FlutterByte Conference 2024
Illustration, Art Direction
Project Type
Illustration
Year
2024
Role
Illustrator, Art Director
Project Team
Alex Tudun,
Flutterbyte Conference needed something specific; illustrations that represented Nigeria's cultural diversity without reducing it to decoration. The brief was authenticity over aesthetics. Characters representing each region had to actually look like people from those regions. Southwest people needed to look Southwest. Southeast needed to look Southeast. Northern representation had to read as Northern. South South the same. The test wasn't whether it looked interesting. The test was whether someone from each region would see themselves accurately represented.
I built patterns for four Nigerian tribes. Started with research; articles on tribal textiles, what occasions they're worn for, what specific patterns mean in each context. Looked at attire, color combinations, recurring motifs. Also pulled from personal experience. I've lived and interacted with each of these communities at different points, so I had visual memory to work from. I built every pattern manually. Placed each element by hand. That gave me control over the imperfections and let me break patterns apart later for different scales. A pattern was done when I could show it to someone and they named the tribe without prompting. That was the test. These patterns became attires for Dash, the Flutter mascot, reimagined as a traditional Nigerian elder; two male, two female. Dash wore what Nigerian elders would actually wear. The patterns showed up on placards, signage, animation. Engineers at the event interacted with mascots that people from those tribes could recognize as their own.
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