Scouts
The Great Indoors
Deliverables:
320 illustrated scenes
36 animated GIFs
17 presenter-led how-to videos
40 downloadable activity sheets
200+ icons and supporting graphics
Creative guidelines and production assets
My role:
Creative direction
Project management
Brand development
Graphic design
Illustration
Animation and motion design
Video editing
Sound design
I led the creative development and initial rollout of The Great Indoors, a free online collection of more than 1,000 activities created by Scouts for volunteers, families and young people.
The project was commissioned before the COVID-19 pandemic but launched within days of the first national lockdown, when families suddenly needed accessible activities that could be completed safely at home.
Working across branding, illustration, animation, video and downloadable resources, we created more than 700 digital assets and a comprehensive set of guidelines for Scouts’ in-house creative team to continue developing the platform.
We began by developing a cast of distinctive characters that reflected the diversity, energy and personality of Scouts’ members.
The characters helped communicate the theme and purpose of each activity in a way that was playful, inclusive and immediately understandable. They needed to work equally well in detailed illustrated scenes, animated content and simple instructional graphics.
My aim was to keep the visual language bold, graphic and expressive.
The system needed enough flexibility to support elaborate scenes with large casts and detailed settings, while remaining recognisable when reduced to a single character, icon or instructional graphic.
A limited set of shapes, strong silhouettes and exaggerated expressions gave the characters a consistent identity across hundreds of activities. This also allowed the style to adapt to practical instructional content without losing its personality.
Before beginning the designs, I visited several Scout groups to observe how young people interacted, played and worked together. During one visit, a group leader’s cocker spaniel was running around the hall. Seeing how the young people responded to him inspired us to add Buddy the dog to the cast.
Buddy brought an extra element of chaos and humour to the project, appearing as everything from a wizard flying on a magic carpet to an aeroplane pilot and a dancer in a full Mardi Gras costume.
Over the course of the project, we created more than 320 illustrated scenes, 200 individual icons and 40 print-at-home activity sheets for games, challenges and creative exercises.
The animations ranged from simple instructional movements to more imaginative character-led scenes.
The visual system was deliberately designed with animation in mind, allowing characters, props and environments to move naturally between static and motion-based formats.
In collaboration with Follow Films, we produced 17 presenter-led how-to videos.
Using their live-action footage, I developed and overlaid signposting graphics, animated instructions and illustrated sequences to make each activity easier to follow.
Longer sections of footage were broken up with playful sketches and visual interruptions, adding humour and helping maintain the attention of a younger audience. I also handled the editing, motion graphics and sound design required to bring the live-action and illustrated elements together.
All work © Gethin Vaughan Schofield 2026