Clara and I love DuoLingo. Or, more specifically, we love Duo, the adorable (if occasionally agro) owl. So it was no surprise to me when Clara told me her big ambition for the 2021 Peak Project is to add gamification.
“One site that does gamification really well is DuoLingo,” Clara told me. “Their mascot is quite cute, but he looks like he’s willing to stab you half the time!”
Clara enjoys drawing lizards and little creatures in ink (alcohol-based Copic markers,) so she knew just what she wanted to create. Going all-digital was a new challenge for her.
“I already do a lot of digital art,” she says, “but that has been all raster-based using Procreate.” She needed to learn vector-based drawing to give us more flexibility for uses like logos and the mascot.
She decided to learn Affinity Designer, and her first project was a Truckee Tahoe Peaks logo. And then right on to Pecko! (#proudmom)
“To my surprise, it worked incredibly smoothly,” she reported.
“You’ll be able to see Pecko’s little face in varying expressions on badges you get for completing a certain number of peaks and other (surprise) accomplishments.”
Until then, keep your eyes open for Pecko’s appearances on the website and in the occasional email!
