The Foreign Candy Company was looking for a mascot for their RIPS candy line and approached us to help them develop a charater that could be used on their website, packaging and as a costume that they would be able to bring to trade shows.
The process took about 6 months and went through many phases.
The first phase was what would the charactor be? Would it have a purpose? Is there a backstory?
Or would it be just a non-descript icon.
After weeks of brainstorming and research we landed on three possilbe charactors:
Riptide, the extreme sports Cockatoo, Ripply the Mad scientist and creator of RIPS
and Rippy the superhero.
In phase two we started sketching what the charactor would look like. This process took about four weeks.
Ripply the scientist was selected as the character the client felt most represented the candy.
In phase three we spent over two months developing and refining the characteristics of Ripply until it was narrowed
down to just a couple of variations. Sport coat / lab coat & red or green.
After a few more weeks we had a winner. This is the offical discription for Ripply:
“This is an iconic image that uses the actual shape and texture of the candy to create an identifiable character. He is a humorous, scientist on a mission for innovation in licorice. We will capitalize on his bold and energetic personality with wild hair coming from the “ripped” edges of the candy, thick-framed glasses or goggles, and animated facial expressions.”
