[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process - Bratislava

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!

You can see the entire project here!

[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process - Vienna

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!

You can see the entire project here!

[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process - Prague

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!

You can see the entire project here!

[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process: Kyiv

Once upon a time, there were two families from the city of Kyiv running away from communism, which was spreading throughout Ukraine, and somehow they ended up in Brazil. One family had a son called Semion Kiyanitza (later to be translated to Simeão) and the other, after having arrived in Brazil, had a daughter called Vera Koval. After a few years, Simeão and Vera got married and had four children called Alexandre, Nadia, Carlos, and Lydia. Later, Lydia Kiyanitza got married to a son of Italians called Marino José de Lião, and they had four children: Silvana, José Roberto, Gilberto, and Katia. José Roberto is my dad, Lydia my grandma and her parents, my great-grandparents. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to an article about my family and lettering.

Afterwards, you already imagine the reason why I visited Kyiv, and although my family is a mixture of Ukrainians and Italians, visiting this city showed me A LOT about where the appearances of every single person in this family (myself included) come from. It was funny and cozy to see people on the streets that reminded me of my cousins, my father, and my grandma. But to know a bit of the history from where I came from was even better.

As soon as we arrived it was already possible to see a lot of yellow and blue around the streets, at the airport and inside our house. Remember Croatia homes all red and white? Yep, in the same way, Ukrainians are all about blue and yellow. And with that, we could experience such a lively city! As we stayed in the city center, we notice that some people had a habit that is really well known in Brazil: malls. Kyiv has A LOT of shopping malls. They even have one underground – smart move, once for most of the year is really cold and windy over there!

Ok, let’s show you some parts of this amazing city, with some typography, of course:

These last images are from Maidan square, a beautiful place with a strong past if you think about the 2014’s Euromaidan Revolution. Although the focus of this article is not politics, you can know learn about it on the Netflix documentary “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom”. But be strong, the film is not easy to watch.

With all that in mind, I decided to study a bit about the history of this country, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they have so much strength. To fight and being ready to die for a better and free country isn’t indeed easy, and definitely is not for everyone. And for those reasons, I decided to make a postcard that had a strong type but also showing the amazing and beautiful things Kyiv has to show. Basically, these were the sketches:

“But Isabella, why does this art have so many flowers and leaves?” And here’s your answer, dear reader. Architecture and autumn. If you see the first pictures in this post you can notice that there’s a lot of ornaments in everything, with some flowers here and there. There’s a lot also inside the orthodox churches, but they do not allow you to take photos, so you’ll have to use your imagination on this one. Now about the autumn part is easy, take a look at these:

After all that research and sketching parts, the vector was just extra work – SEE? This is what you win when you solve most of the main problems on the sketch! With all that, the frame was made based also on the inside of churches, as they’re very ornamental and full of details and flourishes on the inside.

Usually, when I start a piece of art, I imagine the color palette during the creative process, and although I also test other examples of colors to avoid getting attached, sometimes the initial idea ends up being the final chosen one. And this is basically what happened in this case. The only things that weren’t initially in mind were the smooth gradient on the frames – that actually happened during a mistake I did with a brush on Photoshop and came up with a nice result. I love those surprises!

Here’s the final one:

One interesting fact about making this art is how an art can be a mirror of your evolution for a specific period of time. It was great to identify myself in an ethnic way with those people, to know more about the history, culture, and language of the place that my family and I came from, and it’s going to be even better to tell and show them that the place we came from is one of the most beautiful and strong ones I’ve ever seen.

PS: Oh yes, and I also need to thank grandma for teaching me how to count from 1 to 5 and say rooster in Russian, because these I’ll hardly forget – especially the rooster because you’ll never know when you’ll need it.

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!

You can see the entire project here!

[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process: Sofia

One of the good things about traveling is learning. To learn about new cultures and languages, meet new people, see which cafe is going to be your favorite for working when you don’t want to stay home. It is indeed scary to go to a new place and try to open your heart to discover what that city has to offer you. But this month I did this, and it was the best decision I’ve ever taken. Now, let me tell you why you should do the same.

When you open yourself to the place, the chances of that place surprising you in a good way are big. This means that you have to get out of your bubble and your comfort zone. This is why it is scary, but once you’re used to be out of your comfort zone, every challenge gets way easier. We made some friends there that indeed have now a small piece of my heart, and I wouldn’t have met them if I had stayed inside my own bubble.

