Overview

Conceived in a rural village of Fakfak, West Papua, Indonesia, Henggi is a handmade skincare brand. It is the first of its kind to use the village specialty product: Nutmeg. Inspired by the owner's passion and vision for the brand, and as a fellow native, my team and I was propelled to support the business pro bono by creating naming and brand identity that would enables the brand’s story to soar even further into a wider market.

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Henggi

Henggi means nutmeg in the native language of Fakfak, a rural village in West Papua. The name reflects the core value of the brand: staying grounded in its origin and honoring its humble beginnings as a homemade product crafted by a passionate Indigenous artisan with a long-term vision.

Conceived in Fakfak, Henggi is derived from the village’s primary agricultural specialty: Papua nutmeg. Compared to other varieties, Papua nutmeg has a higher fat content with a naturally buttery texture, larger fruit size, a longer and sharper form, and a higher concentration of trimyristin, an essential compound for cosmetics, soaps, balms, and lubricants.

Armed with knowledge gained from a small business workshop and a desire to elevate the economic value of her birth village, the founder of Henggi began producing nutmeg-based soap and balm products. Recognizing the strength of this story and potential for growth, my team and I—sharing a cultural connection to the region—supported the founder by developing a name, brand identity, and packaging system that could carry Henggi into broader local and international markets without losing its cultural integrity.

Initial Product Review

The initial product packaging was functional but limited in scalability, brand recognition, and visual consistency. This review phase helped identify opportunities to improve legibility, storytelling, and production efficiency while remaining aligned with the realities of small-scale, home-based manufacturing. The product carried no formal brand identity, only the descriptor “Nutmeg Product from Fakfak”, and was sold primarily through traditional markets and word of mouth.

Project Goals

• Develop a versatile logo and identity system adaptable across platforms and media
• Translate the brand’s vision into a visual language that feels familiar and approachable to local audiences, while communicating premium quality to wider markets
• Create a brand name that represents the product’s origin, values, and cultural roots
• Design an identity system that reflects the founder’s story and long-term vision
• Create eco-friendly, cost-efficient, and practical packaging that is easy to print, fold, and assemble in a limited-resource, home-based production setting
  

Target Market

Demographic

• Women, ages 21–50
• Middle to upper income

Geographic

1. Fakfak, West Papua
2. Java and Western Indonesia
3. International tourists

Psychographic / Use Cases

1. Beauty and wellness enthusiasts, consumers concerned with social and environmental impact, and supporters of local products
2. Wellness-oriented businesses such as spas, salons, and boutique hotels
   

Stylescape

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Benchmark references were drawn from brands that emphasize handcrafted authenticity, alongside those that employ bold color palettes and memorable visual systems. The intent was to create a brand that stands out visually while remaining honest to its roots as a handmade product from a small Papuan village.

The stylescape establishes a clear visual direction inspired by:

• Earthy, vivid tones commonly found in West Papuan local products
• Color references drawn directly from the nutmeg fruit
• Geometric triangular forms blended with organic shapes found in traditional textiles and wood carvings

A guiding cultural reference comes from a Fakfak proverb: “lighting a pot with three stones,” symbolizing unity among different tribes within the village. This philosophy, many parts forming one stable system, informed the identity’s modular logic. While Henggi initially launched with a single soap product, the founder envisioned future nutmeg-based skincare and wellness lines, requiring an identity capable of scaling without redesign.

Identity Development

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The identity design draws from both material culture and social systems in Fakfak. Two primary sources informed the logo’s form:

• The simplified geometry of the nutmeg seed, grounding the identity in its agricultural and material origin
• The Tifa, a traditional Papuan drum used in communal rituals, ceremonies, and storytelling—symbolizing rhythm, collective participation, and shared authorship

Together, these references informed a visual language rooted in function, meaning, and cultural continuity, intentionally diverging from the minimalist aesthetic common among handmade soap brands in Indonesia at the time.

Logo as a Modular System

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Rather than treating the logo as a fixed symbol, it was designed as a modular system. The geometric components can function independently or combine into a unified mark, depending on context and scale.

From a UX and systems-thinking perspective, this modularity serves several purposes:

• Scalability: Individual elements can act as icons, patterns, or secondary graphics, while the full mark reinforces recognition at primary touchpoints
• Flexibility: The system adapts across packaging sizes, print formats, and future product lines without visual inconsistency
• Cognitive clarity: Repetition of recognizable shapes builds familiarity over time, even when configurations vary

Conceptually, this mirrors the nutmeg itself, each part useful on its own yet inseparable from the whole, and reflects Fakfak’s cultural philosophy of interdependence within community systems.

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Graphic Elements

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Supporting graphic elements include custom raster illustrations of nutmeg fruits, developed from photographs taken by the founder. These assets extend the identity system rather than decorate it, allowing for variation in scale, colour, and density while maintaining coherence.

The logo’s modular geometry enables the emergence of multiple patterns from a single visual language. For the initial launch, we developed:

• Three distinct geometric patterns derived directly from the logo components
• Three color variations of a nutmeg-based raster pattern, created by digitally processing photographs of real nutmeg plants taken in Fakfak

These patterns serve both aesthetic and functional roles:

• They allow differentiation across product variants without introducing new visual elements
• They support brand recognition through repeated form, even when colour or composition changes
• They ensure visual richness without increasing production complexity

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Packaging Development

Packaging design was approached as a constraint-driven system, shaped by the realities of rural, small-scale production.

Key considerations included:

• Ease of printing: Packaging layouts were designed to work with basic printing capabilities, avoiding complex finishes or specialized materials
• Ease of folding and assembly: Structures were intentionally simple, requiring minimal steps and no specialized tools
• Reduced reliance on adhesives: The wrapping system minimizes or eliminates the need for glue. Once folded, the packaging is secured using a craft label, allowing faster assembly and easier disassembly
• Legibility at all sizes: Typography was carefully selected and tested to ensure all text remains readable even at the smallest scale, critical for ingredient lists and regulatory information

These decisions ensure that the packaging system is not only visually coherent, but also operationally sustainable, enabling the founder to manage production independently or with minimal support in a home setting.

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Outcome

The resulting brand system balances cultural storytelling, functional design, and long-term scalability. By treating identity and packaging as interconnected systems, rather than isolated visual artifacts, the Henggi brand is positioned to grow organically while remaining rooted in its place, people, and purpose.

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