I studied visual communication design for two years, then left before finishing to work. Everything after that was learned on jobs where someone had already paid.
Almost all of it has been across a border. AIA in 2017, then Novotel, Holiday Inn and Baiduri Bank in Brunei, a beauty salon group in Australia in 2018, a podcast in the United States, and since 2021 a Singapore consultancy of more than twenty years, where I am the only fully remote member of the creative team. Working remotely since 2018 with people I have mostly never met teaches a particular discipline: systems that survive contact with someone else's marketing team, and the habit of writing things down because nobody is sitting next to me.
On several of those projects I was the designer, the developer and the person running the content. It is a useful way to find out whether a brand idea survives being built.
The other half is mine. I build and operate consumer brands — Youthentic, KJP Wellness, and Yoora Sarah from zero. A brand you own gives you the one thing client work rarely does: you find out whether it sold.
The log
Ten years, five countries
First paid client work. Two years of visual communication design at university, left before finishing to work — the rest was learned on jobs someone had already paid for.
AIA Insurance — social content and campaign.
Co-founded Destine Digital in Brunei; 25+ clients in a year, including Novotel, Holiday Inn, Baiduri Bank and Yellow Cab Pizza.
Went remote. Esteem Hair Beauty (Australia), Aewon and Gold United (Brunei) — websites and development, all delivered across borders.
Bakmi GM food-truck concept. BlackID streetwear campaign. Co-founded Pebisnis Muda as chief creative officer.
Pebisnis Muda becomes one of Indonesia’s largest business-media platforms. I built the brand.
Hijabfest Indonesia (2019—2021) — event brand and campaign; engagement up 200% in two months.
Graphic design sector coordinator at Bandung’s Department of Culture & Tourism; conceived Bandung Creative Week.
RK Cosmetics — senior graphic designer, directing four designers across a 688K-follower beauty brand and building its website. (2020—2021)
Love+Relo — brand and podcast identity for a US relocation podcast. (2020—2021)
Joined Firefish Branding in Singapore — a consultancy of more than twenty years — as the only fully remote member of the creative team.
SEAX — design and web development.
Futar — project lead and identity, at Firefish.
Total Cleanz and Children’s Cove — project lead, main designer, web developer and social lead on both. Hua Xia — web build.
Launched Youthentic, my own fragrance brand — brand deck, eight-scent packaging range, storefront and the selling.
Yoora Sarah — brand audit, strategy and a 73-page brand manual as strategist and growth consultant; monthly sales grew roughly fifteen times.
Mistgold — e-commerce rebuild and POS integration. Formalised MerakiCorp and Packshop, its packaging arm.
Promoted to Brand Strategist at Firefish. Launched KJP Wellness. Youthentic passes 10,000 bottles sold.
How I work
Five stages
Most brand projects stop at stage three. Mine usually don't.
Find the commercial problem
Before anything visual. A brand that looks better but sells the same has not done its job, so the first question is always what the business needs to change — pricing power, a new audience, a category it has no permission to enter yet.
Position
Decide what the brand is for, who it is against, and what it refuses to be. Written in plain language, agreed before a single logo exists, because this is the document that settles arguments six months later.
Design the identity
Type, colour, mark, imagery, packaging — built as a system with rules rather than a set of files. The test is whether someone who was not in the room can extend it correctly.
Build it
I write the front end and ship the site. Designing something and then building it yourself is the fastest way to learn which parts of your design were fantasy.
Run it
Content, campaigns, marketplace, ads. On several projects I stayed on as the person operating the brand after launch, which is where you find out whether any of the previous four stages were right.
What I do
Three surfaces
01 / Brand
Strategy through to system
- Positioning and brand architecture
- Visual identity systems
- Brand guidelines teams can actually run
- Packaging and structural design
- Art direction and campaign creative
02 / Build
I ship it, not just the mockup
- Shopify
- WordPress and WooCommerce
- HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP
- Adobe Creative Suite, Figma
- Design-to-production handover
03 / Commerce
Brands that have to sell
- Marketplace operations
- TikTok Shop and live commerce
- Performance advertising
- Affiliate and creator programs
- Conversion and retention
What people say
Three of them
“Ghifar has been a real help to my business, particularly when our internal team hit the limits of what it could execute on brand and marketing development. He knows exactly what he is doing.”Bobby Hariman
Managing Director, Yoora Sarah
“I have never encountered a person that so deeply comprehends our work and mindset.”Ben Cross
Founder, Love+Relo
“Ghifar is one of those rare people who can support you at every stage, from inception to growth.”Martin Lazare
Esteem