Meet Mr. Purrl! 😺 Recraft Project:https://www.recraft.ai/project/e88ddbca-8f13-49cd-b19f-28379683466c

Character Brief

Mr. Purrl is a knitted yarn plushie who works at a London cat café. Stern by design, soft by nature. He takes the rules seriously because they exist to protect the cats: harder than it sounds, since the cats themselves love to sleep on him and use his tail as a toy, doing nothing for his authority. His bowler hat transforms magically into whatever the situation requires: an umbrella, a ball of yarn, a sign. Every kitten about to find their forever home leaves with a miniature Mr. Purrl, hand-knitted by the original himself.

Applications: - Character - Logo wordmark - Sticker sheet - Merch mockup - Lifestyle photography - Comic - Video - Notice board

Project Walkthrough vid in the comments. Read ahead if you want to know how I created this.

OK so, I love cat cafés. And you know, they are pretty strict about rules (for cat and human safety). And I kept thinking... how funny would it be if the actual guardian of the cats was a toy?

Cats approach respect in a very specific way, so the idea of this stern, old-fashioned (cute) little plushie trying to enforce the rules felt so funny to me. Stern (not his fault, he was knitted this way), yet adorable. Rigid, but soft.

He adores the cats. That was always the point. And he found a way to keep them company even when they leave. Turns out, he knits tiny versions of himself: one for every kitten/cat that finds their forever home. So the mascot becomes merch, but within his own world, which I loved.

The magical hat was something I really wanted to get right. It should be important, but it's just a detail. Think about it, he's a plushie with actual powers, and he decides to use them for: an umbrella? Some yarn? A sign? And that's what's funny: if a magical plushie chooses to spend his powers on cat café rules, that means the cat café rules matter. I think that's kind of sweet.

He's English because my favorite cat cafés are there, honestly.

Everything was built by iterating and iterating. At some point I think Recraft was more frustrated than I was, but we kept going and it was so helpful.

In the end, I wanted softness and rules to coexist in a fun way, and I think they do. It took longer than I expected. I ended up completely falling for him. Hope some of you do too.