Louie & Friends

Louie & Friends Process Book Dennis Espino

Table of Contents

Introduction

4

Research

6

2D Projects

14

3D Projects

30

4D Projects

40

Off - Course

50

Story Development

56

Character Process

62

Final Work

70

Come along through my process.

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INTRODUCTION

About the project The demand for exotic pets has risen in recent years, in part due to their popularity on social media platforms. ‘Cute’ animal videos perpetuate the misunderstanding that exotic animals are suitable pets, putting their well-being at risk. By creating the Louie and Friends series of storybooks that center around lovable characters, this project offers children an opportunity to empathise and to understand the consequences of owning an exotic pet.

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Research

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RESEARCH

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Can’t start anything without research.

RESEARCH

How it began Ever since I was a child wildlife has been a big part of my life. I grew up with a lot of wild animals and pets around me. The pets I had varied from parrots, a pigeon, rabbits and the common dog back home in El Salvador. This sparked my interest in wildlife from a young age. From watching a lot of animal and nature documentaries it motivated me to explore the illegal wildlife trade for my thesis. Throughout my early research with the illegal wildlife trade I realized that the topic was very broad. The next step was to find a sub-topic within it and focus on it.

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Diving in further Researching further within the illegal wildlife I found out that the demand for exotic pets is a substantial driver of global wildlife trade (cited in 22% of 374 reports on this topic), others including luxury goods and food (35% of reports) and traditional medicine (25%) (Moorhouse, 2017). Out of those sub-topics I wanted to focus on the illegal exotic pet trade.

When looking into the exotic pet trade I realized that the growth of social media exposure of the exotic pet trade has amplified; which has expanded both legal and illegal wildlife markets (Siriwat, 2018). It created a stage for viral videos on social media, which creates a want for the animals.

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RESEARCH

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RESEARCH

Diving even further Most my research on the exotic pet trade started off with watching a couple of short documentaries on YouTube, to then looking for longer documentaries. The documentary that helped me understand the seriousness of the issue was an episode of Crimes Against Nature

by National Geographic. The whole episode was focused on the illegal trade of the slow loris, it showed me horrible conditions the animals are put in.

Nothing shown about the trade was ethical.

After that I looked through different articles mainly on National Geographic which had a lot different information about other animals in the trade. Through this research I understood what my projects purpose was, and that was to explore on the experiences of these poor animals.

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2D Projects

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2D PROJECTS

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2D PROJECTS

2D visual Research When initiating my visual research for my 2D projects, I started by researching what kind of animals I wanted to focus on. I looked for pictures of them to understand their appeal and why people want them as pets. I later found images that showed the bad welfare of the animals within the exotic pet trade. I wanted to have some sort of illustrative elements in my deliverables, so I looked for different types of illustration styles that could go well with my topic. It varied from vector style to more traditional. I wanted to look for both cute and creepy illustrations to set the tone for my work, which led me to look at Takashi Murakami’s work. I later moved on to look at interesting ways to incorporate type and looked through different posters and books.

Through this research I learned that the visual language I have to use to communicate is creating appealing, cute images that reveal darker imagery or information.

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Pembroke Welsh Corgi

Bark and bite Will startle opponent

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lide

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Sug

12 20

If equipped with Herd +3 damage on ps dro ht flig ht and e Tak es flig age am Tak -4 d ted a l o If is

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y

m ene

2D PROJECTS

Project 1 Trading Cards

-Coated

Smooth

Otter

Tiger

mer

swim Smooth Swims

25

mage ete -5 da age t compl dam If set no water -2 om fr If away

Killer intent Unables its opponent from moving and provides protection

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If set not complete -5 damage If away from water -2 damage

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Tiger

Origin: South ern and South east Asia Highly endang ered, and nee d lots of spa ce.

Sugar Glider Origin: Australia

They are social animals that need a conpanion to live a happy life. If alone it will get depressed.

tter ated Otheast Asia th-co u Smoo outhern and So

. milies l of their fa not al s and ed from stripp as cub e g n ar ki They are ta em of th Most ake it alive. m them :S

Origin

Short Haire d Ham Austr alia sters T Origin :

hey a whee re friendly ls. and lo ve to

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go on

their spinn ing

2D PROJECTS

Trading Cards Originally, I just wanted to find a way to show the behaviour of individuals that seek to own exotic pets, which is because of their rarity and exclusivity. The medium that made sense for me was creating trading cards, which are known to be collected and people spend tons of money to get certain cards. Trading cards clearly have an easy way of creating a hierarchy system. I created 4 cards with different rarities like ultra-rare, super rare, rare and common. All the rarest contain exotic animals and the common is just a normal pet.

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Cute isn’t it?

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2D PROJECTS

Project 2 Process

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Exotic Info Book This concept was focused on challenging the idea of exotic wild animals as pets and adjusting to our environment. When coming up with this concept I wanted to think of a way to cleverly show both environments: in the wild and in a home. I thought of creating a layered piece that consisted of physically removing the nature layer and leaving the animal in its pet environment.

