Redesign for an indie film and soundtrack.

Handmade // Alcohol Ink Pouring // Conceptual

August at Akiko's is a mystical film that pays homage to the beautiful essence of old Hawaii on the Big Island. A cosmopolitan musician, Alex Zhang Hungtai, returns to his hometown after having been away for nearly a decade and forges an unexpected friendship with Akiko Masuda, an elderly woman who owns a Buddhist bed & breakfast, where Alex stays. It’s a story about healing, loss, transitions, nature, identity, and homecoming.

Here’s what’s meta. Akiko is a real person and I stayed at the exact b&b as Alex. Almost everything Alex experienced in the film, I experienced personally in one way or another.

To best capture the whimsical, dreamlike, and spiritual motifs from the film and my firsthand experience staying at Akiko’s, I decided to use a medium with its own fluid and ethereal quality – alcohol ink pouring. The abstract hibiscus represents Akiko, her favorite flower she religiously adorned, and a flowing stream of blue reflects the relationship with water that weaves throughout the film – the lake Alex is often found submerged in, the river where he starts to dream, and the ocean that surrounds the island. In the designs you’ll see, water becomes Alex, representing his relationship with the island, with Akiko, and of homecoming. In many ways, it represents me too.