FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Pride Shrike: Mascot Design for National High School Athletic Games

The mascot design of Pingtung City has long been monkeys, but to break away from stereotyped thinking, the team selected the Brown Shrike, the bird of Pingtung County, as an inspiration to give everyone a refreshing impression about Pingtung. The mascot was named "Pride Shrike" to echo with the slogan "Pingtung Pride" and promote the games.

Pride Shrike is the mascot of the 2020 National High School Athletic Games in Pingtung, Taiwan. The mascot was named "Pride Shrike" as "bird" is pronounced similar to "pride" in Taiwanese, as well as echoing with the slogan "Pingtung Pride." The games cheer not only for the winners, but all athletes as they all make people proud.

The mascot is drawn in both graphic and 3-dimensional ways. For animated stickers, the team created animation in After Effect and generated the animated images with an APNG creation tool such as APNG Assembler. The guidelines of animated stickers in LINE store were followed for the specifications.

The project started in April 2019 and finished in December 2019, with the mascot being released and exhibited in January 2020. The National High School Athletic Games will be held from July 18 to July 23 in Pingtung, Taiwan, with more than 12,000 athletes from other counties and cities participating in the event.

Besides its appearance and flexible body, Pride Shrike has a distinctive personality. He is a national badminton player, in the senior year of athletic class in National Chao-Chou Senior High School. His objective is to show the characteristics of the host city and promote its tourism and economy with local industries and signature products.

Capturing the traits of the Brown Shrike was the most challenging aspect. The team worked closely with ornithologists to picture the bird accurately. The face is white with the typical black "bandit-mask" through the eyes, and the upper part is reddish with the lower parts being a yellowish belly with rufous flanks. The tail is redder and tipped in white.

-END-