Look at us: Weird colorful creatures are just another day at the studio’s office.

Starting off as a straightforward copywriting agency, Percolate Galactic has grown into a company with almost 30 employees that works with major international names like Google, Cartoon Network and GIPHY as well as a host of popular local brands.

Though the company works with various mediums, Percolate Galactic’s most immediately noticeable calling card is its animation, which is filled with the kind of eclectic absurdity and knowing-humor that is, for lack of a better word, very hip and now. So it comes as a surprise that in the beginning there wasn’t even supposed to be an animation division.

“We never intended to open an animation studio. A few years ago, our design and illustration team started exploring how far we could push GIFs as a medium to tell stories and convey information visually,” explained Ryan Jackson, the husband in the cofounding duo with wife Samantha Jackson, who was one of the prominent speakers featured at IdeaFest 2019 held from Oct. 3 to 6 in Jakarta.

The Percolate Galactic thought process is a continuous one — the kind that tries to push a concept into the creative stratosphere without fear of ever being too crazy.

“So you make a nice, easy, one second animated loop of a guy in a chicken suit riding a dirt-bike. That’s fun, but where do we take it from there?” Ryan asked.

“What if we made it 10 seconds instead? What if that guy in the chicken suit is actually in a desperate race to get to his wedding, to a significant other who is also wearing a chicken suit? Eventually, you’re no longer just experimenting with a few frames of movement — you’re making a full animated short, and you need a team of animators to make that happen.”

Stand out: Percolate Galactic started using the durian fruit as an icon due to its physical “jagged, spiky and odd” characteristics.

He said they did not set out to launch an animation studio; it just evolved naturally as part of their desire to see how far they could push an idea.

Percolate Galactic began in 2012, crowdfunding itself through “goofy giveaways”, with an unused bedroom for its first office, endless workdays and “all of the other assorted Earnest Millennial Entrepreneurship Starter Pack stuff”.

The company began using the durian fruit as an icon because of its physical characteristics, namely it being “jagged, spiky and odd”.

It has since then grown far beyond its earnest copywriting days, offering services intrinsic to the modern branding strategy. This includes the aforementioned animation services, as well as film and design.

Percolate Galactic also has a team dedicated to working alongside NGOs. That last one is something that Ryan and Samantha are particularly proud of as part of their process of “sparking joy”, Ryan said, jokingly quoting Marie Kondo, the popular Japanese organizing consultant.

“While we’re proud of all of the work that we do, it is the social change work that probably makes us the most proud,” Ryan said, mentioning their work with Girl Effect, a nonprofit organization that works at empowering girls and giving them the platform to play a crucial part in eradicating poverty.

Work In progress: Percolate Galactic's animation work has garnered the firm plenty of acclaim.

The firm has also created a chatbot for Update Status, which helps people learn about confidential HIV testing and focuses on tearing away the stigma that comes with the illness. It has recently shot a series of town halls about HIV facts and myths.

Through its creative and commercial work, Percolate Galactic has undoubtedly become a significant part of the Indonesian animation scene, something they are very excited about.

“The Indonesian animation scene is freaking amazing […] Indonesia has huge studios creating full-length animated features for Indonesian audiences. I have so much respect for those studios, because their work is helping to put Indonesian animation on the map,” Ryan said excitedly, “I fully predict a future where Indonesia stands triumphant and glorious in the world animation market.”

Percolate Galactic works exclusively in the retroish palette of 2D animation, drawing frame-by-frame — an influence of the classic era of Disney and Warner Bros animations in the 1920s and 1930s.

“For us, it’s all about craft, hard work and a certain degree of applied madness. It’s not the usual route for studios to take, but I would love — love! — to see more small Indonesian studios embracing the old school and keeping 2D animation alive and vibrant and inventive,” Ryan said.

The goal is to push its studio’s creativity into something unexpected.

Up to date: The studio's sticker set embraces uniqueness and a lively sense of movement.

“I like to think that our approach is simply pushing creativity to its absolute limit; we take ideas and work with them until they reach perfection or have mutated so thoroughly that we live in fear of what it has become,” said Ryan, before jokingly adding that it wasn’t unlike the plot of Jurassic Park.

“I generally find that most questions can be best answered through a really good Jurassic Park analogy.”

Percolate Galactic is currently working on a few “odd animation” and mixed-media projects called Catus Pocus and Aromaniac, both viewable on their YouTube channel. They are also working on a series of public safety announcements for Cartoon Network starring We Bare Bears and a bunch of other characters.

For Ryan, it’s all come back around in the best of ways.

“One of the simplest ways to explain this is to say: when I was 7, watching Nickelodeon completely rewired my brain. When I was 18, the late-night cartoons on Adult Swim did it again. Those shows shaped my creativity and aesthetic for life, and every person at Percolate Galactic has a story like this […],” he said.

“The ability to create something that, for a moment in time, completely changes somebody’s life. That’s the reason that we do what we do.” (ste)

One of a kind: President Pug is an example of the studio's one-of-a-kind vision.

— Photos courtesy of Percolate Galactic