In Defense of a (Good) Brand Mascot

Anyone who knows me knows I have a guilty pleasure: I love a good brand mascot. They’re not right for every brand, but when they click, few things make a brand more memorable.

I grew up on mascots. Toucan Sam, Poppin’ Fresh, the Energizer Bunny, Mr. Clean, the Green Giant. These characters weren’t just decorations. They had personalities, stories, and staying power. You could recognize them without ever seeing a logo. Then the hipsters showed up, and suddenly mascots were uncool. Trite, even.

Some brands tried to make their characters relevant again by “modernizing” them. Cue the Creepy, er, Burger King and skateboarding Chuck E. Cheese. A handful pulled it off. Others were spectacular fails because they forgot the mascot’s actual job: to personify how you want your brand to be perceived. Slap a Starbucks attitude onto a roll of toilet paper and, yes, of course it fails. That’s on the advertiser. Not the mascot.

Mascots and characters play into my original reason for getting into this business: I started as an illustrator. One of my favorite projects ever was creating a campaign of cartoon talking noses and ears for an ENT practice. Those characters helped turn medical problems into something approachable, memorable, and even fun; the campaign is still running today. I’ve also pitched grumpy knees for pain relief medicine, pigs in lipstick for a parody brand, and test tubes dressed as guards for a cancer detection test. Not every idea made it into the world, but each started with a strategic purpose.

That’s the beauty of good brand mascot design. A character can take the edge off a difficult subject, make a complicated idea easier to understand, or communicate a personality in a split second. Sometimes a pair of googly eyes can accomplish what an abstract symbol and 40 words of copy never could. But those googly eyes had better have the right reason for being there.

A successful brand character needs the same strategic thinking as any other part of a visual identity. Who is it? What does it represent? How does it behave? Does it belong in the brand’s world? And, most importantly, will people remember it for the right reasons? A well-designed mascot becomes a familiar face and a mental shortcut to everything you want your brand to stand for. It can build recognition, create an emotional connection, and give people something to genuinely like about your advertising. And in a world already overflowing with forgettable messages, that’s no small thing.

Long live the good brand mascot.

Finding Purpose Through Mission-Driven Design

Sometimes a layoff can uncover a purpose the 9-to-5 kept buried.

I’ve always known my favorite part of medical advertising was the impact. Behind every campaign, product launch, or brand was the potential to make someone’s life a little better. That’s what made the work meaningful to me, and I knew I wanted to keep doing it.

But once the initial layoff glow (Free time! No meetings!) wore off, reality set in. I needed to keep my creative skills sharp, my brain busy, and my sanity reasonably intact. Freelance work was slow, with what felt like 50,000 other creatives paddling around in the same overcrowded pond.

So I started looking for other ways to put my experience to work. I found Taproot, a platform connecting professionals with nonprofits that need their skills, and started volunteering.

And something clicked.

I discovered that mission-driven design wasn’t just another direction I could take my career. It was work I genuinely wanted to do.

Last November, I began working with Army Pink – Pathway to Freedom, an organization supporting domestic violence survivors. I helped build their visual identity system and presentation decks, giving their mission a more cohesive, recognizable voice. Since then, I’ve watched their vision grow into a real army of helpers, and the work we created has taken on a life of its own.

There’s something pretty wonderful about seeing your designs out in the world doing more than selling something. They’re helping people tell important stories, build trust, raise support, and make a difference.

Paid projects have followed, along with more volunteer opportunities. I’m currently working with Windwood Family Services and Shared City here in Charleston, with a few more conversations underway.

Healthcare and medical design will always be a mainstay of my work. I love the complexity, the problem-solving, and the opportunity to make complicated information understandable. But expanding into nonprofit branding and purpose-driven organizations has added another layer of meaning to what I do.

And no, this is NOT one of those “getting laid off was the best thing that ever happened to me” stories. Happily ever after is still a long way off. I’m still in the thick of it, still hustling, still figuring things out.

But I’ve found something worth building toward.

Sometimes purpose doesn’t arrive with a grand announcement. Sometimes it shows up when you roll up your sleeves and start helping someone else.

And that makes this fight worth it.

Value of Professional Experience

Somewhere along the line, the value of professional experience started being undervalued. When did it get an expiration date, like moldy cheese—five years is good, fifteen smells up the room?

I still believe it’s the greatest tool we have.

Experience is what helps you see the pitfalls in a solution because you’ve already been there. It puts your perspective a mile down the road, so you know what works and don’t waste time on what doesn’t. The curveballs life has thrown you give you adaptability earned in the fire.

And yet, somewhere in our obsession with what’s new, we’ve started confusing new with better. New ideas, new technology, new ways of doing things. I’m all for innovation. I’ve spent my career embracing it. But innovation without experience can mean reinventing a wheel that was rolling just fine.

In creative work especially, experience isn’t about knowing all the answers. It’s about knowing which questions to ask. It’s recognizing when an idea has legs and when it’s headed straight for a wall. It’s knowing when to push harder, when to pivot, and when to listen.

And here’s the thing about seasoned professionals: we’ve had to evolve. Repeatedly. We’ve learned new tools, adapted to changing industries, weathered economic downturns, and figured out how to keep creating through all of it. That’s not being stuck in our ways. That’s resilience.

The value of professional experience isn’t measured by how long you’ve been doing something. It’s measured by what you’ve learned along the way and how you use it to make what’s next even better.

So maybe it’s time we stop treating experience like something that needs to be hidden, shortened, or apologized for.

Experience isn’t a liability.

It’s a superpower.

Image: from The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. Fabulous, fun read.

In the swim of things

I’ve been swimming in this job market pond for a bit now, trying to get my bearings in this very different landscape. When I started out, I listened to all the advice, the how-tos, and the must-dos out there, and did as many of the things as I could.

Crickets. No one wanted me because I looked like everyone else. I should’ve known.

So I went back and started over. Hard to find your own voice after years of building everyone else’s. Some tough personal seasons reminded me it’s people who matter above everything else. And I decided to switch directions a bit: keep things small so I can stay personal, help the little guys look bigger so they can grow, and focus more on groups focused on helping their fellow humans: healthcare and medical still, but also mission- and purpose-driven groups. Nonprofits. People I can help be heard and seen, and above all else, understood. I’m finding those people in Army Pink and Avery Research Center. More are starting to line up every day.

So now I’m back to swimming, this time in the right direction. Looking for partners and people I can help. Agency support and clients as well. I’ve revamped my message, dusted off the website, and cranked up the socials again.

Just keep swimming.
MHbranddesign.com