In the fall of 2011, Cisco had a big visual problem that needed solving. They owned the artwork for 30+ characters spanning 4 vertical partnership infographics. They had no way to access those characters to generate future presentations and each infographic, having been made years apart, featured differing styles. Also, their partnership list had grown since, and so new characters were needed. Cisco was unsure where to begin.

After discussing the details of the task with Cisco, it was determined they wanted to homogenize character styles, expand the collection to 100+ across 9 verticals and create easy drag-and-drop files for use in PPT and Word templates. My project bid PDF included an infographic of the steps to take, to help clarify (last graphic).

Extracting the characters ranged from simple opening of files in illustrator, to having to redraw from scratch due to low resolution source. Ears, noses, eyes, mouths, expressions, hairstyle and more were all standardized and streamlined. The harder part was generating the 70+ additional characters, trying to make them look like a family that belonged to the base set, while also allowing new personalities to shine through.

Several PPT templates were developed to help aid the customer in arrangement and general sizing.

Keystone icons, at top, are designed to visually stand apart from the characters, and each graphic can be repurposed as a background / backdrop effect for the characters (review PPT template).