[Announcement] Nature Portfolio to release original LINE stickers from April 2021
2 April 2021
Nature Portfolio’s official characters, Lablab and Nano Kitty will accompany you during your LINE conversations with your family, friends and lab mates.
Tokyo April 2, 2021
Nature Japan K.K., part of Springer Nature Group, is pleased to announce that from April 1, 2021, LINE stickers of "Lablab & Nano Kitty", which are the official characters produced by Nature Portfolio, will be available to purchase from LINE Stores in Japan. Revenues generated will be donated to a charity organization focused on supporting higher education of students in Japan.
The social networking application "LINE" is widely used as a means of communication, and Nature Portfolio has produced and provided these stickers to make Nature more accessible and enjoyable through the characters Lablab and Nano Kitty.
The selection of designed stickers, some of which are related to famous scientific papers that have been published by Nature, can be used when communicating in situations related to research activities and daily life.
We hope that the stickers of Lablab and Nano Kitty will be useful as a communication tool with your family, friends, research colleagues, and many other people.
Who are Lablab & Nano Kitty?
Lablab
Lablab is a lovable Labrador researcher, who is obsessed with science. Lablab is passionate, driven and works hard in the lab. However, puppy-like clumsiness means Lablab can get into embarrassing situations, although these can lead to some unexpected discoveries!
Lablab enjoys spending time with Lablab’s best friend Nano Kitty - they have been friends since university. Together the two of them love to explore and pursue new adventures!
Nano Kitty
Lablab's adorable best friend Nano Kitty is a little blue cat. Nano Kitty is intelligent, adventurous, calm and relaxed, but also has a mischievous streak. Nano Kitty has a unique ability to change to any size, so can explore almost any scientific environment, from molecular to astronomical. Fittingly, Nano Kitty has a nano-sized attention span, so easily gets bored at work, preferring the excitement of adventures with Lablab! Nano Kitty thinks Lablab can be too serious and stressed and so often likes to get them involved in the funnier side of life.
Who are the creators?
Lablab and Nano Kitty are the creations of artist Nik Spencer, Nature’s Senior Illustrator, based in London. Nik spends most of his working hours producing scientific graphics and illustrations for Nature, but enjoys a bit of humor, as can be found in his ‘Quirks of Nature’ cartoon series.
Along with Nik, the core team includes Art Director Sou Nakamura and Group Product Manager Bob Edenbach from Nature’s Tokyo office, and Kelly Krause, Nature’s Creative Director.
Nik Spencer’s creator voice:
“The ideas for LINE stickers were developed over many conversations, with the creative team all providing excellent ideas for scenarios. This input allowed me to gradually develop the relationship of the characters and the art style. Lablab became the friendly, hardworking scientist (with a bit of a temper!), and Nano Kitty was soon floating amongst molecules and flying through space, wherever there was science to explore.”
“One of the most difficult processes was deciding which ideas to keep in the set, and which to leave out. We thought a lot about how scientists might use them during everyday life. In the end, we wanted the stickers to have a good mix of scientific disciplines, but also contain plenty of expressions that would be easy to use in general conversation. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic also played a major part in the development process, so we made sure that we included a few stickers to reflect the challenging situation of the past year. We hope that the result is a sticker set that everyone can enjoy”
All proceeds from the sale of Nature Line stickers in the Line Store will be donated to a charity benefiting students in pursuit of higher education in Japan. Springer Nature is proud to take this fun initiative and hopes it will benefit students who wish to pursue their dreams in science.
Summary of the LINE Stickers
Sticker title: Lablab & Nano Kitty
Release date: April 1, 2021
Design concept: We have selected words that are easy to use for people who like science and research.
How to purchase: These stickers are now available for purchase as creators' stickers at the LINE STORE and the Sticker Shop in the LINE app.
Contents: 32 stickers per set
Price: 120 yen [tax included] (LINE STORE) , 50 LINE Coins (Sticker Shop)
LINE STORE URL (Japanese only): https://store.line.me/stickershop/product/14653521
LINE stickers introduction page: https://www.natureasia.com/en/info/line-stickers
About Nature Portfolio
Nature Portfolio’s high-quality products and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences is dedicated to serving the scientific community. Nature (founded in 1869) is the leading, international weekly journal of science. Nature Portfolio is also home to the Nature research and Nature Reviews journals, the leading open access multidisciplinary journal Nature Communications, and open access journals including Scientific Reports. Together, these journals publish some of the world's most significant scientific discoveries. Online, nature.com provides over nine million unique visitors per month with Nature Portfolio content, including news and comment from Nature, and the leading scientific jobs board, Nature Careers. Nature Portfolio also offers a range of researcher services, including online and in-person training and expert language and editing services. For more information, please visit nature.com and follow @nresearchnews. Nature Portfolio is part of Springer Nature.
About Springer Nature
For over 175 years Springer Nature has been advancing discovery by providing the best possible service to the whole research community. We help researchers uncover new ideas, make sure all the research we publish is significant, robust and stands up to objective scrutiny, that it reaches all relevant audiences in the best possible format, and can be discovered, accessed, used, re-used and shared. We support librarians and institutions with innovations in technology and data; and provide quality publishing support to societies.
As a research publisher, Springer Nature is home to trusted brands including Springer, Nature Research, BMC, Palgrave Macmillan and Scientific American. For more information, please visit springernature.com and @SpringerNature.
Contact information
Ayako Miyazaki
Springer Nature
Corporate Affairs
TEL: +81-(0)3-4533-8204
E-mail: ayako.miyazaki@springernature.com
