MOCHE ALA S - Carry the Spirit Forward A winged figure, captured in stone and gold. A gesture of movement that still feels alive. What might that energy look like on the road ahead? MOCHE ALA S is a fictional electric sports coupe and cinematic brand campaign inspired by the Ear ornament with winged runner, created by Moche artists in Peru between 400 and 700 CE and now held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This choice is personal. I am from Trujillo, on Peru’s northern coast, in the region where Moche culture flourished centuries before the modern city existed. Choosing this ornament became a way to imagine a future connected to the place I come from. I wanted the design to carry something recognizable from those roots: its colors, its craftsmanship, and the extraordinary visual imagination of its makers. I chose this particular piece because it already contains the ingredients of a compelling design identity. The circular composition has the presence of an emblem. The winged figure suggests motion through its pose. Turquoise, gold, sodalite, and shell create a distinctive relationship between color, texture, and intricate construction. Within a small ornament, there is enough visual character to imagine an entire product world. Its craftsmanship was just as compelling as its silhouette. The care with which different materials come together suggested an approach to contemporary luxury grounded in precision, detail, and a recognizable point of view. I wanted that attention to remain visible as the concept moved from a museum object to an imagined vehicle. The central question became: how far could the original piece shape a car beyond the badge on its hood? The winged runner became the starting point for the emblem. The circular border informed its surrounding geometry, while the original palette guided the turquoise bodywork and warm metallic accents. From there, the same design language extended into wheel details, interior finishes, and the way light travels across the car. The figure’s sense of movement suggested flowing body lines, a contemporary creative reading of its pose, rather than a claim about the imagery’s historical meaning. The project developed through two related vehicles, the ALA GT and the ALA S. Exploring that family helped test whether the reference could support a broader automotive identity. The ALA S became the focus of this film as I returned more closely to the ornament’s original colors and refined their relationship with the vehicle’s materials. FLORA’s canvas made that process visible. I worked from the museum image through emblem studies, vehicle concepts, material close-ups, and commercial shots. Each stage tested whether the connection to the source remained legible. Iterations focused on color consistency, badge recognition, coherent detailing, and camera angles that could carry those decisions into motion. That refinement continued when the images became video. Some camera movements weakened the emblem or distorted its details, which led to revised reference angles and more controlled framing. These experiments helped shape a commercial in which the identity could remain recognizable across a small badge, a wheel, an interior, and a moving vehicle. The commercial moves between intimate views of craftsmanship and wider views of the car. Macro shots invite the viewer to notice surfaces and construction; road sequences give the design room to express movement. Generated narration, music, and sound effects bring those perspectives together into a single campaign. I imagine the film alongside the original ornament as a conversation between two moments in design: one preserved in a museum, the other speculative. The ambition is to make viewers curious about the work that came first, to discover the Moche artists whose material intelligence and visual imagination made this new direction possible. For me, the project is also an opportunity to place a reference from my home region within an imagined automotive future. The original piece gives that future a specific character and a connection to place. Carry the Spirit Forward expresses that intention: let the source remain recognizable as the idea moves somewhere new. Original artwork: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/309428 FLORA canvas: https://app.flora.ai/projects/ns7fp0637fstbqqhj513xy751d8dz11s