So let’s go to the letters! To start, the Cyrillic alphabet was born in Bulgaria. But I can’t do the Thanking Around in Cyrillic because one of the rules is: Latin alphabet. HOWEVER, learning the basics of Cyrillic was essential and I’ve done a couple of workshops to learn the basic alphabet (the one from 9th century. Yep, kinda old.). Luckily, both workshops were given by the dearest mom and daughter team.

After understanding a bit of the culture and researching about references, I found this Bulgarian graphic artist called Stefan Kanchev who created a lot of postcards and post stamps with a national theme, representing the Bulgarian colors and ornaments. With his style, I searched some references in the city.

With all that in mind, a lot of ornament references were taken from the churches (which are really similar to the Serbian churches – orthodox architecture), but I don’t have any pictures of those because we’re not allowed to take any photos inside and nothing was more fair than respecting it. Here are the sketches:

One advice for you: ALWAYS make the sketch the most similar as possible to your idea for the final art. That way, when you start the vector part you only have to worry about the technique and stop thinking about creating for a while – making that a 100% mechanical work which in turn will be way easier for you.

With all that in mind, the colors used are tones taken from the architecture, once all the historical buildings have the same tones and are really beautiful!

I’d like to thank everyone from the Studio 84, specially Angel and Neli, that helped me through both workshops, and even translated the second one entirely in English from me. Kalina, her mother Antoaneta and all the friends we made there, such as Nikola and Ivelina, Jan and Sevdelina. You made our trip to Sofia 10 times better than it could have been.

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!

You can see the entire project here!

[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process: Belgrade

Belgrade. Ah, Belgrade. Cute streets, flowers everywhere, really nice cafés and restaurants, and the food! Such cheap and delicious food! Remember back at the Zagreb post when we had our amazing host tell us to visit Belgrade because she loved the city and the food? We basically followed her advice and loved the city so much we’ve decided to stay for 2 months instead of one (however Berlin is still my favorite of all – no offense, Belgrade).

Tell me: wouldn’t you stay longer if the city you were in looked like this?

Now, let’s talk about type. Serbia uses two kinds of alphabets: the Cyrillic, really common in the Balkans, and the Roman, which are the letters you’re seeing right now. So when we arrived, I was surprised by the loads of ads at the airport using Cyrillic. My whole typography study for years is in Roman. The first thought I had when I saw that was: what the heck am I supposed to do with this art?

Right at that moment, I started to learn a bit about the other alphabet, and since I’ve been learning to like it – which was a huge accomplishment. Seriously, take a look at these:

I have absolutely no idea of what is being said there. None. Zero. But I confess that a lot has been learnt about contrast and the similarities between Roman and Cyrillic. Pay attention to the last one above – that style is totally different from everything I’ve ever seen in the Roman alphabet. Searching more about it on Pinterest, using keywords like “orthodox calligraphy/typography”, it is possible to find other things that are related to it – it’s definitely not easy, but not impossible either.

With that in mind, I was able to better understand the anatomy of both letters. And why would I want to do that? Basically, because the Thanking Around series is supposed to only make use of the Roman alphabet, meaning technical typography errors with different alphabets around the world can be avoided, while can maintain focus on style and reproduce the experience achieved in each place focusing solely on the illustration.

However for this case, given the strength of the culture, it was really difficult to avoid putting anything in Cyrillic. So I thought it would be interesting to create a latin-alphabet lettering, BUT, inspired on Cyrillic – seriously, why not? This is what I tried to create with the sketches below.

After that, a few changes were made – such as the ornament on the V used balance the one on the bottom, and the frame ornament which was a bit more exaggerated – no regrets though, ornaments are always welcome if used correctly!

About the colors, looking at the other Thanking Around artwork I felt that I missed more happiness in the backgrounds – there were no vibrant colors, such as yellow, orange or even a blue/green tone. Belgrade has a really happy energy (of course that summer helped things a bit), and I didn’t have a single negative experience talking to locals, so why not represent the sun that was out there and put a vibrant yellow on the background, with a dark lettering to create a vivid contrast?

Another son getting out to the world, another river of learnings, and another incredible city visited. Thank you so much for this amazing month, Belgrade. And now let’s get to the second one.

I hope I could inspire and help you in some way with these learnings, and see you for the next 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!

You can see the entire project here!

[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process: Bucharest

I don’t know about you, but when I think of Romania the first thing that comes to mind is the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary (Harry Potter fans, this is for you). Oh yeah, and then Dracula. Basically Romania was a place that we weren’t thinking about visiting, but the best thing to do while you decide a destination is typing the country or some cities’ names into Google Images. The result is usually a ok-we-must-go-there reaction.

