From Wildlife Poster to Pillow Star: How Nantou's Leopard Cat 'JiJi' Was Born

Challenge

The leopard cat is one of Taiwan's most important protected wild species, but most people find it distant and unfamiliar, and conservation messaging tends to stay stuck in dry, informational posters. The core task here was getting the leopard cat's image off the poster and into something people would actually want to bring home and see every day.

Goal

Design an endearing, memorable leopard cat mascot and extend it into practical products like pillows and stickers, upgrading conservation from one-way education into a daily sense of companionship, while giving a Nantou cultural museum initiative a marketable identity product of its own.

Approach

1. Simplified the leopard cat's spot pattern into rounded lines and a signature squinty smile to create JiJi, an approachable mascot that replaces the distance of a realistic wildlife image.
2. Developed two main colorways, mint green and matcha green, for the pillow design, pairing it with banana-leaf and geometric patterns so the character suits a range of home styles.
3. Extended the product line to stickers and gift box packaging, all sharing JiJi's round tag mark so the full merchandise set reads as one coherent identity.

Outcome

JiJi went from a single conservation illustration to an actual sellable, giftable lifestyle product, carrying the leopard cat conservation message into everyday life in a lighter, more endearing way, and giving the Nantou cultural museum's integrated marketing plan a memorable signature item.