Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah And Aggie At Yeti Confetti Kids

Hi Sarah And Aggie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?

Aggie: Having been born and raised in Hong Kong and nurtured by Japanese animation, I have always been fascinated by the idea of working as an artist in the animation industry. However, Hong Kong lacks an art school dedicated to animation or concept art, making this dream seem more like an unattainable fantasy than a realistic goal. It wasn’t until I moved to the US at 18 that this idea became more feasible. Coming from a low-income family in both Hong Kong and the US, attending a public art school was my only option. Luckily, I was fortunate enough to end up in San Francisco, close to San Jose, which has the best public school program for Graphic Design or Animation/Illustration at San Jose State University. Fast forward to 2007, I was accepted into both of their BFA programs, marking the beginning of my journey as an Artist/Concept Artist!

In 2009, I graduated from SJSU’s Animation/Illustration BFA program. Since then, I have been working in the game industry, having shipped more than 30 titles, all of which are casual mobile games. In the summer of 2017, I began working as a designer/illustrator at Osmo, where I met and worked with Sarah, marking the start of my journey into educational games. I left Osmo in 2020 to take a break and focus more on my personal work, The Little Red House. In 2021, I took the role of Art Director for Amazon Glow’s Educational Games.

However, after welcoming a child in 2022, it was more important than ever for me to pursue a meaningful, mission-driven opportunity that would set a positive example. Cue Yeti Confetti Kids and my role as founding designer. It’s my hope that Yeti Confetti Kids will be my child’s first app experience, and I love the idea of Yeti being her first learning companion. Now that I’m a parent, my design choices are filtered through the lens of my child’s experience. I want to help create something that she can grow from, learn with, and that will have an overall positive impact on her development.

Sarah: I grew up in Southern California, and both of my parents have an art background, so the influence started very early. Many of the role models I looked up to were concept artists and lowbrow artists from LA. I entered art school majoring in illustration, with the intention of entering the game or animation industry. During a class opportunity to do a portfolio review with Penguin Random House, the editors noted that my art would work well with children’s illustration, and it even was popular with the employees’ kids who were visiting! This experience made me reconsider focusing my artwork to cater to the children’s market.

Early in my career, I was fortunate to find internships and job opportunities that were in the children’s entertainment and education field. While in college, I applied to an internship that I found off Craigslist, and it happened to be a lovely small team working to create children’s content on YouTube called ABCKidTV. This was when nursery rhyme videos were starting to take off, so it was quite interesting to see the content that companies around the world were creating. Then, I interned and transitioned to a full time employee at Osmo, where I met and worked closely with Aggie. During my time at Osmo, I met many wonderful people that helped me grow as a person and worked on innovative phygital games, including Detective, Little Genius Kit, and Reading Adventure.

After I hit the 5-year mark and we were all coming out of the pandemic, I decided it was time to take the next step in my career. When Aggie reached out and I learned more about Yeti Confetti Kids, their mission to combine advanced technology with personalized teaching was eye opening to me! I was intrigued, so I joined Aggie to work on Yeti Confetti Kids as a Senior Designer.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

Aggie: It was certainly a challenging journey! Graduating in 2009 meant navigating not only an economic recession, but also the emergence of a new medium for concept art in Social games (Facebook games). It was a time of transition for the industry, as it was still figuring out what it required from concept artists and illustrators. Artists were tasked with determining whether traditional mediums were still relevant for their work. I found myself caught in the midst of this era, striving hard to adapt and learn various programs to transition my skills from traditional to digital media. This struggle mirrors the challenges many of us face today as our industry undergoes transformation. I firmly believe that staying up-to-date with technology and continually honing fundamental skills will always be essential for navigating any circumstances.

I’m sure other parents can relate to another of my biggest challenges: time management. My time is fragmented, so there’s a lot of starting, stopping, and pivoting when I am working on my art. Toddlers take up a lot of time and energy! I want tools to help keep her occupied while I work, but I don’t want her to just sit in front of the TV forever. That’s a big reason I am excited to have such an integral role at Yeti Confetti Kids – our team works hard to ensure the learning activities are high-quality, so parents can feel good about their kids’ screen-time while getting their own work done at the same time.

