Art direction for an award-winning animated short

The Song Maiden is a traditional frame-by-frame 2D animated short about child marriage and the value of the girl child. In the fictional village of Song, a girl is promised in marriage at birth, marked by a red ribbon on each wrist. She grows up curious and independent, hunting lizards with her friends and climbing the mountain where she feels free, until she is married as a teenager and decides to escape her fate.

Producer and creative director Nkem Nwaturuocha drew the story from a visit to Sukur, the UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape in Adamawa State, Nigeria. Song is fictional, but it draws a deliberate parallel with that place.

I was the art director and graphic designer on the film, working with a team of illustrators, animators and video editors.

With the illustrators, I shaped the characters, starting with the Maiden. Her expressions had to carry defiance and curiosity, and follow her change from an outsider in her own village to someone who fights for her freedom.

I treated the village, the mountains and the woods as part of the story rather than as backdrops. The village holds both the warmth of tradition and the weight of expectation; the mountain is where the Maiden feels free.

With the animators, I worked on movement and on a shift in animation style when the Maiden's world turns dark. With the video editors, I shaped the transitions so that her flight to the mountain reads as an emotional climb as well as a physical one.