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NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA — Just weeks before the 2024 Paris Olympics, where American gymnast Simone Biles added four more medals to her name, The Washington Post published an infographic detailing her remarkable contributions to the sport. The post, featuring animated illustrations of Simone executing her signature moves, quickly went viral — not only for the story itself but also for the stunning graphics that showcased the fluidity and precision of her performances. After much clamor in the comments to identify the creatives behind the work, The Washington Post credited Kapwa Studioworks — an Oscar-nominated studio based in Australia that is proudly Filipino-founded.

In this story, adobo Magazine puts the spotlight on Kapwa Studioworks and its commitment to people, culture, and craft. Through an exclusive interview with Founder and Creative Director Robertino Zambrano, along with Producer and Development Executive Dulce Aguilar, the studio leaders opened up about how the Simone Biles project came to be, the humanity behind Kapwa’s striking works, and championing Asian heritage and culture through animation. 

On culture: Kapwa as a beacon of Filipino-Australian identity 

Robertino Zambrano, who was born in Quezon City, Philippines but migrated to Australia as a baby, set up Kapwa Studioworks back in 2013. For anyone familiar with the Filipino language, the studio’s name offers a glimpse into the identity of its creators. In Tagalog, kapwa embodies “connection,” a concept uniquely and intricately linked to national identity. Translated to English as “fellow” — whether it be fellow countrymen, fellow Filipinos, or fellow Asian immigrants — the term underlines a shared history and collective experience. This concept resonates particularly with those who, while influenced by the evolution of the Filipino diaspora, remain enriched by their deep ties to their homeland.

“For years as a young creative growing up in Australia, we were conditioned to try and blend in as much as possible. The prevailing identity of design was always European or Western-centric during my formative years,” Robertino recalled. 

“Being an Asian creative — let alone a Filipino creative — didn’t feel sexy. At one point, I remember even brainstorming an early design studio with some colleagues (we were all Asian), and the elder of us pointed out sadly: ‘We need to get a white guy on the team — no one will take a bunch of Asians seriously here.’ This thought stuck with me. So when I started my studio and named it Kapwa, my hope was to flip that script, and adorn what I hoped would be a successful, world-renowned studio with a word from a tiny island nation in Southeast Asia — my home country.” 

“At Kapwa, we currently have four full-time employees who are Filipino. And on all our projects, we have retained a continuing crew headcount of at least 50% Asians on our crews. Our latest series project in development, Fish Boi, focuses on local Filipino stories, and it is our intent to crew as much of the production as possible with people from the Filipino community,” he furthered. 

As for Dulce Aguilar, who was born and raised in Sydney, her ties to the Philippines stem from cultural traditions embedded in family gatherings — the rosary prayers, the sound of mahjong tiles, paying respects to elders with a respectful mano, traditional tinikling dances, and of course, the food. Now with kids of her own, she shared that it’s been a major driving force to build a deeper connection with her ancestors and culture to pass on traditions to her own family. 

“It’s a major reason why teaming up with Kapwa was the next natural progression for me. Our plans to build, encourage, and shine a light on stories from the Filipino diaspora and share them on a local and worldwide platform is our way of giving back and contributing to the culture that has defined our identity and hopefully encourage the next generation to find their community,” she explained. 

They also shared that this year, Kapwa is intentionally putting more focus into its culture, having been accepted into Screen Australia’s Enterprise Business Program. This will support the firm to set up a dedicated Film & Episodic Division aimed at developing a diverse slate focused on creating culturally-focused content, for and by the Filipino-Australian community. 

On craft: Keeping “The Creative” at its core

A quick look at Kapwa’s portfolio and it’s apparent that it is a studio that values high-level craft and storytelling. Each work may tick off the basic boxes of creativity — visually enticing enough to capture one’s attention, moving enough to inspire action, and effective enough to tell the story behind it — but there’s also a profound sense of heart in its projects that hint at the depth behind each piece. There’s something distinctly emotional about them; as if the lines, colors, and movements allude to a whole other story beyond the one it’s telling upfront. 

For example, its work for Community America tells the story of collective ambition and the spirit of community, but its sketch-like illustration also seemingly showcases a dream that is a work in progress, or a goal that is so vigorously pursued, its actions are too quick in motion to commit to permanence. 

“Fluidity and movement is at the soul of our craft — animation. A stylized, heavily reduced, hand-drawn raw sketchy style has the power of evoking a more emotive reception of the moving moment to the audience,” Robertino noted on the studio’s love for hand-drawn illustrations. “The physical wet and dry media elements induce an organic feeling of expressiveness that is intimately familiar to all people watching or playing sports. Like the expressive sketches, they remain as blurry, fleeting elements, or heavily focused elements — when we see these things moving past us, at speed, we never completely capture these memories as crisp, 20-megapixel images in our minds.” 

“By reducing the fidelity and resolution of these designs, it leaves more room for the theater of the mind to fill in the gaps, making the viewer a greater participant in the animation.” 

Another notable piece is American singer Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever preview, which illustrates the artist’s notions of body image, gender representation, and objectification. Aside from representing the direct message the accompanying audio is telling, the two colors used — red and black — effectively bring to mind blood and emptiness as it presents an image of a woman constantly splitting herself in half to cater to the world’s demands. The overall effect creates a hollow and almost haunting sense of soullessness, which takes the story a step further from its primary message.  

Robertino explained, “I’ve always liked playing with silhouettes and minimal suggestive lighting. There’s a certain playfulness you can have with suggesting objects, people, or forms with as little information as possible. Black is a powerful emotive color — it evokes darkness, and conversely, it evokes light in its absence. As a word in a vocabulary of color, black evokes power.”

