I really couldn’t say when it all started. At some point in my life I just caught a bug for mascots and anything to do with mascot design. So what ends up happening? Well for starters this blog along with me learning as much as I can about the history of mascots and how they fit into our world.
Some people collect coins, others are crazy about baseball cards or video games or NFL or the UFC. Me, I’m into mascots. The more I learned about them the more I was intrigued. I mean even cavemen were into mascots! Cavemen you ask? CAVEMEN! Thousands of years ago our native ancestors would create costumes and wear them around for all kinds of reasons. These early costumes are rarely called mascot costumes but really … aren’t they?
Think about this.
Imagine you belong to some tribe and your then religious guy, typically called a shaman puts a tiger skin around his back and shoulders. Then he puts on a tiger mask. Next up drums start playing and this tiger … er shaman … starts dancing and growling around the fire. He puts on a great show of jumps, jabs and swipes. And the end result what? Warriors of the tribe all pumped up and ready to kick ass is what.
I don’t care by what other name that might go by; that’s a mascot if you ask me.
Now the Shaman could have been wearing any kind of costume from an animal, a spirit, a deity or a god. It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, ceremonies using primitive character costumes of all kinds was very common amongst our early ancestors and for a whole range of reasons. Everything from buffing up warriors and hunters, to increasing fertility in women and crops.
So that’s just one thing that got me interested in mascot design. There’s a lot more cool stuff about mascots and I’ll be writing more about it so check back from time to time or let me know your thoughts in the comments.
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