For this country we stayed mostly in Bucharest, but we had a visitor from the Netherlands for a few days (hi, Nikola), and a road trip through the countryside to see castles! We went to Brasov, and passed by Ploiesti, Sinaia and lot of other really tiny villages. Check it out:

Ploiesti, Romania

Brasov, Romania

Bucharest, Romania

With all those cities, the characteristics that I noticed the most were the roofs. They all have that pointy detail at the top, and A LOT of beautiful ornaments at the bottom. It’s interesting because before coming to Europe I thought that the architecture was pretty much all the same, but each country has its own unique characteristics. But of course, you can see all the things I mentioned by looking at the castles below.

Spoiler: The Peles Castle is my favorite. It almost wins from the Budapest Parliament. Almost.

Bran Castle

Church in Brasov, take a look at the roof.

Roof detail on the top of Peles Castle.

Isn’t it the most beautiful castle you’ve ever seen? If it’s not, PLEASE send me a picture of the one you like best.

Basically this was my reaction when I saw the Peles Castle for the first time:

Yep, the boyfriend saw it first, picked up the camera, called me to take a look at it and took the photo. 

After those pictures, you can notice that it’s obvious I only started to create the lettering art after that trip. But it was totally worth it, because seriously, look at those type references!

I have A LOT more, but these styles were mostly the ones I used to create mine. I really enjoyed the medieval-inspired alphabets, so I mixed them up a bit. After a while reminding myself to enjoy the process while sketching, I basically created only 4 sketches for this one. There’s nothing better for your learning than enjoying the process and the present moment. Believe me, your anxiety will thank you for this.

With all that in mind, I just changed the E and C from those sketches and started to vectorize. After beginning the vector phase, I confess that everything went by really quickly, because as I started and finished the sketches on Monday, I then began to vectorize on Tuesday, and finally Wednesday and Thursday were only about refining everything, choosing a color palette and finishing up on Photoshop.

Yup, four days. About the color part, I already knew that I wanted a dark background with a lot of details, so I just looked for that on the pictures taken and created the frame inspired by the Romanian roofs!

Four days was a really short time for me, because I basically worked until 1am almost all week, and that is something that I REALLY avoid doing, once that I’m totally a morning person. But you know what? It was amazing and I only did that because I didn’t see time go by. All about enjoying the process thing.

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!

You can see the entire project here!

[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process: France

With that in mind, let’s go for some references in the south of France. First: the colors. So many beautiful colors that when I was creating the color palette for the lettering I was impressed by some stuff!Bonjour, bonsoir, bonne nuit, or whatever is the time you’re reading this. Yes, this process is all about croissants, pain au chocolat, cheese, delicious breads, crêpes… Is it weird that most of the things I enjoy about every place I go to is food? Culinary is a proof of each culture, and France let this very clear when I went there!

In France I sadly didn’t stay for a whole month because of a mastermind event my boyfriend had, but we visited so many towns and villages that I couldn’t let this pass. Which cities did we go to? Paris, Canet-en-Roussillon (really tiny and with a beautiful beach), Collioure, and Villefranche, a fortified village. As a Brazilian that had never seen castles, I need to say that I was pretty excited to see more of french history. And I’m pretty sure that I have a thing for castles and their architecture.

So, to start from the beginning, let’s take a look at Paris and its references. One word about it: copperplate calligraphy. They use copperplate everywhere. And if it’s not copperplate, it’s a really similar script style that has a classical look.

It also had more modern styles, recalling Art Nouveau. But from what I saw in those few days, I noticed that everything is really classy, including the architecture and those balconies’ ornaments.

Now come with me, let’s fall in love with balconies:

With that in mind, let’s go for some references in the south of France. First: the colors. So many beautiful colors that when I was creating the color palette for the lettering I was impressed by some stuff!

Yep, I took this with an iPhone. This is the beach in Canet. Pretty ugly, huh?

As you can see, the doors and windows were some pretty great references for the color palette. Now what about the type?

After a lot of references and knowing a bit about Paris and the south of France, here we go to the sketches! First of all, I’d like to say that I created more than 20 sketches about this lettering. And after not knowing when to stop, I threw away EVERYTHING. Yup. All the tracing papers, without taking photos or anything. And you know what? That felt good.

As a digital nomad traveling with only a backpack and a small carry-on wheel bag, the best feeling is remembering that you don’t need much to live. Let things go, the most important part you already have and it’s inside your head – it’s called memory.

