Gonçalo's Blog

Plans for next year? Still being a happy person, hard worker, focused, dreamer, still looking to improve in every aspect. Obviously next year I am looking to improve as always. I still want to be me but a better version of myself, as a designer and person. I can’t wait to next year to be honest, I know that will be way more challenging than this year but that is exactly what I like and what I’m always looking for. Challenges make us to become better and the harder they are, the better we will become. Either by winning or losing, we learn every time. Live is all about learning.

My second year of Graphic Design needs to be better than my first. But a step at a time, I will get on the level that I’ve always aimed for.

My expectations are high, either for the new and better projects & assignments. This year was a really good one for me to adapt and to learn how to live as a student and worker, all by myself. I grew so much in this year than my whole life and I will be always thankful for that.

Nowadays there’s loads of art and artist and it’s becoming easier to explain to someone what do you do for a living, what are you studying and what does graphic design (in my case) consists off. For some people, they already know what graphic design is or have a slightly idea of it, others you explain using very basic examples, like (I can work with pictures, editing them, I can create album covers, posters, advertisements, basically everything graphical that you might see in your life, billboads, etc) to others is literally impossible and they think that you do some type of dark magic. Literally.

“OUT Projects” - App Proposal

As a part of our body of work/project, we had to create an app proposal to our exhibitions. 

I started by developing the app layout so it could be consistent and unique. Our app proposal had just a simple purpose and easy to navigate pages because we don’t want the user to spend more time on the app than actually enjoying the exhibitions. So we tried to make it as simple as possible.

“Self Brand Identity” - Work in progress

I started by developing my self brand identity a couple of years ago. Instead of going to something around my personal name (Gonçalo Gomes), I preferred to try something different and went towards my “online” name, which is Rolly. Since my early days of design, I’ve always used that nickname and everyone used to call me by that name instead of my real one so I sticked to it. For now, I like this brand that I’ve created, of course it can have improvements, like I said it was 2 years ago and now I have way more skills and knowledge in order to come with something better and professional.

I just wanted to show you how it looks and tell you a little bit of a backstory. I was looking forward to a catchy and easy name (thatsrolly), and that red dot in the end, makes the logo not look that boring and simple.

I rather use this “persona” behind me and trying to escape the ordinary.

You can check more about this project here https://www.behance.net/gallery/57939033/Personal-Branding

Art in Berlin

“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” - Milton Glaser

“I’ve never had a problem with a dumb client. There is no such thing as a bad client. Part of our job is to do good work and get the client to accept it.” - Bob Gill

“It’s through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good.” - Paula Scher

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Never fall in love with an idea. They’re whores. If the one you’re with isn’t doing the job, there’s always, always, always another.” - Chip Kidd

“Typography”

This 1st semester assignment was about Typography and creating our own. Our typography needed to be based upon a drawing that we did earlier on when the module was first introduced to us.

“Logic, Sam Spratt and their collaboration”

This wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t speak about my favorite artist, Logic. I know this artist and I’ve been listening to him for the past 8/9 years, since his early days of rapping.  His music is heaven, is the most amazing art that I’ve ever listened to but is not only that. His lately album covers are truly amazing me in every sort of way. They are so unique, professional, vibrant, etc. The quality of those drawings are amazing, specially the last album “Everybody” (you can check more about it here http://www.samspratt.com/logic-everybody-album-cover), the detail, the quality, are just fantastic. The designer is Sam Spratt (http://www.samspratt.com/)  and his style is just perfect to me. You can easily tell that a piece belongs to him by just looking carefully to the details, the color palettes, the lines, the lightning, etc. He has worked with several artist, companies all around the world and Logic is the reason why I know his work. Since Sam designed his first album cover (Logic’s), they have been working together ever since and that creates a unique visual language between all his album covers.

“Prints”

“Group projects”

Group projects can be 50/50. 50 good or 50 bad, or in between (which is pretty difficult to happen).

“Visual Language”

Like I’ve showed you previously, my other bodies of work (A2 Poster & Tote Bag) for the 114AAD module, Design Practice 1, it’s time to show a little bit more how I introduced and worked with my unique visual language. As you can see, this is the catalogue I’ve developed for my project and I made sure that I introduced my visual language to it, which is those scribbles that I’ve created. I sticked with the same colours, same fonts, same text orientation and with those scribbles. I tried to make them look as much credible as possible.

