Gulu-Gulu

Gulu-Gulu is a passion project that began with a sudden, longing feeling while making a drink I once took for granted. It’s a beverage brand created with Malaysians who are far from home in mind. It served as a creative practice outside my professional work, allowing me to keep making things I’m passionate about.

The purpose of this project was to create a beverage brand portrayed as a compassionate, warm ‘character’ that brings joy and eases homesickness in a light-hearted and fun way. Home is a very abstract and subjective concept for everyone. It could be a place, a person, an atmosphere, and so much more. With that in mind, I drew inspiration from the “Boomer Graphic (长辈图/早安图)” — using it as the brand’s visual direction with a modern twist. “Boomer Graphic” is always deemed tacky. Yet, it is undeniably and unapologetically authentic, and a ‘universal’ experience for a lot of people with an Asian background. The bottle design was modelled and rendered using Blender, as there were very limited stock mockups with the exact shape needed to reflect the brand identity and the logo.