How Covid Helped Birth Gunna's Virtual Avatar
Designer Tal Midyan on the process and pressures that led to one of 2020's earliest celebrity avatars.
It started as a doll.
WUNNA, the 3D animated avatar of woozy Atlanta rapper Gunna, hit Instagram before seemingly every other celebrity had their own digital avatar in 2020.
But designer Tal Midyan, tasked with the cover art for Gunna’s new album named after Gunna’s alter ego, was given something much more tangible.
Gunna’s creative director Spike Jordan, who’s also directed videos for trap geniuses Future and Lil Uzi Vert, had an actual, physical doll of WUNNA made for the album’s first video, “Skybox.”
Then Covid struck.
“It would be a lot easier if we didn’t have to shoot,” said Midyan.
How do you get a doll on an album cover in the thick of the lockdown?
Not only was the team stuck inside, unable to gather people for a photo shoot starring the physical WUNNA doll, but the pandemic had ravaged the economy.
“We were just trying to find simple ways to bring it to life,” said Midyan.
The digital avatar of WUNNA was born.
Midyan, Jordan and the rest of team Gunna immediately found the digital avatar to be freeing.
“It definitely allows you to be more playful,” said Midyan. “You can have him wearing, like, tight-skinned spandex and still be cool.”
Styling and designing a 3D animated WUNNA allowed Midyan and the team to do things creatively they never would have been able to with the physical Gunna.
WUNNA wears spikes on his wrists, something Gunna may never have worn.
“He let us do things that he probably would have been a lot more critical about if we shot a photorealistic version of him,” said Midyan. “So the virtual avatar makes everything a little bit lighter.”
That openness allowed for not only a goofier WUNNA but also a WUNNA who travels in space.
“He let us add weird glasses, change his hair color,” said Midyan of Gunna. “He probably would have been a lot more picky if it was a photorealistic version of him.
The rapper, through his creative director Jordan, not only had final say on every decision regarding the virtual avatar but he also loved the astrology-inspired symbolism surrounding WUNNA on the album cover so much he had one of the symbols tattooes on his arm and turned into a diamond ring.
“I was lucky to have Spike,” said Midyan. “Because he’s built this reputation, so he has that respect and Gunna trusts him when he co-signed these things.”
The best thing the team ended up doing, though, according to Minyan, was a toy.
“It was Covid, instead of spending our budget on billboards no one is going to see, let’s make a toy,” said Midyan.
Midyan’s work helping musicians bridge the physical and virtual worlds to reach their fans is not slowing down as the celebrity avatar boom continues during the pandemic.
“Even Swae Lee had his album cover in the making and we had just put out WUNNA,” said Midyan. “And Swae was like, ‘Man, this is crazy, we both thought of something similar!’”