Sarah: I would say I’ve been quite lucky so far to have many fulfilling job opportunities! The hardest moment was in my senior year of college when I was trying to find a job that could financially support me. Being an illustration major came with a lot of ambiguity, and most of my department’s alumni had vastly different career paths that were difficult to replicate. Moving to the Bay Area at the time definitely gave me the opportunity to start my career smoothly.

I’ve found that working on an early stage app like Yeti Confetti Kids means that I have a lot of creative freedom, which is a dream as a designer. The app experience hinges on good design, and I appreciate that our perspectives as designers are valued at Lirvana Labs. As you can imagine, a lot of work goes into design, and we are very intentional about creating art and characters that are authentic and diverse. It feels good to work in an environment where I can make a big impact!

We’ve been impressed with Yeti Confetti Kids, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?

The combination of Yeti Confetti being a mission driven company that is creating a tool that’s the first of its kind makes this an exciting place to be right now! Yeti Confetti Kids merges advanced AI technology with best practices in teaching young children, and the result is a personalized learning companion that scaffolds instruction in Math, English, and SEL for children ages 3-9. The content is expertly-curated, but it’s more than that – Yeti (the lovable AI companion) adapts to each child’s pace, learning style, and goals to provide a unique learning journey for each kid.

Grown-ups have easy access to their child’s learning progress, and can work with the expert-developed Screen-time Manager feature to ensure that kids are safely engaging in screen-time and adhering to WHO recommendations for age-based screen usage. Our team is made up of parents and former educators, so everyone here has a deep connection to and respect for kids – and we know what daily life with children feels like!

We’re proud that our product is both fun and rigorously designed. We want every child to have access to learning tools that are developmentally appropriate, user friendly, and backed by research. Our data indicates that by playing just 15 minutes every week, part of which includes answering 100 interactive question-based assessments, children can grow their Math and English skills by half a grade level in less than 3 months. That’s a big payoff for minimal investment! In addition to boosting academic skills, learning with Yeti also fosters critical thinking and emotional resilience from an early age. Our Critical Thinking Simulator, developed in collaboration with Stanford University, immerses children in interactive, scenario-based learning to develop their analytical and decision-making skills.

We believe all children deserve equitable access to this type of learning gain, and have launched pilot programs across the globe to make this mission a reality. Currently, we’re partnering with Jusoor to bring Yeti Confetti™ to resource-strapped classrooms where children displaced by war are learning. Stay tuned for our new multilingual feature arriving soon!

What were you like growing up?

Aggie: I grew up reading and playing RPG games – I loved storytelling in any form. Because I was born and raised in Hong Kong, I was lucky enough to catch the golden era of innovation for Nintendo. My first device was Famicom’s Super Mario Brothers, aka the OG! At that time, I didn’t understand game design, but I found the simplicity and storyline compelling. Playing these games is what gave me the idea that I could work on games someday, and little did I know that these games would inform much of the design we have now. From Gameboy to N64 Super Mario Brothers, I’m still a gamer!

In Hong Kong, everything happens quickly and efficiently, and that affected my personality a lot. Even at school with my artist friends, I was often the one who suggested a pipeline, a system, and a checklist. I’ve always had a balance between my left and right brain in my work, and that seems to surprise people. There’s my very logical side mixed with my desire to use art to tell a good story. I guess this might be the thing that made me different from others!

Sarah: I was very quiet as a kid and often spaced out, daydreaming about fantastical things. That is probably why my concentration at school was not very good! I remember watching my favorite movies and playing games like Klonoa repeatedly and obsessing over fiction like Harry Potter, Inkheart, and Roald Dahl books. I had a tendency to be very productive when it came to my personal art projects, and ended up starting my own mini craft business with all of my extras. I sold my creations to friends, classmates, and even local stores! A big part of my current self is motivated to create products that I think my childhood self would have enjoyed.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.yeticonfettikids.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/play.yeti/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Lirvana-Labs/61551120206893/
• Twitter: https://x.com/yeticonfettikid
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@YetiConfettiKids

Image Credits

Courtney Fone