In Avatar Icebreaker, Jason Santa Maria discusses the fun avatars his design firm, Happy Cog, uses in their Basecamp account and the impact they have on clients.
In the past year or so I’ve been noticing a funny thing during our kickoffs with new clients. We briefly show them Basecamp and talk about how we would like both companies to use it during the project. When we get to the People page their demeanor completely shifts, they see a slew of our avatars staring back at them. We just used them because we though they were funny, but for new clients unfamiliar with Basecamp, it has the added effect of breaking the ice for them. Rather than “oh, great new software to learn,” it becomes “hey, we can have fun with this.”It’s a simple thing, and certainly an unplanned one, but it shows some of our personality to the people we work with and helps them get acclimated to our process.
Here are a few of the avatars:
