Catalog for Solana y Romero de Torres. Una historia del arte español en negro, an exhibition organized by Fundación Unicaja and shown earlier this year at Centro Cultural Fundación Unicaja de Málaga.

The catalog introduces us to the black Spain painted by Julio Romero de Torres and José Gutiérrez Solana, where light suits, religiosity, Cordovan women, lights and shadows are abound.

The common thread of this work is based on the color black and its shadows, which creates subtle contrasts. So for the catalog cover we used an intense black rustic paper, and rather than ink we used high pressure to emboss the title, capturing the concept of the exhibition; the “black Spain”.

Throughout the catalog we play with light and shadow, white space, color and typography, trapping the light on a super white heavy weight paper, adding intensity to the relation between the artists artwork and the texts.

The Bodoni typeface gives a touch of seriousness and probably even a historical feel in details such as credits and intros, while Graphik with its rounded body and modernist style creates solid blocks of text. Finally, Druk lends its visual weight to titles, clearly marking the editorial design.

Conoce EAE is a corporate brochure developed for EAE Business School, one of the top five in Spain. This type of brochure is usually very institutional and to be honest, a bit boring and distant. But when EAE commissioned us for this project their idea was to do something slightly different. It was important to review the narrative, introduce a more humane aspect of the brand and somehow deliver something that could be used by the stakeholders and that communicated the brands vision and purpose.

So apart from the normal content, such as the institution history, faculty, alumni, programs and all the data and infographics usually used in this type of publication we infused as more aspirational narrative.

We invited several employees to share their idea of what the school represented to them, we made them highlights of the brochure. We wrote about the brands vision and what to stands for in a more open and humane way, we talked about talent beyond data, and we created a small poster that if you wanted you could hang it on the wall of the your office.

The brochure is made out by two pieces, the brochure itself and a folded poster that was used as a book jacket. The jacket covered half of the cover creating a game between the corporate EAE red and the cover photo that illustrates the concept of discovery and the ability to conquer ones objectives (the brand motto: We make it happen).

The two corporate typefaces create a balance of styles. Montserrat plays the role of setting a more easy and contemporary tone for the long texts, and at the same time it helps with the legibility of infographics, wile Tabac Big brings a more serious and sharp but yet elegant tone to titles and quotes.

These are a set of program brochures designed for the creative school Idep Barcelona, divided into three degrees: Contemporary Photo, Graphic Design and Fashion, and Master Degrees.

The editorial identity was part of a new communication strategy were the agency wanted to communicate two very important things: true values of the school plus a sense that they understood who they were talking to (15 to 17 years old prospective students and their parents).

For the school values we opted to let each one of the designs have its own personality but under the schools umbrella brand values, such as not being generic (the degrees are non-official so the academic directors have certain liberties and freedom to adapt the syllabus constantly), having a bit of a punk but eloquent identity, sharing knowledge and having a vision of the future.

At the same time we also had to make sure that each brochure had something that would appeal to possible students, things they could easily identify and feel related to even tho they are not professionals in those areas nor have great understanding of them.

Type played an important role in creating this editorial identity. The contrast between Tiempos and ITC Johnston allowed us to pursuit a timeless overall design and gave us the possibility to navigate between a more playful world (Degrees brochures) and a more serious one (Masters brochures).

Diálogo(s) em só maior is a playbook where the action is centered in a dialogue between the main character of the play and the representation of past, the present and the future, in the end we understand that more than a dialogue the play is actually a sort of monologue where the character sits down with himself.

The art direction of this little book is based on the possible textures of school books from past to future, each one marks the three different chapters of the play. The design also aimed to be a bit mechanic using a monospace typeface, the text lines are actually mechanically unbalanced on purpose almost having this naïve look and feel.

This book is composed in its entirety using Simplon Mono by Emmanuel Rey from Swiss Typefaces.

The exhibition Místicos. Santa Teresa de Jesús y San Juan de la Cruz, luz en el Siglo de Oro (“Mystics. Saint Teresa of Jesus and Saint John of the Cross, the light in the Golden Age”) was shown from October 2018 to January 2019 in the old church of the Society of Jesus in Caravaca de la Cruz, Murcia.

