Diagonal View Blog Happy Birthday Pip!

Diagonal View welcomes a very special new member to our team! Say hello, to Pip the puppet. We are launching two new children's channels, the first is Pip The Puppet, which will cater to children between the ages of five to eight years old. The primary focus of the videos will be teaching the audience how to make cool things like squishy stress balls, lava lamps, and home made play dough, along side demonstrations of fun science experiments. The second channel is Baby Pip, a visually engaging and educational line up of videos aimed at infants and toddlers. Children will be able to learn their ABC's, and count from one to ten with Pip!Initially there were six varying design possibilities for Pip, which all drew influence from aliens and animals. Chloë Dungate, the Animator and Puppeteer, ran a Twitter poll, and option 'F' proved to be most popular. This design was then altered to be asymmetrical to give Pip a slightly clumsier look, adding personality, and a little charm to the puppet's character.There was a mutual decision between Chloë, and Bruna Capozzoli, the Producer, Director, and Writer for the two channels, that Pip would be gender neutral. This allows the creators to appeal to a wider audience, without any gendered boundaries. Another important design factor they considered when thinking about their audience, was the colour of the puppet. They chose to go with blue because of the calming psychological affects attributed with it. It makes Pip seem approachable and non-threatening, especially to younger children.The long term goal is to have both channels featured on the YouTube Kids app. The app launched in 2015 and is designed for parents who want their children to have access to age friendly YouTube videos, without the fear of inappropriate content, and internet trolls. YouTube does this by handpicking the videos, and removing the comments section within the app.The Diagonal View team is celebrating the launch with a birthday party for Pip! Welcome to the team!Noor Ahmad - Production Assistant