The Little Matchstick Girl

Roles: designer, illustrator, animator and director.

Back in 2021 I had the pleasure of being a part of a cultural project. It aimed to raise awareness for child poverty through a ritual and later on an animated short movie.

The first phase was to give shape to the little matchstick girl, she had to be an ambiguous girl as the story we were telling is not limited by race, creed, time or place. This mascotte was the visual centerpoint of the project, stamped on slowburn candles, seen in the booklet and a guiding you through the animation.

  • An image of the Cultural Center.

    Mascotte, with candle relief adaptation

  • Drafts

  • hypothetic kids imaginations

I then proceeded with the designs for the material needed for the ritual: a branded matchstickbox and illustrations for the booklet inside.

  • Matchstick box and contents, used in ritual

  • Draft of box

  • Printing file

We continued with a test-phase. Our team went to several schools in the Amsterdam region. We stood in front of the class and held the ritual while telling the story of the little matchstick girl. After which we asked the kids to participate in drawing her. From the results we choose 6 promising and divers styles and asked the kids to participate once more in a set of 3 bespoke creation sessions.

  • Alex's sketches and influence

  • Eline’s sketches and influence

  • Hermon’s sketches and influence

  • Juleidy’s sketches and influence

  • Rania’s sketches and influence

  • Yasmin’s sketches and influence