Basically these sketches are all that I have left, now.

As you can see for the final sketch, it is indeed really sloppy. This is what happens when I already have the whole idea in mind and I just want to visualize the main part of it. I had part of it vectorized already, but I was having some difficulties in visualizing the ornaments.

I decided to use this one because I noticed that everything I saw from France was very cute and full of ornaments everywhere, not to forget the whole “romantic” feeling that Paris gives. I added those endings on the strokes to break this “cute” feeling, because I also had some not so good experiences there. With that in mind, I let them be discrete because we can’t ignore the bad parts, but indeed we can focus on the good ones.

About the vector, one rule for creating on Illustrator: the less points you make, the better. Start building your shape only with horizontal points, and ONLY IF NECESSARY you can add the vertical ones.

With all that in mind, I created a discreet frame inspired in some of the parisian cafés, adding a thin line shadow on the lettering, and then jumped to the colors!

As you saw on the pictures above, I indeed used those to define my color palette, but the only things I was sure about were that: 1. I wanted a light background 2. I didn’t want it to be too romantic (ironic, looking at all those curves) 3. I wanted it to be cute, and strong.

After another 20 tries of color testing, I finally came up to this!

If you didn’t have the time to go through at all, here’s a summary of the learnings:

1. Don’t be afraid of throwing everything away, the important learnings you had you definitely have memorized. 2. Don’t try to put only the good feelings on your art, the junction of the good and bad is what makes you, you. And to conclude, know when to stop. Sometimes, to be creative you have to stop making art for a moment.

I hope I could inspire and help you in some way, and see you on the next 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!

You can see the entire project here!

[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process - Berlin

Berlin, ah Berlin. So little time and so much learned. Berlin is a city that breathes art, freedom and history, and I’ve never seen anything like that. This was my first time in Germany, and I spent my birthday there with some amazing friends that went there to visit, so yes, Berlin has a special place in my heart.

First of all: history. The Berlin Wall, its fall and World War II. German people have a lot to learn from their past and I believe that respect for others no matter their beliefs was the most important lesson. I noticed that in Berlin you can literally be whoever you want with minimum chance of being judged for that. And yes, this is scary, but I confess that I learnt a lot about self confidence with that. Freedom is scary, but if you remember your principles it can be paradise.

Brandenburg Gate and two awesome women taking a selfie. Credits: Raul RdG

Berlin Wall was here. Credits: Raul RdG

For this lettering, I kept thinking a lot about adding history to it, for the obvious reasons I mentioned above. But I’ve decided to begin with graffiti, because this style is one of the most seen around Berlin. Graffiti is the voice of artists, and artists do what they do because they have something to protest against or something to say. Graffiti is not a synonym of a dirty and dangerous city, it’s someone trying to change the world in their own way. Graffiti can be beautiful if you think beyond it, and when you see these drawings on pieces of the Wall around Berlin, you can notice that these artists had A LOT to say when the wall was still up. So yes, in this case, graffiti can represent the history of a city.

Here are some examples:

The beautiful Berliner graffiti and the friend posing for the photo. Credits: Raul RdG

Credits: Raul RdG

If you’ve seen my work, you can notice that graffiti is something completely out of my style, I love curves and ornaments (and sometimes geometry). So yes, this was really difficult for me.

I started to search about gothic calligraphy, and then how it has changed to approach an urban style. Then, I searched about some artists that have already made letterings in that style, like Jackson Alves and Luca Barcellona, with the help of my mentor Lygia Pires – she has a similar style to mine and has already done this kind of stuff. I confess that after looking at their styles and looking at my own reference artists (like Jessica Hische and Martina Flor), it got easier to do something with quality. Not easy, but easier.

This was the sketch when I first started:

With that sketch in mind, I had no idea of what I should put around the borders so I left it for last because, always remember: one step at a time.

And now, it was vector time. I tried to vectorize another sketch [the one below], but I noticed some mistakes so I went back to the sketch. As I told you in the last article, going back to sketches when everything is vectorized shouldn’t be a problem.

Once the vector was finally ready (no borders yet), I jumped to the colors which were inspired by graffiti. I knew that the colors needed to be really strong and I was sure I wanted shades of red along with something really dark (like dark blue or brown). I really liked the blue-almost-black background with red and yellow for the lettering. I think it representes the strength of Berlin as much as the German flag.

