Fulbright Saya Malaysia Kita Malaysia National Conference Logo
A meaningful logo full of symbolism created for the national Fulbright National English Storytelling Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
About the Conference
This National Storytelling Camp was an initiative of the U.S. Fulbright Program in Malaysia, focusing on student dialogue, mutual understanding, and broadening student perspectives.
Saya Malaysia Kita Malaysia" means “I am Malaysia, we are Malaysia” in Bahasa Melayu, Malaysia’s national language.
The first part of the conference was "I am Malaysia" which focused on students telling their own stories of what being Malaysian was for them. Students wrote articles, poetry, or did podcasts about their local restaurants, how they celebrated holidays with family and friends, what their religion meant to them.
The second part of the conference was "We Are Malaysia" which brought together multiple student stories from Malaysian students of different religions and/or ethnicities. It also included a showcase of work from each attending student.
The Design Process
To begin the design process, I thought of what it meant to be a storyteller, and what items represented storytelling. I then came to the conclusion that a microphone was a good symbol of the conference because a great part of the camp was focused on students public speaking, being brave, and sharing their story.
I then thought, how can I show 'one' (I am Malaysia) and 'many' (We are Malaysia) at the same time? I wondered this because a main part of the camp theme was how different student perspectives came together to create a beautiful and multifaceted Malaysia.
I came to the conclusion that I could represent the idea of 'one and many', by adding different student faces into the part of the microphone a person speaks into. In the microphone there are silhouettes of different male and female students. Some have long hair; some have short hair. Some male students are wearing the traditional flat-topped ‘songkok’ hat and some of the female students are wearing hijab.
Then, not wanting to waste any negative space that could have additional meaning, I turned the microphone handle’s negative space into the shape of the country of Malaysia.
The font is a bold serif font, because traditional books use serif fonts and I wanted to follow the theme of storybook/storytelling. The complementary color scheme was loosely based on Malaysia's national colors: blue, green and red, and the storybook background at the bottom was created to visually separate the main title of the camp (Saya Malaysia Kita Malaysia) from the additional detailed information.
See the "Logo Inspiration" picture below for more about the shapes and design choices used.
View Photo Gallery
Browse through various photos from the national English conference. Branding items included banner, stickers, logo on slideshow, and t-shirts.
