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in 2014 I began working for Hove-based company We Made Me, formerly BabaSlings Ltd, creators of babywearing products for the international market. While in the process of rebranding, the company was preparing to launch two new products to their new range and sought to integrate a vibrant new sense of design to stand out from market competitors. On researching the typical simple, diagramatic line-drawing illustrations used in the instruction manuals of other market leading companies, we decided together that something in a very different style would set We Made Me apart and wanted to achieve a warm, illustrative, storybook-like feel that could be clear and informative but also entertaining for parents and children alike. On doing a few pages of initial design, the animal characters proved really popular with the team, and we selected a collection of animals to represent each product and the different 'ways to wear'. The range of animals lead to a really great variety of character and expression, and I think lead to quite an inclusive, family feeling.



Pao Carrier

The Pao Carrier was the first product I started work on. I feel that the physical contrast between the Bear, Deer and Raccoon works really well here. As well as the full colour illustrations for the instruction booklet, the lineart was printed on special 'read me!' tags in a pocket on the product itself, to advise parents on the go on the correct way to fasten the carrier and to change carrying positions safely.

Soohu Sling

The Soohu Sling was modeled closely on the original BabaSling, so creating the illustrations for this product was relatively easy as the sling was already fairly tried and tested. The Soohu is very versatile, and can be worn in 5 basic positions, most of those with variations. Because of this, we needed 5 characters, with enough physical variation to match the characters for the Pao carrier. The tiger character was the first animal chosen, based on some early drawings in the concept stage. On the other hand, the horse took the longest to finalise, as originally this character was going to be a donkey with a very different look.

Wuti Wrap

The Wuti Wrap is made from a single length of durable, stretchy fabric which is tied securely before placing the baby against the chest in the fabric folds. As there is only one way to wear the Wuti, only one character was needed for this product. Many more sequential drawings were produced for the Wuti booklet, so I have included an edited version here to show the clarity of the step-by-step images.

Character Design

I needed the adult and baby characters to be charming and full of life, but also to be anthropomorphised enough to be able to safely and clearly demonstrate the workings of the products. Despite being very different in size and shape, reflecting different body types, all of the characters have 'human' enough proportions to show the products fitting on their arms and torso as they would on real people. This was an aspect of the designs that we worked through with experts in babywearing to make sure the illustrations were as readable and safe as possible.

Colouring Contest Images
In 2015 WMM held a children's colouring-in competition as part of a Babywear expo and asked me to create some line-art based on the company logo and some of the WMM characters interacting with the letters in a fun, imaginative way.