to cement a list of activities, we decided on image games like:

•"Which piece will fit in the cube?"

• "Which silhouette matches the illustration?"

• Find Maz (clicking and dragging a frame to the side in a GIF animation)

• Find Maz (in a busy image)