After all of it, I still felt that something was missing, when I remembered the meaning and strength of Bauhaus. With all its geometric style and all its history, I couldn’t believe that I forgot one of the biggest art academies in the world. So, I made some tries of geometric frames, with much differ from the graffiti, to represent it. This is the result:

I just wanted to say that this lettering was something I never tried before, and Berlin really stole a huge piece of my heart. I hope I could inspire you in some way with this story as much as Berlin inspired me, leaving something inside of me for the rest of my life. Danke, Berlin. You were amazing.

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!

You can see the entire project here!

[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process: Zagreb

Usually when europeans think about Croatia, their first thought is “beautiful beaches, cheap country”. My first thought when I arrived was: OH MY GOD SO MANY TULIPS AND SUN! If you didn’t notice I love tulips, and the beginning of spring was the perfect season to visit Zagreb.

As soon as I was introduced to my new Airbnb home, I noticed that my host really wanted us to feel like we were in Croatia, because ALL the decorations were red and white (even the mugs were red and white like their flag). Definitely not complaining, the decoration was really lovely!

For this lettering, I wasn’t really inspired by the architecture as the previous ones, but by the colors. There’s A LOT of red and white in basically everything that is typically Croatian, besides the little flowers that are on everything.

Below is the red and white overdose:

Now the overdose of flowers:

With that in mind, I also noticed some really medieval stuff, like a guy that engraves your name in copper and some typography which reminds this kind of tradition. I found these examples:

I really liked those two bottom examples, so I started sketching! After 12 sketches, I came up with this one, and I was absolutely sure that this was final.

But sometimes life gives you a punch in the stomach and tells you to start over again when your art is almost 100% vectorized (REALLY vectorized, not live-traced). And then I just decided to change some small details in the sketch that were really bothering me.

Don’t be afraid to go back to the sketch after everything is done. One thing that the sign-painter and friend Raphael Gibara told me once: “Don’t say your work is finished if you still don’t like it.” I didn’t like it, so I changed it (with a lot of frustration and tears, because I’m a human). And you know what? It was the best decision I made!

With that in mind, I vectorized the design and began to choose colors. As the red and white squared pattern is something really typical from the country, I put in my mind that the background was going to be squared red and white, even remembering something that the incredible Jessica Hische told me in a mentorship once: avoid complex patterns with high color contrast, try to use similar tones if you want the focus to stay on the lettering.

Did I hear the master? NO. But at least I learned that she was right. “But Isabella, the Croatian flag doesn’t look weird with the red/white pattern and doesn’t hurt the eyes”, and that my dear friend, is because they use a really thin gold line to break the contrast in a very subtle way. I tried to use the golden line too, but it didn’t work either.

It wasn’t working at all, but one thing I knew was that the lettering REALLY needed to have at least something to symbolize the pattern and the flowers. And of course, it had to be red, white and blue.

You know that “I don’t know what I’m doing, I just know I should do it” feeling? THAT feeling brought me the answer. When I decided to delete the pattern, maintain the flowers and merge them with the red/white pattern, I knew it was supposed to be the way. Never ignore that feeling (even if it comes with a Golden Retriever meme), if your intuition says to keep going.

As the background was way too light, I started to miss something, because the beginning of Spring made people act in such a happy and polite way everywhere we visited there. I felt like I wasn’t representing those amazing people. So I decided to add some flourishes and additional details, like the line inside the letters and the flourishes around the lettering too.

With all these in mind, this ended up being my favorite lettering thus far! And of course I shouldn’t finish this without thanking the best mentor and English student I have, who gave me a lot of feedback and listened to my frustrations when I was trying to choose the best colors without losing the lettering identity, Lygia Pires.

Here’s the final lettering:

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!

You can see the entire project here!

[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process: Budapest

Budapest, oh Budapest. Such a beautiful and cold (very, VERY cold) city. As a brazilian used to a winter with temperatures no lower than 10°C, Budapest really made me wear almost all my winter clothes at once just to go to the supermarket at the corner. Not complaining, because now I get out of home with 15°C wearing just one shirt, an opened coat and calling it summer. Do I miss the 35°C brazilian summer? Not at all.

So let’s talk about architecture. The Hungarian architecture is majestic. When you see the parliament for the first time (and second, third, tenth), you almost listen to a choir of angels on the background and it’s impossible not to say “wow”. It’s a gothic architecture, and it has the same details as almost every other Hungarian building (except for the patterns, we’ll talk about that later). Building in a light color, roof in a dark color (usually dark red, dark green or almost black).

Mr. Majestic during the day

The parliament from a sunny Buda side – yes, it’s huge.

Almost on fire, but with lights. And the Danube river.

