— Production is staggered across different stages. Writing begins first, followed by storyboarding, and then I come in with the character design. After that comes animation and post-production. The writers and creators are the people who primarily define who the characters are going to be, while I focus on the design side. So, if the characters are based on different types of food, as in Apple & Onion, I have to design them accordingly. Sometimes I would receive very detailed references. George, the creator, is Egyptian, so he would occasionally have very specific Egyptian sweets or candies in mind and provide visual references for them.

I often describe character design as being like the costume design department of a show. I am the person designing the characters’ clothing, so I need to research different types of dress or the historical period the show is set in. In design terms, I handle anything related to the characters.

As a character designer, I produce turnarounds, mouth charts, expression sheets, concept drawings, different versions of characters, and incidental or background characters. Often, that is the most enjoyable part of the process. At the start of a show, you only have the main cast, but eventually you need to build out the world and populate the streets. A large portion of character design work – probably around 60–70 per cent – goes into special poses. We receive storyboards with particularly difficult poses highlighted so that character designers can draw them in advance and help make the animators’ work smoother.

Beyond that, part of my role involves supervising other character designers. I produce turnarounds, mouth charts, and special poses, but I also act as a filter by giving feedback, notes, and advice, while maintaining the overall quality and consistency of the work. If you have two or three character designers on a production, each will have their own distinct drawing style and tendencies. Achieving consistency across that broad range of approaches is a fun challenge.

— That was always fun to explore. You would think, “I’ve heard of this food, I know it comes from a particular region or country, but what is actually in it? Why are those ingredients used?” Often, that reveals something about its cultural roots. For example, a certain type of rice might be used because it is associated with a particular geographical area or community. Technically, Apple & Onion takes place in New York, which is itself a melting pot of people and cultures. Apple and Onion definitely feel like characters who have moved there from somewhere else. At the same time, the show has a very British sense of humour and sensibility.

— Falafel’s design, in particular, was created before I joined the production. But I know that the thought process behind the character stayed closely connected to Gendi, especially in relation to Falafel. It may have been inspired by a childhood meal he loved, or by his own associations with Egypt. Perhaps Falafel’s father would be based on one of Gendi’s favourite foods growing up, while the mother might reference something he always ate when returning home. Since falafel is an Egyptian sandwich, the parents would naturally become different Egyptian foods. The styling process was fairly organic because the concept of “falafel” itself is so open-ended. Falafel as a character could even be read as mixed-race – or not.

The Onion character is literally an onion, so naturally he would have onion parents. But then you have someone like Pizza, who is essentially just a slice of his mother. That raises absurd questions: how would a pizza have children? Would they have crust children? Pepperoni children? It becomes another layer of comedy that a show like Apple & Onion can introduce – something you could never really do in a show centred on human characters.

— It is becoming an increasingly prominent question: to what extent should voice actors represent the characters they play? I think in Apple & Onion it varied from character to character. For example, Falafel was voiced by an Egyptian actor. Apple was voiced by British Egyptian creator George Gendi, while Onion was voiced by Richard Ayoade, who is British with Nigerian and Norwegian heritage.
With Onion, we wanted to give him “hair” that could be styled in expressive ways — a high top or a sky top, for example. George was very drawn to those stylistic references. Apple, meanwhile, has a leaf, which evolved into a more abstract, playful, and visually cool shape. Onion’s “hair”, by contrast, feels as though it could almost be real hair. It became fun to experiment with different styles and imagine what Onion himself would consider a really great hairstyle.

Although I did not end up designing any part of Lil Noodle myself, I was able to observe the process closely. I think the director, Calvin Wong, contributed to the design work alongside Pat Kain. Calvin is, I believe, Chinese, and his wife is Korean American, so he brought that broader Asian cultural perspective into the character. Lil Noodle is an Asian cup noodle character, but he is also a rapper. The writing on the cup is Korean – it essentially says “ramen”; I actually studied Korean in high school.

The hairstyle draws on a multicultural mix that feels very contemporary. Is Lil Noodle African American? Is he Asian? Is he mixed-race? The character deliberately sits somewhere between those categories. That reflects something much more common today: mixed-race families and children. My own children are mixed-race – they are half Vietnamese – and many of their friends are as well. When I was younger, that was far less common. In that sense, I think Lil Noodle represents a more contemporary kind of character. He is not stereotypically one thing or another, but a combination of different cultural influences.

—My experience as a character designer is that there is always a balance to strike. Sometimes people are not fully aware of how important specific details are in helping audiences relate to characters. Of course, you can over-stereotype in ways that are harmful, but if you strip away all cultural specificity, then the audience cannot connect to the character at all. It becomes a kind of negotiation around relatable details – accents, styles of clothing, or other shared points of recognition that people identify with.

Sometimes the creators and writers would discuss whether a character leaned too heavily into a particular trait. As a supervising designer, I would occasionally contribute if I felt a character direction seemed inappropriate or did not work well within the writing. I would say that Apple & Onion handled this balance quite well. I do not feel that we received much criticism for being overly stereotypical. I always tried to approach the work thoughtfully, although at times I think productions like ours can receive criticism that is harsher than the context of the content really warrants.

Overall, I think George Gendi’s direction for the show – along with his own cultural background and ability to draw from it – is clearly reflected throughout the series. He is also simply a very strong voice actor, which was enormously helpful for both the crew and the production process. Our conversations with him were never especially difficult or overly prescriptive.

— Despite its novel fusion of food and cultural identity, Apple & Onion came to an end in 2021. How should we remember the show?

—Often, when shows come to an end, it is not necessarily because of the quality of the content. I still believe that strong content can drive a successful series and attract good viewing figures. Unfortunately, many high-quality shows are not always given the opportunity to grow. I think Apple & Onion could have gained a much larger audience if it had been given more time. But the timing was difficult because there was major corporate restructuring happening at the time. AT&T had acquired Time Warner, and I think Apple & Onion ultimately did not perform strongly enough for them to renew it.

I hope the legacy of Apple & Onion is that it was an intelligent show with real emotional warmth – a morality that went beyond standard, formulaic children’s television plots. It was unique in the way it used food to represent people and culture while remaining fun, relatable, and not overly stereotypical. I also really loved the musicality of the show.

Living the Dream is George Gendi’s upcoming series. It is a British buddy comedy – somewhere between Apple & Onion and The Office. It is aimed more at adults, but it retains the same quirky humour and comic sensibility that Apple & Onion had.