OVERVIEW
@wearesunraised is passion project that is continuously inspired by my identity as a First-Generation Filipino American Designer. I'll be adding more content to this page indefinitely.
I wanted to create more designs inspired by my culture in a fun and welcoming way. I designed stickers (left to right) of Adobo (, a popular meat dish), banana ketchup (, which holds a unique history of being created during the American occupation in the Philippines), and a walis tambo (, a broom made out of tiger grass, wood, and corn husk).
PROBLEM STATEMENT
To this day, I struggle to grapple my identity as a Filipino American. For so long, I thought I had to be one or the other: Filipino or American, which ended up making me feel like I wasn't enough of either. Since I was younger, it's made me feel disconnected and that I didn't belong to either community.
Since starting the project, these feelings subsided meeting and connecting with others who felt the same way. Through these designs, I hope to help other Filipino Americans who question their identity, to still connect to their culture for the simple fact that they are able to recognize these items.
Through a designer's lens, I also realized that despite being the third largest group of immigrants in the US, we still didn't have a lot of representation in design. With each small illustration, I hope to not only increase representation, but to also inspire other Filipino American designers to create too.
PROCESS
To ease into the project, I wanted to illustrate items that were most recognizable and popular among Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike. Adobo was one of the more popular dishes (pancit and lumpia were a part of the list and will more than likely be my next few pieces). The walis tambo and banana ketchup were chosen because they were both, unique from other Asian cultures and popular in Filipino-American households.
Because I knew I wanted to print my designs at some point, I used Adobe Illustrator. I immediately went into vectorizing the illustrations of the banana ketchup and walis, but I did need to sketch how the adobo would look like.
I ultimately decided it would have been easier to recognize it if drawn from an aerial view. Lastly, to help make it more recognizable I put the all-familiar bay leaves and peppercorns.
EXHIBITION
The timing of the start of the project could not have been better. Weeks after, I took upon the opportunity to showcase my work at the UCI Cross Cultural Center "Artivism" Fair.
