UTme!
The Art of the Philippines x Future.
September 2019
On UNIQLO Manila’s 1st anniversary, they celebrated by launching UTme!, their on-site custom printing service for the first time ever in the Philippines.
They teamed up with 10 local artists to create The Art of The Philippines: a 10 t-shirt collection with designs by Manix Abrera, Mika Bacani, Happy Garaje, Otto Björnik, Isabel Weber, Soleil Ignacio, Auggie Fontanilla, CMYKa (Myka Arnado), Rob Cham, and Ev Yu.
The theme of the collection was THE FUTURE and they gave us each prompts about what aspect of the future we’d be tackling.
For my design, I was assigned a theme of EXPLORE by the client. I had initially decided on 2 possible explorations on the theme:
1. 'Komyut'
In the future, we're still trying to get to where we want to be.
I initially sketched a concept that showed a crowd of people trying to commute in a desolate part of one of the main highways. In Manila, there is a huge transport crisis due to a lack of proper urban planning and a poorly developed infrastructure for commuters. I figured we’d still end up stuck in this situation in the future, and thought to capture that feeling to criticize the horrible job our government agencies are doing.
The second concept I pitched was about an alternate future:
2. "Back to Nature/Kalikasan"
In the future, we hopefully find balance.
I figured an interesting direction was to show Manila after the world ended. I loved Ghibli films and was imagining what our country would be like if something like the events of Nausicaa were to ever happen, I wanted to show a new world built on top of the old one, where you’d see old Metro Manila icons scattered about in the ruins while overgrowth and new strange animals and cultures are still trying to get around. Life persists.
The directions were a bit grim but the client picked the first direction and suggested trying for something more hopeful, and I went towards the next stages of refining it.
The idea behind the illustration changed where it wasn’t about focusing how we could be stuck still in our old ways, but it was now showing a future where we still found it important to come home, and how interesting travel can be.
Everyone travels, and you see a microcosm of the different cultures and people here at an airport or travel terminal.
I tried to create something close to future garb and you’d see all sorts of easter eggs and small stories happening when you look around, along with a tikbalang mecha.
They liked the change. and approved of the new direction.
And that’s the story of how I ended up on a UniQlo shirt