Project Review: Absolut Vodka "Bot Bar" 1995 PART I

Here we have the emotions of Boastful and Lust portrayed for the Absolut Vodka Website from 1996 for the character "Manhattan".

Here we have the emotions of Impressed and Fake portrayed by "Manhattan".

Here we have the emotions of Love, and Meaness portrayed by "Manhattan".

Here we have the emotions of the stare, and the smirk portrayed by "Manhattan".

Here we have the emotions of Inrgatitude and "Punny" portrayed by "Manhattan".

Here we have the emotions with a Smile and a "Come On" portrayed by "Manhattan".

Absolut Vodka Website
"Bot Bar" Charaacter Designs
1996 PART I

Client: Absolut Vodka via Troon Ltd.
Art Director: Chris Trages.
Project Date: April 1996

Back in 1996 when the Internet was still just a few years into the public life, I had a chance to create a series of characters or "emodicons" for an online chat room for the website for the Vodka brand Absolut. I was contracted by the Design Studio in Santa Monica called Troon LTD and I worked in-house for a week to create a series of characters for the site.

The characters were to be done in a Picasso-esque style as abstract art characters, but a bit stereotypical so they could be recognized easily on the screen in the chatr oom format. I had a rocker, a hippie, a bombshell etc.

What I have posted today is the first part in the series of characters I designed for Troon, called "Manhattan", who was a rat pack aging man in his late 50's. I had to develop the basic structure of the character, and then present about 12 basic emotions that would cycle about as you spoke to one another in the chat room online in the bot bar as they called it. "Manhattan" was designed with a widows peak and slick greased back hair with an exaggerated look to his cheeks and lips.

This is the first post in a series on the character designs I did for Absolut, so check back for additional characters to come.

Cheers, THOM