That’s why those scribbles are everywhere in mine catalogue. Like I’ve explained during my project, these scribbles are the kids’ vision of the devil and how they see or might see it. And kids when they want to explain something, the easiest way to do it is by drawing or painting, everywhere without any concerns. That’s what I did with my catalogue and in the tote bag design, those scribbles are randomly positioned and everywhere.

“Sketchbooks”

I haven’t been the biggest fan of sketchbooks until I started university. I didn’t seem to care about them and i thought they were simply useless. I used to do all my work and research online and not really put it into paper and trying to develop more and more. Usually I was using illustrator or another adobe programs to create and develop my work, using only digital media instead of paper and a pen.

It’s way better to draw, write and develop work in a sketchbook because you have way more freedom to create what your minds sees. You are not trapped inside of a digital limited tools that you can use. It way more satisfying to go through the book with your hands, read, touch and see exactly when and how the process started.

GIFS

This GIF that I made is very unique, it was my first one done in Illustrator and then composed in frames in photoshop and I am really proud of it. It is totally how I wanted it to be, simple, playful, childish drawings type of vibe, related to my visual language on my 114AAD module project. 

This devil scribble is one of my favorites between all of the scribbles that I created, so, I had to animate it and my chosen GIF for the website. I drew it from scratch and then merged all the images/layers into a unique GIF. The time that takes to move from one frame to another is 0.15sec, the time that I found perfect for it.

<!doctype html>

Coding, coding and more coding... when I thought that I was never going back to my early stages of coding in my highschool. Coding at the university was totally different experience for me and I actually enjoyed it for the first time probably because this was not my first time coding so I wasn’t that bad at it. Besides all the body of work that we had to create to 114AAD - Design Practice 1, we had to create our own website (A Coming Soon website for our chosen exhibitions). At the beginning I was really struggling with this because I almost totally forgot about coding and I had to refresh my memory by going to several websites and re-learn how to come with proper coding lines and once I did that, I felt pretty comfortable to start my website.

I tried to keep it as much simple and easy to navigate as possible and obviously, making it looking like it is part of all the body of work/visual language around my project. Used the same colours, same fonts, same text effects, etc. This image that I uploaded is just an example of what the website looks like and how it works.

In this example of my code, I’m really impressed my all the detail that I used to make everything look better and clean and the way they are organised, the text styles (text-align, font-size, font-weight). All these little details that take time to create, they all make the difference in the final product. 

Since it’s 2019, we all need social media if we want to succeed as an artist. I am totally happy for this idea/invention. Nowadays we need to use the most useful tools that we can in order to go with the flow. Social medias are very good at doing his job. It’s easy to use, you can find anything that you are looking for in a matter of seconds. You can express yourself, you can be you, you can be someone else, you can do anything. But the most important point that I want to mention is how social media boosted me as an artist. Social medias are free and so the publicity that you can make through them, the network that you can create, the art that you can follow and get inspired from. That’s a massive world that exist in these social medias that are available to everyone to use, it’s truly amazing how everything relates to each other.

I’m talking by my experience, I create my web pages, my social medias in order to create a proper image and meaning around me and my name as an artist. Not gonna lie, with all this uni work and this big change in my life, I’ve been focusing more in other things than updating my social medias or my portfolios, but I am definitely looking forward to do so since I’m still creating art every single day. I got my portfolio links everywhere in my blog but not my instagram, where I mainly have video editing art and the early stages towards my brand.

I was able to spread my art and show a little bit of my life and what type of content that I create and live is all about sharing our art to others to inspire and to get inspired.

You can check everything here in just a click https://www.instagram.com/_thatsrolly/

Creative Identities

“Jesperish”

Jesperish is a designer that I really look into. I’ve been following him for a few years now sincd I started working as a designer. I’ve seen him developing projects and involving as an artist. Above is a few of his work (latest ones). He really focus his your on illustration and to be honest, I’m not good at illustration but that is a thing that I’m really looking to improve in the upcoming years. His work is truly amazing and inspires me to be a better designer. Even though his work is amazing and he gets a lot of support from another designers, loads of other people and even companies use their work withou permission/paying for it which is truly bad and that shouldn’t happen. Because that’s unfair to the artist and they are disrespecting his job and there’s literally nothing he can do against those bug “sharks” to come with a lawsuit against them.

I know that he is going to continue doing his job and become a even better artist in the upcoming future.

His twitter: @Jesperish

Portfolio: behance.net/jesperish