This parliament was my first impression of the city (and the building I most loved by far) because we stayed really close to it, and this is why my main color inspiration was this building. But after that, I discovered another typical detail of architecture – geometric details on the roof. You can see them over the beautiful Matthias Church and on the Great Market Hall, below.

As you can see by the second picture, there’s a diamond-shaped pattern on the roof and on the first floor, and this shape repeats on other buildings around the city, but in a more smooth way. I thought it would be interesting to use it in the background of the lettering. I really love curves and ornaments, but these geometric styles conquered me.

Still talking about the ornaments, I found out that generally they have a lot of small ornaments on almost everything, specially on plates painted by hand (like those below that I found at a small hungarian fair). For the frames on the top and bottom of the postcard, I used those tiny details in black inside the plates.

About the word itself, what caught my eyes the most was the second most ancient subway line of Europe (losing only for London), that is really small and it has those stylized titles on the drop cap of every station name.

With that in mind, I started to search about the main style, that would probably be a thinner serif. Here are some references:

With that in mind, below are a couple of sketches I tried.

In the end the font style chosen was one inspired on the streets’ signs and the one used on the ancient subway. I even added some details line the inner line and the drop shade, because even though Budapest is a city with a lot of gothic architecture, there’s A LOT of younger people taking over the city in a really positive way, and opening those amazing ruin bars (like these ones below). So I think the drop shade and the inner lines could break the classic-gothic appearance of the lettering.

To conclude, I think you could notice that I used the parliament and roofs’ colors that I mentioned before, with a dark background with the goal of being almost as majestic as that parliament. Not that I could get any closer, but we try. Anyways, here’s the final lettering:

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!

You can see the entire project here!

[thankingaroundblog]

Thanking Around Process: Lisbon

When I first started planning to change my lifestyle and become a digital nomad, the first thing I thought about was to create this project. But as per usual, we tend to doubt that something on this level on amazingness can really happen to us – until it REALLY starts happening. The Lisbon lettering took a while to get ready and I ended up delivering the print to the host 3 weeks after leaving the city. These things happen, specially since we were only there for a week.

But it doesn’t matter how late you are with your personal projects – finish them. ALWAYS FINISH THEM. This is the most important thing, isn’t it? I believe so.

For the reference research, I initially thought of going to the city center and searching for Lisbon pictures on Pinterest. I know that doesn’t make much sense, because the city was all around me, waiting to be used as a reference – so why would I be looking at Pinterest?

As soon as I got to town, the things that called my attention the most were the abundance ornaments (obviously), decorative tiles on everything, and the titles below.

In a certain way, I knew that the “Cabelleireiro” title represented what I was seeing from the city, but never accept the first option without knowing the rest, right? Right. After that, the lettering inspirations only made stronger what I already had in mind.

In a way, I knew that the “Cabelleireiro” title represented what I was seeing from the city, but I believe you should never accept the first option without knowing what else is out there, right? Right.

Afterwards, lettering inspirations only made me believe more in what I already had in mind.With the exception of the last two pictures, the others are from the “Cidade Gráfica” exposition, showcasing many amazing works from the XXth century. I don’t believe in coincidences so the feeling of making a bifurcated title was starting to come into shape.

The initial sketch:

(Initially the drawing itself was so poor on information that neither the picture I fixed on Photoshop worked.)

Now it was time to play with ornaments and Lisbon leaves nothing behind when it comes to balcony ornaments and decorative tiles.

Look at these:

I’m not kidding when I say that THAT was the sketch I used in the vector initially, and all the rest was improvised from my last minute research. After this experience I can say with certainty, don’t do that. It’s not healthy. It’s chaotic.

Basically, after defining the title, I tried to put as many ornaments as possible without overdoing it. This is what Lisbon represents to me – curves and ornaments. But as ornaments are secondary, I thought it would be interesting to add two ornament layers, in order to accomplish the Portuguese culture’s feeling and give focus on what really needs attention: words.

Something that I think is very important on the vector process is to avoid using colors when you’re still dealing with the design shape itself – colors can really affect your point of view, not allowing you to focus on what truly matters at that moment.

It’s interesting how testing dark backgrounds can give so much more attention to a white lettering. I tested light backgrounds with the famous white and blue combination – most common in Portuguese tiles – but nothing was as shocking as the blue background.

And here is the final art.

I hope this article gave you some inspiration or taught something new. If you’d like to get ask me any questions or talk about something that I may not have mentioned, you can get it touch with me via email or any of the social media links below!

You can see the entire project here!