09 / Mapu brand system

Photography and illustration

Documentary, not advertising. The camera is a guest in an ordinary home: it observes cooperation as it happens and leaves the room as it found it. Images shown here are direction references, not licensed final assets.

Reference set

Three registers: together, alone, and the shared object between them.

A parent and teenage daughter reading a notebook together at a kitchen table in morning light — Cooperation, level eye line, no performance for the camera. Both people are looking at the thing they share, not at each other or at the lens.

A teenage boy standing calmly by a window in a modest apartment — A teenager photographed as a person, not a problem: composed, unhurried, given the same portrait treatment an adult would receive.

Two pairs of hands of different ages writing on a paper wall calendar — The shared object. Where a face would add nothing, photograph the agreement being made instead.

Direction

Light

Natural, directional, soft. Late morning or late afternoon. No fill flash, no colour gels.

Colour

Muted and slightly desaturated, warm mid-tones, cool shadows. Grades toward the Mapu blues — cool shadows, no competing warm cast.

Framing

Eye level with the youngest person in the frame. Never shot down at a teenager.

Setting

Real, lived-in homes. Visible wear is welcome. No show kitchens, no styled shelves.

Behaviour

Unstaged. People doing something specific together, mid-action, mid-sentence.

Crop

Generous negative space above the subject, so the contour language can sit underneath.

What we never photograph

Photograph

Parents and teenagers side by side, attention on a shared task
Quiet, ordinary confidence — a teenager at ease in their own space
Hands, objects and rooms where a face would add nothing
Households of different shapes, ages and compositions

Never photograph

Rows of smiling faces turned toward the camera
A parent standing over a seated child, or arms folded in confrontation
Phones held up, screens read over shoulders, or any surveillance framing
Teenagers styled or lit as younger children

Illustration

Optional, and secondary to photography. Used where a photograph would over-specify a family.

A single hairline weight, no fills beyond a 12% Deep Blue wash, no faces, no outlined-character mascots. Figures are described by posture and proximity only. The contour language runs underneath every illustration so the two systems read as one drawing.

Line weight: 1.4 px at 240 px width, scaling proportionally
Palette: Deep Blue line, one Light Blue wash maximum
Never mixed with photography inside the same component