Unknowingly, in talking about the studio’s creative values, its leaders touched on this author’s unspoken question: How could emotions be so present and rich in Kapwa’s diverse portfolio? Both Dulce and Robertino underlined humanity. 

“That at the core of every project is The Creative,” Dulce started. “That every project is inspired by something personal and authentic making it unique; That it’s always about fun and loving what you’re doing; That you’re either always learning something, or sharing your knowledge.”

“But I think what’s common in all our values is that it’s about the People and Heart,” she stressed. 

“On a human level, we aspire for our projects to evoke a sense of humanity, soulfulness, and cultural authenticity,” Robertino added. “On a craft level, we seek to elevate traditional and new crafts and search for a challenging blend of authentic, courageous, and surprising design. We always seek to celebrate traditional, human-driven craftsmanship, and to embrace new technologies, and then bend them to make things that we, as humans, need and want.”

Culture, craft, people — It all goes back to people 

Bringing it back to one of our very first icebreaker questions for Robertino and Dulce, both creatives’ ways to replenish their creative juices include very mundane, everyday human activities. For Robertino, it’s music, nature, museums, and art galleries (in that order). Music, he described as an incredible catalyst for the theater of the mind. “It can deliver so much feeling, mood, story, character, and journey. There’s a reason why the moving image and music are so intertwined.”

He added, “Secondly I always reach out to nature and the surrounding world as inspiration — stepping away from the screens and my work zone is essential to putting the mind in a relaxed state where the most optimum creative thinking thrives. I also find that the forms, shapes, and movements in nature offer a timeless creative prompt from which we can elicit inspiration.”

Dulce, on the other hand, turns to other forms of storytelling. “I like to make sure that I’m watching as many current TV shows and Films as possible. I’m always looking for a great recommendation to get stuck into. The latest shows being The Bear, and (I know I’m late to the party) Beef.” 

“But I also like to step away from the screen,” she noted. “I listen to podcasts, watch a theater show, do some yoga, or take a drive to somewhere I’ve never been before. I find giving myself time away and letting your mind remove itself from the daily grind, allows for the creative ideas and solutions to flow in and out and around.” 

Both Robertino and Dulce also emphasized collaboration as a key ingredient in their creative processes, reiterating their core value of “people” as an asset to creativity. 

Robertino shared, “My favorite part of the collaborative creative process is throwing a design test or motion test to someone, and then seeing what they come back with. When you have a good team that you trust, this unpredictable process becomes a beautiful and surprising process. Nothing can beat that feeling of seeing something and thinking ‘Wow, I never imagined that in my mind, but it looks 10 times better than what I had imagined.’”

“As a Creative Producer, my goal is always to find the right team to bring together to the table,” Dulce remarked. “It’s about finding that right blend of people with a particular skill and knowing their values and what they want to bring into this world, add a dash of their flavor and style, and then bringing them all together to make a beautiful and meaningful piece of work. And for the case of the [Simone Biles project], it was to celebrate an amazing athlete.”

Speaking on the Simone Biles illustration for The Washington Post, they shared that an Art Director from the Washington Post, Beth Broadwater, reached out to Kapwa out of the blue via email asking if they would be interested in doing animations to celebrate the legendary gymnast’s legacy for the Olympics. “It was a no-brainer for us. Simone Biles is an unmatched force in her sport. We had to say yes!” Robertino enthused. 

Dulce and Robertino led the project as Producer and Creative Director, but they handed the directing reins to fresh new talents Aki Clayton and Alyssa Mullen, with the support of animators Jin Hien Lau and Theo Sakurai Dahlstrom.

“The team worked closely with Beth and Brian Monroe at the Post to get the animation working well with the digital article, and ensuring our depiction of Simone Biles and her moves felt as accurate as possible. The Post gave the team a lot of creative freedom to pursue the animation in a unique direction developed by Aki and Alyssa. We’re all really proud of this project. It’s amazing how the effect of having a great client partner can result in an enjoyable creative process and a beautiful final result,” Dulce recalled.

What’s next?

For Kapwa Studioworks, the way forward toward the dream is to build a production company that elevates Filipino stories and creatives. “We have several other Filipino-focused animated and live-action projects on our development slate, and are very excited to share them with the world,” Robertino teased. 

“Ultimately, the aim is to produce, support, and encourage the creation of other Filipino-Australian cultural stories and content. Stories told by Filipino people, for the Filipino people, to share with the world,” Dulce reiterated, noting the studio’s first animated TV project Fish Boi, set in the ’90s about the Filipino diaspora in Western Sydney. “Right now, this feels like a dream project coming to fruition.”  

Finally, when asked about some practical advice for aspiring animators and illustrators, this is what the creative leaders had to say. “The one skill I would recommend is persistence,” Robertino stressed. “I would recommend exploring as many techniques and styles as possible until you find something that makes you excited enough to stick at it long enough to define your own creative voice. If you’re like me, it might be a journey through many different art forms. Consume lots of art, visit museums, or just observe the world around you.”

“There are a lot of courses now available online, like Domestika, Schoolism, School of Motion, Animation Mentor, Ben Marriott’s YouTube channel, and many more,” he added. “And get your hands on Photoshop, or Procreate Dreams, TV Paint, Adobe Animate or After Effects. Get your hands dirty and try make some things!”

Dulce advised, “I’m always of the [mindset] of not limiting yourself. Push past the fear, challenge yourself to try new things, and always be open to learning. This industry is always changing and growing, so change and grow with it. And if it’s not growing and moving with you, don’t be afraid to be the pioneer!”

Connect with Kapwa Studioworks’ story of Asian creative excellence here.