In Automattic, we usually have yearly announcements of new designs or products for our swag/merchandise. For 2021, the swag is a little bit special to me — mostly because I involved in one of the sticker series design.

Introducing: Lion Dance Wapuu.

This is actually a project that started as a joke. One of my teammates prepared her sabbatical leave that started during the Chinese New Year so we chatted about Chinese New Year celebrations and one of folks on the team channel mentioned, “Wapuu in lion dance costume would be super cute.”

As soon as I heard the comment, I did a really fast and rough sketch. Wapuu is fairly easy to draw because it fits all my character preferences: Round and chonk. Also, I really like drawing lion dance costume. After what happened in 2020 (and still going on in 2021,) I felt it would be pretty neat to bring a little bit of cheer.

I shared it on one of the office’s public Slack channel — Asiamatticians channel — and everyone shared really good responses. I was content at that time. I was pretty happy.

Then, my colleague from Marketing division mentioned me. “Hey, I pinged you on the Events’ Slack channel. Seems like everyone like it very much and they want to make it a sticker.”

“Are you serious.”

“YES!”

I worked together with folks from my team, Events division, and Designs division. We chatted, joked, and shared insights on the origin of Chinese zodiac, the process of making the vector version of Wapuu, and the colors. It was a really awesome experience, to work cross-division like that. It wasn’t a super major project, but it has been really motivating and refreshing encounter.

And now I have the stickers!

Aside from Wapuu Lion Dance, we also have Wapuu Year of the Ox! Check them out on Mercantile store!