Rowlification

I recently published a new sticker set for the LINE messaging app.

You can see the whole set here.

I made 80 designs in total and then edited it down to 40 as that is the maximum allowed. Some designs went through many iterations, such as this pig:

Later, when tagging my sticker images I realised that this outraged pig image was too similar in emotion to an outraged duck I had also made. The duck won that contest.

I decided to make someone looking shocked, I tried this with the frog but then I remembered the pig with his long face.

Another sticker design also had many iterations:

Sometimes we over-complicate things for ourselves, perhaps through lack of conviction or just by wanting to explore all angles. After deciding to use the image for the sticker project I decided both the character’s faces should be visible. But I soon found that by doing so I had lost what I liked about the original image and so reverted back.

I shortened the bodies to better make use of the prescribed dimensions, and I removed the dog’s mouth which makes the image more ambiguous – are we seeing an affectionate greeting, comforting or consolation? With the mouth gone the image seems to suggest a deeper connection between the two characters and can be used in more contexts.