The original medium was a poster format, but that proved to be troublesome because it wasn’t accessible or approachable so, the next best thing was to make it into a book.

Each spread of the book has an informational side and on the other side there is the layered image. I wanted it to be a pull in and out book, so the individual is forced to strip the animal’s natural habitat away from them. When they pull, there’s a statement that hopefully sparks a thought and starts a conversation on the issue. .

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COATED OTTER Type: Mammals Diet: Omnivore Location: heast Asia Southern and Sout s Lifespan: 4-20 Year

The Sm energe you bu

They a in fam matin mono with

2D PROJECTS

EXOTIC PE INFORMATT ION GUIDE

PULL

RIPPED FROM IT’S FAMILY

are very mooth-coated otter pets to keep etic animals. Good usy and cuddle.

als that live are very social anim p include the mily groups. The grou . They are a pups their ng pair and will only mate ogamist species and one partner.

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2D PROJECTS

Project 3 Process

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Louie’s New Home

ng After the lo d he e a box, an apped insid out. d alone tr t an ge ed to ar g eling sc ever goin Louie is fe ow if he is doesn’t kn

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akes up

trip, he w

p confused

2D PROJECTS

Louie’s New Home Louie’s New Home is a story about a slow loris, who experiences being snatched to from the wild, is forced to live as a pet. I want this story to be targeted to children of the age of 4-7. The reason why is because as kids we often have silly thoughts of wanting exotic animals as pets. The book would help kids see the negative effects from the animal’s perspective. The medium that is most appropriate for this would be a book format.

s.

and nervou

From the visual research I knew that I wanted this to be a cute approach with an unsettling undertone through visuals and language.

Finding the right style was a crucial part of the process for this to be successful. The biggest challenge I faced with this concept was the character design of Louie. It took about 4 different designs to get it right, until I decided to go with a cute outlined vector style.

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3D Projects

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3D PROJECTS

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3D Project Visual Research 11/08/2019

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3D PROJECTS

3D visual Research When initiating my visual research for my 3D projects, I started by exploring textures and materials to help me direct myself what type of 3D executions I would want to create. After looking at materials I was looking at objects that could relate to my topic which led me into looking at tools which influenced one of my concepts. Through my research I ended up looking at housing units like cases and packaging. I did a lot of visual research in packaging because two of my concepts heavily relied on packaging.

Most my research was looking up different type of packaging and what type of visuals would be appropriate for my concepts. Even though I looked at complicated die-lines for packaging, a simple square one was the right fit for my concept. Through this research I realized that for my concept didn’t really need any special materials, but that could be because of the lack of exploration. The visual language that worked best for my 3D concept were mostly just thick card stock paper and some real items.

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3D PROJECTS

Project 1 Otter Pups I executed the Ottert Pups packaging, this projects intent was to sell the animal as limited edition product. I chose to focus on otter pups because they are sold in the trade and have a higher risk of death. Through both my 2D and 3D research I knew I wanted to make the outside of the packaging very cute and appealing to deceive individuals to thinking the content inside the package was going to meet the expectation they build up.

The content inside the packaging is a destroyed otter plushie, which represents that a lot of otter pups pass away through the process of the illegal pet trade. There is information inside the package as well to inform individuals.

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Project 2 Poacher Kit I initially wanted to create a poacher’s tool kit that included a case that held the tools. I decided to slightly change the approach. Instead I chose 4 different tools like pliers, drugs, bottles and nets; each item had a tag attached.

Each tag included copy of what the item was used for, and showing the tool being used on the animal. I kept the copy simple and straight to the point, I tried not to make the wording to gruesome because I wanted to image to set the unsettling mood.

Also, with the assistance of the use of colour red, I wanted to assist the overall mood. The purpose of this concept was to change the perspective slightly to the poachers, wanted the individuals to have a better understanding of the mistreatment of these animals with allowing people to have access to the tools.

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Net

3D PROJECTS

Pliers

Drug s

t ot

le

B

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R YOU D OF ET? E R I T IC P EXOT T... ! JUS Y S A E

TIRED OF YOUR EXOTIC PET? EASY! JUST...

TO T I T PU EEP”.

“SL

TIRED EXOTI OF YOUR C PET ?

EASY! JUST.. .

You’

ve t anima aken thi s P lf U wild anTr oIm TjuthT e O d y ou “ KILS st LEL D IE HoP selfish T .E w can yo ”. u be .

TIRED OF YOUR EXOTIC PET? EASY! JUST...

THROW UR OF YO TIREDIC PET? XOT THE EMEIN ST...

SY! JU A E WILD! id! e s tup b ’t n y Do alr ead You’ ve icated it! . st dome E in the wild I D L IT’L

TO PUT ITEP”.

“SLE

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CONTACT TIRE ANIM A OF L EXOTD IC PEYOU T? CON EAST L Y! R JUSO T...

Not

C for y UTE ENO P oT UG U Wha u anIyT teve moT r r hap e!O “to S a foL pend r eE veE r hP om” e..

T

UR

L.

GH

O d .

