{"id":1081,"date":"2008-10-27T16:50:33","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T16:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=1081"},"modified":"2008-10-27T19:20:49","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T19:20:49","slug":"meet-jetwit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2008\/10\/27\/meet-jetwit\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet JetWit!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’d like to introduce JetWit<\/strong> (nickname: A.J.<\/strong>) , the new mascot for JetWit.com, created by Zi Mei<\/strong><\/a> (Saitama-ken, 2002-05)!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Below the jump, Zi Mei explains the origin of the nickname “A.J.” and shares an early sketch:<\/p>\n

A.J. is a pun on several words and ideas and I’ll briefly explain the inspiration behind him. Steve had asked me to design a mascot for Jetwit several weeks ago, but nothing really good came to me. Then, I happened to attend a friend’s furniture store grand opening attended by several Japanese ex-pats. I made an accidental oyaji gag <\/em>and drew something on a napkin.\u00a0 Several days later inspiration came to me while in the shower. I remembered my napkin and thought up “A.J.” as the perfect name for my new character. I sat down to sketch out his look and nailed it on the third try, then popped open Illustrator to create the finished version.<\/p>\n

The gag in his name:<\/span>
\n“A” is pronounced “ei” in Japanese, which can be written as \u82f1 (meaning “English”). The J part of the name represents Japan, so A.J. could be an abbreviation for “America-Japan” (to represent the cross-cultural focus of the website), or “Eigo-Japanese”. A.J. can also be “Alumni of JET”. The reason A.J. is an elephant and not any another animal, e.g., a squirrel, a walrus, or something more indigenously Japanese, is also a pun using\u00a0 the sounds “A” and “zou”. Elephant A (“A\u8c61”) and picture\/image (\u6620\u50cf).<\/p>\n

The glasses and pencil were Steven’s idea, because he wanted to make the mascot look smart and translator-y. (Editor’s note:\u00a0 Good job on that, Zi.<\/em>)\u00a0 Elephants are, not coincidentally, known for their memory and intelligence, and revered in many cultures around the world as a symbol of wisdom. Aristotle is supposed to have called the elephant “the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind.”<\/p>\n

Here is an initial sketch of A.J.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’d like to introduce JetWit (nickname: A.J.) , the new mascot for JetWit.com, created by Zi Mei (Saitama-ken, 2002-05)! Below the jump, Zi Mei explains the origin of the nickname “A.J.” and shares an early sketch:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartoonillustration","category-humor"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t