Although I like the MePo very much, I´ll try to broaden the views again.
So, what could a mascot be?
# an animal
# a vegetable
# an object (like a TV, respectively like the MePo))
# an extraterrestrian
When thinking about an animal:
# avoid animals already used by other software companies. I wouldn´t see this for other branches like the somewhere above mentioned telephone company
## chameleon (Suse)
## penguin (linux)
## fox (mozilla/firefox)
## butterfly (adobe)
# choose an animal with arms and legs (more posibilities)
so no
## fish
## bird
# choose an animal with positive emotion (sweet, cute)
## this rules out spiders, rats and a lot more
--> the best i can think of is a kangaroo
cute, big jumbs (progress), nice for animation, the pouch (special thanks to marcusb ) is a plus for tools (remote or sth)
The great thing about the gremlin (or any other abstract character) is that he reflects whatever we want him to... 'Real world' objects are always going to have other connotations that won't be similar or obvious to everyone, and at least in this application I think the gremlin is more effective than an ant, kangaroo, or whatever. You've also just listed some of the reasons why the gremlin works so well (animal, unused, arms and legs, cute emotion).
I agree that we shouldn't jump to conclusions, but this character is already very promising, anyone see any downsides with using the gremlin as part of branding?
I also like the current Gremlin dude. In a loving way the Gremlin kind of represents MP too. It's stability is excellent at the moment, but since it is still 0.2 there is always room for Gremlins to squeeze in
When you suggested Kangaroo, the first thing I thought of was Australia, but this may be just me, for some reason. By the way, it's the Pouch where they keep their remote controls.
Harley, I like your ant, but it does remind me a lot of the ants characters from the movie, although I guess it's hard to design an ant that looks radically different from those ants. You're still our chief skin/gfx guy
Well after suggesting MePo as the name I now came up with an idea. If Glenn makes a female version (even though MePo is kind of sexless ) Then we can call her....