We've made a few Messenger sticker packs over the years, and every time it's an absolute treat. With Buddy Buddies, we've homed in on the squidgy cuteness in the form of bread, fruit and animals.
Buddy Buddies is the sixth sticker pack we've created with Meta, and this time we were asked to design 20 squishy little characters that you feel you could reach out and hug. Using some common search terms as a starting point we designed this tactile bunch, each one bulging with personality.
When it came to refining the designs, there was a big emphasis on softness, 'squishability' and three-dimensionality. So we brought that level of detail in the little creases, or the way that two things push together – like the leaf and stem on the pear.
The palette is fun and varied, but we made sure there was a little warmth running through the whole pack. So even though there's a lot of different colours, they all sit together as a family.
If you're chatting to someone in Messenger, it's often easier to use a sticker that doesn't change too much. That was our thought process behind some characters – like the pear – when designing motion, but for those expressive moments we have more complex animations like the waving sushi, which jumps up and then rolls away.
Below: Sketches and rough colours for the 20 selected designs.
Below: Rough 2D versions of the animations. Doing this helps maintain a traditional feel to the animation, even though it's all digital.
We all have our personal favourites in the team. Find the Buddy Buddies sticker pack in the Messenger Sticker store to find your pick of the bunch and share the squish!
Concepting and refinement, Design, Animation production, Render & delivery, Project leadership, Creative direction, Production, Account management
Animation 20 x Stickers, Json file for each sticker at 60fps, Export with transparent PNG-24 sequence, GIF file for each sticker, Pack thumbnails (static version of each sticker), Relevant tagging suggestions for each sticker
Client
Meta
Executive Creative Director
Mike Davies
Design & Animation
Sam Stoney
Animation
Ed Barrett, Robert Duncan
Executive Producer
Jen Judd
Producer
Meg Shipton
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