Context
Hasura, a fast-growing tech company known for its GraphQL engine and developer tools, had a brand mascot that was starting to feel outdated.
While the original character served its purpose in the early stages of the company, the illustration lacked the visual maturity and personality alignment that reflected Hasura’s growth, community strength, and modern tech focus.
Overview
The company was exploring ways to refresh its visual identity, especially for developer events, community merchandise, and digital branding. The internal design team initiated a mascot character redesign exercise to evolve the illustration without losing the essence of the original mascot.
Task
The goal was to reimagine the Hasura mascot with a modern, friendly, and tech-savvy personality, while ensuring it aligned with the existing brand tone — developer-friendly, community-driven, and highly technical yet accessible.
Key objectives:
- Retain brand recognition
- Create a more versatile and expressive mascot
- Improve adaptability across mediums (social media, website merchandise, presentations, etc.)
- Reflect the “cool, smart, hacker-y” vibe of Hasura’s developer community
Action
To achieve these goals, I took the following steps:
Research & Discovery:
- Analyzed Hasura’s existing branding and mascot elements.
- Studied mascot designs from similar developer-facing tech brands (e.g., GitHub’s Octocat, Kubernetes’ Phippy).
- Gathered moodboards exploring styles: minimal, geometric, flat vs. dimensional, and expressive forms.
Concept Development:
- Brainstormed and sketched initial concepts that merged playful elements with modern design aesthetics.
- Developed a flexible visual language, including a vibrant color palette, engaging typography, and custom illustrations that resonated with children.
Design Execution:
- Explored multiple silhouette and style options.
- Developed final character in vector format with modular elements (arms, gadgets, expressions).
- Iterated on design for scalability (small size clarity, single-color adaptability).
