#thankingaround

Vienna, Austria

Sofia, Bulgaria.

You know those small European cities, where all the architecture is cute, everything is small and cozy and you can visit the whole city within a couple of days? This is Bratislava. This time we couldn’t be able to stay one whole month as usual, so this is why we chose a smaller city, but what we didn’t imagine is that we could easily stay there for 2 months, especially because everything gets more beautiful with snow. 

As someone who was born in the countryside of São Paulo state, in a city that everyone knows everyone, I’m a big city lover. But sometimes is good to visit some small and cozy cities, because as the big cities always have so much to do, it can give you a big FoMO feeling (Fear of Missing Out), which is something that small towns doesn’t.

With all this coziness around the Old Town, I could also find some rich type!

After finding these references, I decided sketching something that could represent what was seen from the city - small and cozy center, and some subtle strength because of the communist history, and some cute details because of the cutest Blue Church ever.

There is a mistake on the sketch above that only lettering artists will understand - that drama called a typo. You get so used to thinking how to draw it, the typography rules and composition that you totally forget about the most important: how it’s written. I did everything, created the vector, rendered in Photoshop, printed and when I Googled it again, one extra J at the beginning.

Not cool, because when my bags were completely packed, I had to fix it in Photoshop and print it again. Lesson learned!

I hope I could inspire and help you in some way with these learnings!

If you have any other questions about something I didn’t say here, you can send me an email or reach me on social media!

Brace yourself, this article has a lot of glüwein, Christmas Markets, and tears. Happy tears, so don’t worry. 

As a Brazilian born and raised, my Christmas was always filled with extremely hot weather, beaches, and air conditioners. I’m already letting you know that I’ve never loved it - as the hot weather has always given me a lot of health (and mood) problems - so my lifelong dream was to spend at least one Christmas in a proper cold weather environment, filling myself with vegan hot chocolate (hello, lactose intolerance). 

"Why Vienna?” you may ask. Mainly because of the architecture, but also for the most beautiful Christmas markets and the classical music. This city is so artistic that it’s impossible not to fall in love with it. The architecture has a mixture of Renaissance and Art Deco - two of my favorite ages, and it can even be more beautiful when you insert Christmas Villages and Markets all around. 

Vienna reminds me a bit of Berlin (my favorite city along with Vienna), because of the rich typography on the streets (but no graffiti in sight). It has so many beautiful neon signs, and even the street names are written in gothic calligraphy.

I thought a lot about writing the Danke in gothic calligraphy this time, but it’s really important that you maintain your quality of work by adapting ideas to what you understand best. It’s important to take risks and try new things, but one step at a time. It’s better to practice new styles by yourself for a while, so when they’re more mature, you try something new with it. 

For that reason, the Art Deco style was chosen. Vienna had a lot of 1920s styles, and it’s something I’ve never done before. So why not?

After the sketches, a lot of new color palettes were tested, but the final touch was the Photoshop. I thought that making something with a gold texture would be interesting, mainly because it’s present in the main buildings of the city. Gold makes everything classy and fancier!

I’m not sure why I’m attracted to German-speaking countries, but their capitals are absolutely my favorites. I identified a lot with the culture, the food is by far my favorite, and I have the best time when I'm in them. Vienna has enchanted me with those Christmas Markets, Maronis, and glüwein. It’s one of the most artistic places I’ve ever seen, and the tears of happiness I dropped there for no specific reason made everything more special.

Danke schön, Vienna, and auf Wiedersehen.

I hope I could inspire and help you in some way with these learnings, and see you on the next destination/art!

If you have any other questions about something I didn’t say here, you can send me an email or reach me on social media!

Gothic architecture, beautiful churches, and castles, buildings with paintings that made them look like they are canvas instead of a building. This is Praha or Prague. It was one of the most beautiful months I’ve had this year, with a lot of hot chocolate and Indian food. 

The center city is lively and lovely, with a lot of really tight streets, that typical European ancient architecture, and this time I found something different on the buildings: some of them were painted like they were a normal canvas, and all of them looked like an Alphonse Mucha art. 

Besides that, there are some gothic churches around the city (as usual), and you can find a lot of taverns with typical medieval songs - of course, it’s a tourist attraction, and you can definitely see that for the high prices. 

But inside of those taverns, we could find a live jazz show inside a basement, just because we decided to enter on a street that we hadn't explored yet. It’s incredible to see what is possible to do transforming a place that was probably a waste disposal in the Middle Ages.

The typography found there was a mixture of Paris and gothic references. It was possible to see some house numbers beautifully carved in a copperplate style - but on a stone, some titles written in a French Belle Époque style, but also a lot of gothic.

With all those images in mind and some beers taken (in Prague and Pilsen), I decided to represent the city with a typography inspired by beer labels. (that’s right, nothing quite like the references above)

I’ve always wanted to make a beer label or something inspired by a beer label. This art, in the end, didn’t have the traditional color of a beer bottle, since, after the sketch, I made the decision of using a color palette inspired by Alphonse Mucha’s arts. 

And by the way, it got way better than the traditional green with golden type.

I hope I could inspire and help you in some way with these learnings, and see you on the next destination/art!

If you have any other questions about something I didn’t say here, you can send me an email or reach me on social media!