Identity system inspired by Japanese belief
Heart & Soul Presentations
Brief
This was a tough brief: the client, a speaker on palliative care issues, needed an identity system for her business that represented the sometimes difficult issue of death in a positive light.
Research
The brief included the quote “Conquer the fear of death and you conquer the fear of living” so our first goal was to search and discover a link between death and life. Through in depth research we discovered a Japanese belief that a butterfly is the soul of a dead person: souls of the dead take a butterfly shape in order to announce their separation from the human body.
Solution
This inspiration was just the right take on the life/death relationship. What we needed was a way to visual depict this idea. We further researched traditional Japanese art forms and eventually found a ‘how to’ origami book which contained many different origami techniques and finished products, one of which was a butterfly. We converted this origami shape into a graphic image and multi-coloured it to reinforce the life aspect of the idea. Typeface we selected is called ‘Tranquility’ and we thought its whimsical fluidity was as appropriate as its name.
