Gathering Qualitative Feedback: Questionnaire Results

Before I start this blog post, I'd like to extend a massive THANK YOU! to the 24 surveyors who were able to complete my questionnaire (and thanks also to those who offered but didn't get the time - the thought is appreciated!) 

Gathering Qualitative Feedback: My Own Thoughts

As a way to reflect on my work and to possibly gauge some of the feedback I'll receive from the people who are taking my questionnaire, I have taken the questionnaire myself. Below is the questionnaire I created and the answers I provided to the questions. It was informative to think about these questions myself as it allowed me to notice some of the subconscious decisions I make when I buy a product or play a game featuring a mascot character.

Mascots In Gaming: Genres

While I await the results of my questionnaire, I decided to begin research into the next phase of my project: I'll be creating a game for my mascot character to be the protagonist of. Before doing anything practical, I wanted to take a broad look at video games and their protagonists or mascot-type characters across a number of genres; from there I will consider, mechanically, which of them I will enjoy creating the most, be able to explore in the most interesting way and which will showcase the character I design in the best way.

Gathering Qualitative Feedback: Creating A Questionnaire

After creating the 15 characters from franken-concepting, I thought about the things I'd like to learn from that design process and how to cater my designs to a broader audience. I decided that the best way to gather this kind of data would be to create a questionnaire for people to fill anonymously.

Initial Rule Application: The Reasons Behind The Designs

Below I have gone into detail about my character concepts and the reasons for designing them how I did. While I was drawing a lot of my decisions were sub-conscious but on reflection there is a lot of reasoning to why my characters have turned out the way they have.

Initial Rule Application: Franken-Concept Character Creation

When beginning to consider designing a character, I first created a collage of 12 of my personal favourite mascot characters. I filled these images in black and dissected the different elements of each image. I then put these pieces together in a process called "franken-concepting", essentially creating a Frankenstein's Monster-esque silhouette from different parts of the different images.

Initial Rule Application: Planning A Design

Having started my research on mascot characters, my next step is to establish some ground rules for character design based on my findings up to now. With these ideas in place, my task will be to create a character that conforms to the aforementioned rules. During this design process, I'll draw inspiration from concept art books, online art resources along with games and other media around me. 

Mascot Characters: Barbie

While considering mascot characters to research upon, as if some greater power had intended it, I happened to catch an advertisement for a documentary discussing the history and cultural impact of Barbie. As such, I decided to watch the documentary when it aired last week so that I might learn something about the marketing of toys and how this doll has managed to stay relevant for nearly 60 years.

Mascot Characters: Mickey Mouse

To start expanding my knowledge of influential and memorable mascots outside of video games, I first looked towards cartoons. It would have been very hard for me to discuss mascots and not consider the pinnacle of cartoon mascotery (is that even a word? It is now...) that is Mickey Mouse.