The goal of this research is to gather some ideas and guidelines that would help us to design our Polly to look friendly to children. For the research, over 600 designs from Pokemon series, various designs from Pixar, Dreamworks, american cartoons(Dexter's lab, Sponge Bob, Cat & Dog, etc)Disney movies, French works(Petit Nicolas, Asterix, etc), other various works, and real fishes were analyzed. Overall, 1000+ designs were included in this reserach.
Following is summary of the research.
0.'Cute' and 'friendly' are two different words
1.Curves are preferred over straight lines. Generally, the shapes that can be easily made with play doughs.
2.It is generally better to have head size be over 25% of total body mass
3.Designs based on generally well known animals are the better(dog vs opabinia)
4.Use bright colors that have soft feelings, like a cloud.
5.Small sizes are less intimidating and friendlier
6.Mammals, fish and birds over arthopods
7.Too strong features(facial, color, etc) should be avoided
8.Features are best left simple(no more than 15 seconds to sketch them)
9.Can look strong and determined, but shouldn't look like as if it'll start attacking for no clear reason.
10.All these rules(if they are) can be ignored as long as final product looks great(Pokemon Polygon for 1, Shrek for 2, Monsters in Monsters Inc for 3, Totoro for 5, Mr.Krabs for 6, Nemo for 7, Wall-E for 8).
Conclusion is that we shouldn't limit our imagination, although we should still keep in mind that this is something that follows you, and it's a functional machine, not a ghost.