Le Le the deer, the mascot of Shanghai Tourism Festival

the mascot of Nara Tourism Association

Shanghai Tourism Administration and the design team of Shanghai Tourism Festival mascot have refuted the question that the new-launched dynamic expression package of the mascot Le Le the dear copied the mascot of Japan's Nara Tourism Association. Le Le aged 18 is original and older than the Japanese dear; the new dynamic images are just cuter than before, said the administration.

Zhang Mode, the former director of the comprehensive department of the administration said that the prototype of Le Le was selected from thousands of designs in a citywide collection for the mascot of Shanghai Tourism Festival in 1998. The dynamic version is still original. "The team made the mascot more adorable to enhance the communication and interaction in new media", said Zhang.

According to the introduction of Liu Ying, the designer of Le Le, the biggest change of this version is that the color comes back to orange in the 1998 version. In addition, Le Le's face is highlighted with its antlers getting smaller. "Le Le is totally different from the Nara deer both in design inspiration and picture details", said Liu.

Facing question, Liu Ying feels wronged since the mascot of Shanghai Tourism Festival is older than that of Nara and it is the 18th year to use the image. However, Nara dear was born after 2000 and it was also improved in the past years. The earliest image of Nara deer is based on a combination of deer and figure of Buddha.

Editor: Wang Jiaye