Big Mascots & Big Costumes

mascot maker

Mascot Engineers – Mascot Design & Collaboration

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We live in a world of fuzz, fluff, foam and googlie eyes at AvantGarb. Here in MascotLand, the mood of the studio and ease of collaboration rules. That’s the only way we can get to good mascot design – to be the best mascoteer engineers we can be!

When designing and producing a new mascot, we gather together to ponder a seam, contemplate a collar, engineer and re-imagine the interior structure. We are mascoteer engineers. It’s called, Mascotology.

IMG_1022Making a big belly requires a some foam that is covered in athletic mesh and stabilized with hoops – they look like hula-hoops, but are custom made to match the contours of the belly.

The mascoteers at AvantGarb work together on all aspects of the mascot. The body needs to work with the  head. The legs need to fit into the shoes….and don’t even get me started on the hats! We’re big on Big Millinery!

Rocket science accuracy is sometimes part of the engineering.It turns out, putting on and taking off (for easier shipping) a couple of Really Large Antenna, on TiVo, is a very complex bit of engineering.

We are, after all, great character builders – Mascoteer Engineers.TiVo mascot - inner structureTiVo in Greenwich Village - NYC

Gotta love where you work – the Mascot Studio

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The Mascot Studio – Location, location, location!
AvantGarb is in the coolest building in the United States.
Our building, The Stutz Business & Arts Center is an old, car factory. Stutz Bearcats used to be made here—in our studio, you can see fragments of the old factory workings –lotsa pipes and wheels controlling the steam heat. The building is warm in the winter and it’s cool in the summer —well, the building is always cool is the coolest sense, if ya know what I mean!
It’s good for the soul, and really good for business to like the place you work in…..and we like the where we work. The location, and, of course, the work!!!!

Cars, Tech, Art & Mascots

The building was designed to be a place where real, tangible objects are made. It was also designed to be a place that holds ideas and innovation.
First Stutz Bearcat cars were made here.  Now there are tech companies, artists and a mascot making studio. Innovation continues everyday.
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Biz, Blessings & a Martini

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JQBossLadyAvantGarb has been a growing, productive business for a really long time.
I started AvantGarb in my Berkeley, California garage when my youngest daughter was about 3 months old.
From the start, AvantGarb has been profitable and the dollars have increased through the years. AvantGarb is a real, ongoing operation.
Even though we have been making money, and AvantGarb has been paying mortgages & rent for me and my employees for years. We have been buying shoes, clothing children, sending them to college getting our hair done and toes painted, I still sometimes think, it could be over tomorrow.
This is crazy thinking.
When I am sitting with a curved needle, stitching fleece onto fur on the latest mascot head, I’ve taken to counting my blessings.
Here are some of them:
  • I have a really grand family. They keep me involved and interested in their lives. My husband is funny, handsome and sexy. My daughters are gorgeous and glorious.
  • I  love my biz – making fuzzy critters that add a great dollop of fun to the landscape.
  • I’ve traveled everywhere–okay, not everywhere, but a lot of places – Kenya, India, China, Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, Taiwan, Egypt, and oh yeah, Europe. I feel fluent in the world. I like to be places where I can’t speak the language.
  • … however, I can speak Spanish, stutter through French and be polite in Swahili
  • I love going to church on Sundays, singing hymns w/ the congregation, listening to the sermon and being blessed for the coming week with the benediction.
  • I love reading the New York Times and napping on couch on Sunday afternoons.
  • I have gotten bit of fame for doing what I do.
  • …and right now I’m listening to the general chatter in the studio as Joseph drafts patterns for a very buff mascot, Mike finishes the electronics for a ventilation fan in a Giant’s head and Anne finishes 3 pairs of really big mascot shoes for 3 very different mascots – a Griffin, a Tomato & a Parrot!
  • Every Monday I look forward to the week ahead.
  • Every Friday I come home to a really good martini with my husband
I have imagined my life, and it became real.
I suspect the story of other small biz people is similar.
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