Jakarta Smart City Logo: A Design by a ITHB Graduate

One of the innovations by the DKI Jakarta government within the past five years is the Jakarta Smart City concept, which enables Jakartans to report incidents of flood, traffic jam, road damage, waste piles, or hospital bed shortage through a smartphone application. Integrated with the web page smartcity.jakarta.go.id, the application is capable of mapping reports digitally. All DKI Jakarta Province employees, especially heads of villages and sub-districts, are required to install the application on their Smartphone.

The article features interesting facts about Letisia Esther Dumaria Marbun, one of the young masterminds behind the Jakarta Smart City team, the creative software developers behind the application. A former student of ITHB’s Visual Communication Design program, Letisia joined the Design & Publications staff. Her job is to translate the Governor’s and the Regional Apparatus Work Units’ policies into visual media for better dissemination and improved readability. Apart from working for the Jakarta Smart City Project, Letisia also processes publication materials for DKI Jakarta Information Communication and Statistics Agencies.

Early in her career, Letisia had been employed by Iris Worldwide Indonesia, a multinational advertising agency. Her past dream to create ads that she was only able to watch on TV came true when her art and creative directors offered her a position to help them pitch big brands such as Samsung Digital, Wingstop, Carl’s Jr., and L’Oreal. Letisia learned how to address the different needs of the company clients while maintaining her personal idealism and her team’s solidity. She also expanded her professional network, the process of which eventually enabled her to find multi-perspective solutions to various problems.

With her team, Letisia created “Temptation Limiter” for Carl’s Jr. and the ads she produced with them were nominated in several categories in Citra Pariwara 2015, Indonesia’s biggest advertising festival. This significant achievement opened more opportunities for her.

Recognizing her achievements and prestigious portfolio, the DKI Jakarta Provincial government became interested to involve her in a number of projects. In her second year working for the DKI Jakarta government, she was given an assignment to redesign the currently used Jakarta Smart City logo. During the course of her career Letisia has had opportunities to learn from politicians as well as successful owners of such startup companies as Go-Jek. Zomato, and Trafi. A Pixar films addict, Letisia is known among her colleagues as a skilled presenter and smart win-win problem solver.

Most of what Letisia has achieved in her professional has a lot to do with what she learned from her lecturers at ITHB’s DKV (Visual Communication Design) Program. While studying at ITHB, this Bontang-born Bornean young woman considered all her lecturers as close friends to whom she would not hesitate to exchange ideas. Her intensive interactions with her lecturers gave her valuable lessons about brainstorming, data searching, visual design, and design presentation.

She also learned to have big goals and dreams during her study at ITHB. “It’s cool to have a bright academic achievement, but creating values for our life after graduation by making a positive impact to our society is far more important”, said Letisia.

Letisia Esther Dumaria Marbun
Communication Graphic Designer National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas)
Visual Communication Design graduate 2014