The new mascot for SKC, a major Hungarian women’s handball club was invented by Gábor Miklós Szőke. He created a new defining character not just for the sports club, but for a community and the whole town. While designing his sculpture, a long-forgotten story from his childhood came to his mind, the memory of a leopard cape from the Hungarian painting, Blood Oath. This is how he found the legend of the snow leopard. According to Hungarian mythology, a Miraculous Deer was chased by a snow leopard called Bors during a hunt led by the Hungarian leaders Hunor and Magor. This legend was the inspiration for his idea to use this large feline as the mascot of the Siófok Women’s Handball Club. Szőke designed a gigantic stainless steel snow leopard jumping off the new building of the team. After presenting the concept to the club, they commissioned him to re-think the club’s corporate image. The snow leopard was incorporated into the team’s logo and together with Szőke’s team they re-did the interior design of the new building, including everything from the wall paintings to the fan shop to the mascot. Gábor wanted to create a mascot for the Siófok Women’s Handball Club, which embodies strength, femininity and which also has some Hungarian historical connotations.