The exhibition and the accompanying publication talked about the mystics Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross and their presence in the art world, specially in the imagery and production of El Greco, Murillo, Alonso Cano, Ribera, Chillida, and Tàpies. The two figures that the show talked about, both mystics, had a story that was very bipolar; their writing was religious but so passionate that one could also mistake it for romantic love.

They walked a path between light and darkness, what was earthly and heavenly, a place full of dualities that was patent to their art. Therefore, we created a visual identity that would reflect these ambivalence, this dichotomy of feelings, and translated it to bold colours like bright white, a deep dark blue and blood red. The contrast was looking for this feeling of a clash between enlightenment and earthly passions.

This book is composed using the typefaces Suisse Int’l and Suisse Works, both by Ian Party and available from Swiss Typefaces. The condensed roman used in caps on the cover and for large quotes is Bordeaux (Letraset) by David Quay.

Signum. La Gloria del Renacimiento en el Reino de Murcia is the name of an exhibition that spoke about the glory of the Renaissance times in Murcia, a coastal region in the south of Spain. It was a golden moment in the art of the country.

We were asked to conceptualize, create, design and craft the catalog to this show, deliverables that had to emanate the essence of the exhibition as well as being clear, informative and respect the adequacy of the format. Things being like this, we decided to go to the source to get inspiration; we turned into the first published books from the Renaissance times. We decided we would do a modern version of those titles, both for the exhibition graphics and for the catalog, because it was a nice homage to pay to the topic and those times in history in which culture changes and evolves so much the world becomes a better place.

The editorial pieces were completed with Bembo, a renaissance typeface, revisited in 1929 by Monotype. It was a wonderful opportunity to take aesthetic choices that would reflect the true nature of the exhibition. Edited by Juan Ignacio Ruiz López, the book was published by Gobierno de la Región de Murcia.

Written by Paulo Borges, O Apocalipse segundo Fernando Pessoa e Ofélia Queirós (“The Apocalypse according to Fernando Pessoa and Ofélia Queirós”) was published by Talentilicious.

Around the idea of the reunion of Fernando Pessoa and Ofélia Queirós at Cais das Colunas, in a timeless and visionary plan closely linked to the imagination of Lisbon, the Tagus and the Atlantic. In a model inspired by the apocalypse according to Saint John, Ophelia reveals to the person the fundamental truth about the meaning of their encounter and love and obtains the recognition of the orthonym Pessoa and its various heteronyms. The work gives voice to key passages and moments in the life and work of a person and recreates the episode of Ilha dos Amores by Luís de Camões, around Pessoa and Ofélia.

The work also recreates fundamental aspects of Portuguese cultural mythology, central to Fernando Pessoa, such as the universalist vocation of the same culture to unite East and West and contribute to a metamorphosis of consciousness and a new more fraternal civilization in relation to living beings and the Earth.

The book is composed using the typefaces Akkordeon and Periódico Display by Eduardo Manso from Emtype Foundry, and Azo Sans by Rui Abreu from R-Typography.

Sem Regresso (There’s no coming back) is a book written by Miguel Babo. Made up from eight short stories, it focuses on the relation between time, life, and consequences. The art direction reflects a look and feel reminiscent of old illustrated anatomy books. As a touch of dark humor, the shape of the book itself plays with the shape of a headstone, symbolizing life’s point of no return. The idea was to take some weight off from the almost fatal tone of writing and to give the book the essence of a “stand alone” piece that you can show on your book shelf or on your coffee table. The book is very small, almost pocket size, and the paper used is over 120g/m² which makes it almost impossible to close, transforming it into a standing object.

Miguel’s prelude is: Life is made on a path of no return. Time obliges us to have a single meaning, a fatality common to all men, of all conditions and of all times. But life is not just the present, and those who were, are not just those who passed, they continue in us and in the eternal inheritance of humanity, no one is left behind.

This book is composed using the typefaces Newzald by Kris Sowersby from Klim Type Foundry and FF DIN by Albert-Jan Pool from FontFont.