Heathrow Airport
A social content design system for Heathrow Airport — seven mascot characters, each representing a different service category, built for WeChat and Weibo.
Branding · China Digital Marketing
Heathrow is one of the world's most recognised international airports — and Chinese travellers know it well. The opportunity wasn't awareness. It was connection. Working with the project manager on the marketing strategy, we identified a way to bring Heathrow closer to its Chinese audience on the platforms they actually use: not through broadcast content, but through characters — seven of them, each representing a different Heathrow service.
I collaborated with the PM to map Heathrow's existing services into seven content categories — then created a distinct character for each, so audiences could immediately identify and navigate to the content most relevant to them.
One airplane, seven personalities
The concept: give the aeroplane a body. An airplane-shaped figure — wings, a rounded fuselage, an expressive face — kept every character tied to Heathrow. The seven categories were: Our Services · Our Travellers · UK Tourism · Practical Travel Information · Culture · Shopping · Food.
Each had a different job, and each wore it through a distinct piece of British culture — Sherlock Holmes for Practical Travel Information, a Beefeater in ceremonial red for Culture, London's iconic landmarks for UK Tourism, a packed suitcase and hot air balloon for Our Travellers, a chef's hat and wok for Food, shopping bags and attitude for Ms. Shopperholic, and the terminal building itself as the backdrop for Our Services. British archetypes that Chinese audiences already knew — instantly legible, never generic. A single mascot couldn't carry that range. Seven could.
The flat illustration style — bold fills, clean outlines — was calibrated for WeChat and Weibo: readable at small sizes, lively enough to stop a scroll.
From sketch to motion
I started with hand sketches across all seven — establishing the shared visual logic first, then moving each character into its own personality through costume, posture, and detail. The output was a content system: each character an immediate signal of its category, with micro-animations added to bring them to life and keep the content engaging on social feeds.
Revisiting the work — AI elevation (in progress)
Ten years on, I'm using AI tools to elevate the characters into 3D — retaining the original personalities and British archetype logic, but adding depth and material texture that flat illustration couldn't achieve at the time. The intent is to show how AI can extend and upgrade existing design assets, using it as a craft amplifier rather than a replacement.
What I'd carry forward
What this project taught me is that a product's quality is a function of the quality of the relationships around it. The best decisions came out of conversations — with a Butler who understood guests differently than I did, with a developer who knew what the system could carry. The screen is just where that collaboration becomes visible.