William Bradford Bearows
Many museums have a mascot. When the team at the MSU Museum was trying to choose one, they thought of using the big brown bear that is in a glass case on the second floor.
When researching other museums, most of them use a photo of the mascot. But, the MSU Museum team wanted to do something different that would allow them more flexibility with the mascot.
When creating the illustration, I wanted to draw the bear in a way that was friendly, cute, appealing to everyone, but also had enough flexibility in the design that it could be witty and snarky as well.
You can follow the bear on Twitter at @msumuseumbear
Becuase the bear was transformed into an illustration, it made producing different faces for the bear much easier. A set of emoji-like faces was created to properly show the different emotions the bear was feeling about a particular topic.
The full bear has a certain presence when you experience it in the museum. As only a head, the illustration lacked that same feel. So the full body of the bear was also created.
We created a six-foot-tall cutout of the museum bear. It was printed on 3/4 inch foam core so it would be rigid and stand up on its own. With permission from the curators, we then hid him in different places throughout the museum as a surprise for visitors find.
We also created a small 13-inch cutout of the museum bear to be able to take to places that the full-size cutout would not be easy to take. One of those places was to view some of the beekeeping items the museum has in its collection, that are currently in storage.
Seeking more than just digital interaction with our followers, we created Bearbux. A fake currency, which features the museum bear wearing a monocle, the bills were hidden in several locations on MSU's campus. The Twitter account was used to post tweets with clues to the secret locations.
The first three students to find one, take a selfie, post it, and mention the museum bear, would receive a $10 gift card to the MSU Museum store.
With the popularity of coloring pages, we wanted to create a set of them for the museum bear. Our goal was for students to use them as a relaxing activity during finals week.
Above are the initial sketches of the bear doing different fall and spring activities.
Final versions of the bear coloring pages.
Designed while working at MSU University Outreach and Engagement
