Creative Direction, Branding, Illustration, Layout, Social Media, & Web Design:
Emerald Archipelago Documentary
With Suling Bamboo Productions I developed a visual vernacular for their film Emerald Archipelago. A documentary on the voices of Lesbian, Queer and Trans people rising against patriarchy, homophobia, and democratic erosion in Indonesia. This project originally started as a collectible poster for a perk in their crowdfunding campaign. In the end, a total visual brand grew out of it.
Research
Target Audience: Global-minded, politically engaged, and deeply interested in human rights discussions.
Key Challenges: As a non-Indonesian designer, I closely worked with Suling Bamboo’s Producer Alfred Pek, who is Australian-Indonesian. He taught me about Indonesia’s national textile Batik and how Indonesia is known as the Emerald of the Equator, hence the name of the film.
Example of Batik Textiles
Ideation
To begin brainstorming I explored Indonesian symbols and queer symbols of strength, passion, and resilience. I used Adobe’s Firefly to imagine possible layouts for the poster following the three concepts of strength, passion, and resilience.
Butterfly Batik Textile Concept
Emerald of the Equator Concept
Emerald as a Light Spectrum Concept
Process
Final Product
Visual Branding
The colours of the flowers are inspired by the Lesbian flag. The butterfly, a Trans symbol, has the colours of the Bisexual flag. The poster shows the growing Lesbian, Bisexual, and Trans communities of Indonesia that are featured in the film.
