Baby Globe
Idea: Celebrate Wikipedia’s 25th birthday by developing a lovable character known as Baby Globe, who embodies the Wikipedia brand and is undeniably made by humans. Baby Globe would appear on the site when Birthday mode was activated. The character is inspired by a sketch from community member BaduFerreira (Jonathan Ferreira). We designed 16 different states for Baby Globe, from dreaming to space exploration, to be thematically featured across various Wikipedia articles from “dating apps” to Chappell Roan in 27 languages.
We first launched Baby Globe with a teaser on January 15 and one month later, we released an animated video that introduced the character to the world on a backdrop of handpicked articles resonating with a global audience. Pay close attention and you’ll notice that we included a few winks and nods like the philosophy article and the profile of inspiration behind the globe.
Results: The introductory video became one of Wikipedia’s all-time over performers, adding 1.9k new Wikipedia followers to YouTube and 2.5k to their TikTok. Baby Globe received so much fanfare from the Wikipedia community around the world, inspiring countless fan art and memes on Tumblr and Reddit, and even a full-fledged piñata at Wikipedia Day in Bolivia. Baby Globe has exceeded our initial brief (and wildest dreams) to become Wikipedia’s 25th birthday mascot.
Original sketch from community member BaduFerreira Concept Phase
Playing with hammer space and various propsExploring expression through glyphs
Baby Globe
Plushie colab with Makeship
Community/Fan Artnotes:Pulling this ambitious project off was only possible with the collaboration of the project and tech teams, press, external vendors, and other departments. Moreover, bringing Baby Globe to life across Wikipedia required the buy in and consensus of Wikipedians from around the world. One of my favorite little adds to Baby Globe is the way in which the character dreams… in real Wikimedia Commons imagery.
ROLE: