CBBC Bugbears
Brand & Product Design
In Bugtopia, children aged 6-12 were given a chance to create their animated 3D creatures, share their stories about school, friends, family, the future, body and mind, bullying or the environment anonymously in a safe pre-moderated and engaging environment.
Children's voices drive these animated creatures to tell their stories in a visually captivating way, and the framework encouraged listening and supporting each other with advice, empathy and messages of reassurance around issues or problems faced in their world today.
Here is an early short demo of how the animation was to be synced with an uploaded voice. This was done overnight so the contributor could see it their environment within 24 hours.
BBC Learning also produced an interactive resource pack to support health and mental well-being in primary schools. Creative lesson plans, classroom activities and mood music were all supported by original Bugbear films.
Bugbears is perfect for CBBC in that it responds to our audience's need to talk about and share difficult issues and for those issues to remain confidential. It looks great, it's fun and at the same time, incredibly useful.
— Anne Gilchrist, Controller of CBBC