The illustration that started it all. This flat graphic style is outdated now, but still has a special place in our hearts—you’ll most likely find this style as vintage GitHub stickers. New work is not produced in this style unless intended to be a throwback.
Mona
Part cat, part octopus, Mona is a pioneer of the Octocat species and is our official mascot. Mona supports and enlivens all of our messaging, receiving help from a wide range of supporting sidekicks. To the average person, Mona is just a cartoon character. But to the developer community, Mona is an icon.
Mona always shows up when we’re speaking about the open source community.
Copilot
The newest addition to the Octocat universe, Copilot represents the latest in Ai tech. Copilot appears whenever we talk about GitHub Copilot.
Ducky
Our salute to developers world wide: rubber Duckie helps you to debug your code, joining Mona and Copilot in representing creativity and innovation.
Usage
When using mascots in brand applications, less is more. Overuse or use of mascots as space fillers can be distracting and annoying. Preserve the magic of our beloved characters by using them sparingly, and only when the context is appropriate. They should always surprise and delight. Below is some general guidance on what is appropriate context, however all public-facing usage of mascots must be approved by GitHub’s Brand & Marketing Design team.
Do
Do use mascots with our community. Our mascots are most welcome and understood by our superfans at events, in merch, and in some marketing.
Don’t
Don’t use mascots as logos. No mascot or octocat should be used as a logo for a sub-team or brand.
Do
Mascots work best internally. You’ll find them in merch, easter eggs, office art, and milestone celebrations.
Don’t
Mascots shouldn’t show up in functional areas of our products, and should never interrupt a user flow. Don’t use mascots in sales, customer support or training.
Do
Use mascots to inspire and entertain. Mascots can be a powerful engagement tool for students, as long as they aren’t doing the teaching.
Don’t
Don’t use mascots for serious topics like: money, security, sales, enterprise offerings, or politics, protests or crises. Humans should always be the face and voice of GitHub in these settings.
Alternate Octocat styles
While working with our current brand design system, Octocats should be added in the style seen at the top of this page. However, there are a handful of alternate styles that we use for specific use cases.
The Octocat 2.0 style
Our current Octocat model, used in illustrations, animations, and stickers. This version of Mona is more emotive and functional in 3D space and the style most common for stickers or narrative illustrations.
Monamoji
Monamoji are the Octocat custom emoji set, used for reaction gifs and as custom emoji. These should be reserved for community engagement, and should not be used when speaking as the voice of GitHub.