3D PROJECTS

Project 3 Door shaming posters These are a series of 3 posters that have a 3D element to them. Each poster asked the same question of “Tired of your exotic pet?” “Easy!

Just…” the answer to the question is located on a flap that open and closes which has the answers. An example of one is “Put it to “sleep”. Which implied they killed the animal but when you open the flap the individual is faced with a message that’s supposed to shame the viewer.

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4D Projects

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4D PROJECTS

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Websites

Animations

042 4D Project Visual Research

Animations

4D PROJECTS

4D visual Research When initiating my 4D research, I started with looking at interesting websites that were fun and engaging. This helped me think of different ways to approach a website. Even though my executions weren’t going to be that experimental, it helped me know what keeps people engaged on certain platforms. Looking at the websites also helped me see which UX/ UI was more successful in terms of accessibility, which is important if I am creating an app or website. Later, I researched two animations that featured a similar topic; this helped me see what types of visual language they used for their narrative. I wanted to know what sparked emotions like sadness and empathy.

An important thing from the animations is that sound and music helped a lot with getting people to feel something.

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4D PROJECTS

Project 1 Info Website I created a website that would have information of some of the animals that are in the illegal exotic pet trade. I wanted to carry the cute visual identity of some of my previous projects to maintain continuity. To maintain that identity, I chose a toned-down colour for the background, so that it would let the illustrations and typography pop out more.

The illustrations I used were from previous concepts and have influenced my visual identity. The website prototype maintained and kept the cute simple visual style.

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Project 2 Audio Experience I wanted to create an experience that would allow people to be in the animal’s position in the illegal pet trade. The challenge was figuring out what type of experience I wanted the individual to experience and how I was going to execute it. The experience I chose was an experience of an exotic animal being taken away from its home and locked in a cage and transported. This project is a full audio experience. I ended up creating an audio experience narrative with different sounds clips I found Online. The sounds that I’ve used were jungle noises, cages closing, a car driving, moving cage and a noisy crowd.

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4D PROJECTS

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4D PROJECTS

Project 3 Pet app The overall goal for the app is to take care of your pet and maintain their happiness. Maintaining their happiness or taking care of them won’t be that easy because the purpose of this app is show people that wild animals can’t be domesticated or trained to stop their natural behaviours. Their wild behaviours range from peeing to claim territory, releasing pungent smells when startled or threatened, and aggressive behaviour that could be harmful to one’s lives. The app also featured a happiness scale that will keep going down when the user is interacting with its pet, even if they’re trying to take care of it. The only time the bar will go up, is when you leave the animal alone.

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Off-Course/ Design TO

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OFF COURSE

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OFF COURSE

About OffCourse The Off-course Exhibition was part DesignTO. This was my very first-time being part of an exhibition. Being part of this was an amazing opportunity to expose and talk about my thesis project. The project that was exhibited was the complete story of Louie’s New Home. I chose this project because I wanted to create more stories, so this opportunity allowed me to gain feedback on what was working and what wasn’t.

I learned a lot of new experience and skills like how to set up an exhibition, and learning to talk about my work to strangers. The feedback I got from this exhibition was what I wanted, people interacted with my book and read it. People were sympathising with my Louie and understanding my thesis project.

Thanks to the feedback at Off-course, I knew which direction I needed to establish with the remaining stories.

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OFF COURSE

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Story Development

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STORY DEVELOPMENT

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STORY DEVELOPMENT

Story writing When writing my stories, I knew if I wanted to reach my targeted audience of children 4-7 years old, I needed assistance editing and writing my other stories. I met Joanne, a children’s librarian, who helped me figure out the language and tone of my books. Before our meetings, I came up with the basic structure of my stories and created storyboards to give a sense of story direction. The process of editing my stories with Joanne took 2 sessions.

The sessions included us reading each line out loud and discussing what was working and what was not. Then, we restructured the sentences so that they would be best suited for my younger audience.

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Storyboards Creating storyboards for my stories was the easiest way to establish the base of my narrative. As rough as the sketches are, it helped me remind myself of the overall tone with my writing and drawings. Storyboards allowed me to quickly establish something like the settings, positioning of characters and overall flow of the visual narrative. It also prevented me from overwhelming myself with my floating thoughts and ideas in my head and put them down on paper.

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STORY DEVELOPMENT

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Character Design

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CHARACTER DESIGN

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CHARACTER DESIGN

Louie the slow loris

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CHARACTER DESIGN

Oscar the small Asian clawed otter

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CHARACTER DESIGN

Pete the African gray parrot

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Final Work

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FINAL WORK

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Book Series The Louie and Friends children book series feature 3 stories “Louie’s New Home,” which follows Louie the slow loris; “Oscar’s Adventure,” which features Oscar the Asian smallclawed otter; and “Pete’s Happy Day,” which presents Pete the African grey parrot. For all my stories, my goal was to gain sympathy from the readers. The stories address both my project direction and intention by educating children on the unethical welfare of exotic animals in the illegal pet trade.

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FINAL WORK

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FINAL WORK

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FINAL WORK

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