Twitter Fail Whale Artist's Newest Web Creation: The Overwhelmed Octopus

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By Seth Fiegerman2013-08-10 11:02:26 -0600

Some artists aspire to be featured in galleries, but Yiying Lu seems to prefer a less glamourous location for her work: the web page users see when a site breaks down.

Lu achieved Internet stardom after Twitter co-founder Biz Stone discovered her illustration of a whale being lifted up by birds on iStockPhoto, and decided to use it for the social network's 404 page. The Fail Whale became a kind of pop-culture icon, as Twitter became increasingly popular and experienced more frequent service outages.

See also: The Origin of Twitter's "Fail Whale"

Since then, Lu has created QR code projects and designs for SXSW, but she has returned occasionally to the 404 page and the whale that made her famous. In late 2010, she created a Pale Whale design for Conan O'Brien's 404 page that spoofed the Fail Whale. Earlier this year, she created the Shorty Whale to serve as a mascot for the fifth anniversary of the Shorty Awards.

Now, Lu is back with what she describes as "the new member" of the Fail Whale family: the Overwhelmed Octopus. The illustration was designed for the 404 page of Muck Rack, a social platform for journalists, and is intended as a playful representation of just how many social networks reporters need to juggle these days.

Lu told Mashable that the illustration was inspired by "Guatemalan worry dolls" and an episode of Futurama. While she notes that "the 404 page found me" in the beginning thanks to Stone picking out her work, Lu now believes designing for this page can help cheer up Internet users precisely at the moment when they would otherwise normally be frustrated that a page won't load.

"I really believe that art can change the emotion and the emotion can change the thoughts," she said. "At the same time, it can give people a much better emotional experience, and make people happier and more productive."

As it happens, Lu is now working on "some projects" for Twitter, but won't say what. "I'm re-connecting [with Twitter]," she says. "It's nice to be back."

Image: Muck Rack

Topics: Dev & Design, fail whale, Social Media, Twitter