For the celebration of its 250th anniversary, the Portuguese National Printing House (INCM) together with Esad-idea, prepared an exhibition showcasing their legacy. ⁠Imprimere is a book about making books. It tells INCM story, explaining how the book making practice changed through the last two centuries.

As a sculpture, Imprimere was designed to provide many tactile sensations that belong to the industrial side of printing houses and processes of craftsmanship. Special metallic inks were used as an overprint on top of a visual essay that provides macro shots of dirty and oily mechanisms.

Historic ink splashing on the sides of the pages was used both to materialise the process of inking paper but also as a hint towards a particular finishing used in the ancient National Records. Materica Acqua offers a textural cover as the big hot stamped letters on top provides depth, which is used to emphasise the weight of an industrial press.

*This project was designed as studio Degrau, along with 3 brilliant friends: Ana Areias, Raquel Rei and Tiago Campeã.

The contrast between the nostalgia of this rich universe and the didactic approach to the techniques that it explains marks this object. The narrative is structured so that the reader can understand all the tips and techniques that are needed to build a book, while also, at the same time, the content provides names and key details that tell the story of INCM.

Using photography to create a sensorial experience across 24 pages of overprinted industrial macro shots, the narrative in than explained using an industrial grid, infographics, 6 academic essays, an extensive photographic report of most of the tools of the centuries and a thorough explanation of seven key vectors: 1. Paper 2. Typeface 3. Typography 4. Calcography 5. Screenprinting 6. Lithography / Offset 7. Binding and one artistic gallery where a selected group of contemporary designers explore each technique.

Together with Underworld one outcome of our collaboration is set as a campaign that sparks tonal reach out of the track’s sonic spectrum.

Secret Weapons, led by a sense of fluidity, cinematic chrome lights, and ongoing shapes that together build the whole.This system is made with great complexity to represent the secrets behind the biggest drops used by the artists in their sets, allowing the user to get lost in the landscape and all its details while at the same time providing us vivid flexibility using the symbol to create a unique artwork for each artist both for social media or for print. A symbolic expression on SW15, building from our previous work as a reference but conceptually framed in the intrigue, the fuel, and the energy that is Secret Weapons 15.

The direction was explored creating shapes that evoke a sense of depth, intrigue, and that push the limits of physical space to grow an intriguing system where secrets are left hidden. Staying optimistic and bright as a system, it is designed to allow forms to be generated for each song, looping Innervisions as a collection of infinite totems that hide the biggest drops yet to be revealed and in tune with the city that nurtured the origin of such dimensions.
The key visual factor is that it behaves in a textural and pluridimensional visual alphabet whilst exploring a variety of boundaries and layered. The notion of depth, movement, and moments capture as part of a bigger landscape and instances of motion are the storytellers. The absence of messaging in the first stage campaign acts as a source of stimuli. Transient states of landscapes. That’s part 01. Part of the process of the latest movements for and with:

We have worked Bicep's Isles as part of a meta-environment where frozen body movements create sculptural memories of past dance moves. It is part of a collection of moments that have been. Created in a state of suspension, we were inspired by the material nature of their songs and fed on the complexity and richness of Bicep's sound textures. By freezing moments in time as if we were Dadaist photographers capturing full movements in a frame, we've built a system that expresses the spectrum of emotions that live in the echo of the rhythms in the body. To allow movements to be seen from a distance is an act of memory, such as the state of suspension fuelled by techno on the dance floor or the memory of the sounds in the morning after. Isles has multiple covers as well as a lot of different angles of such sculptures in the overall campaign that expands the imagery of the album into the world of billboards, merchandising, announcement assets, and live performances.The fluorescent colors and direct pigments of the printed album electrify the physical nature of vinyl. They were chosen to dance, to ignite gasoline, and pulse light. A neon-flash.

Can the process of editing a book allow territories to grow beyond borders? It might sound ludacris to claim a spine of a book as a frontier, but it does split an object into two. The social-political sphere can often be described as a limit for agreement, although a new universe might be born whenever the conditions favorable.

All my peoples in the world, it is time to sit back, sip some sunset and let go. There is Corona outside and the economy is crashing. Grandma is a phone call away but there are too many Skypes bouncing. Back in 2019 there was a Yay! moment in London, at the BFI, celebrating the best of the best from the European Web. Sounds like an utopia now. We could all use some gins and enjoy the unsung hero of modernity: the Internet. Ladies and Gentleman, The Lovie Awards 2019 was a pleasure to design.

01.02.2023
00h25 Gmt:-1

Lovie Awards
— Cultural Identity

06.09.2022 — Part of the development process for the upcoming release of Underworld’s 10th year celebration vinyl of the 2012’s London Olympics for Underworld has been added to Home.

02.06.2022 — No Future, Cromática for Monster Jinx has been added to Projects 30.05.2022 — A New tought was uploaded to $ It’s a clear formula compelling enough to convince yourself.

26.04.2022 — Awe Kid Body Logic was uploaded to Youtube, 03.05.2022 — A New tought was uploaded to $ If what we are saying is in what is being said. If what we are eating is in what is being eaten. 03.05.2022 — A new interview by Annabel Ross for Resident Advisor was uploaded to Words.

26.04.2022 — Awe Kid Eve Remix by Max Cooper was uploaded to Youtube, 

Awe Kid, Max Cooper Remix - Eve
—Visualizer

03.02.2022 — Medical Breast Exam was uploaded to Soundcloud, Youtube, Vimeo & Instagram. 02.02.2022 — A New tought was uploaded to $ If the stomach hurts open the window. 

It is aware in real-time. Cinematic bursts and electricity. Optimist painted blue. Diurnal state of being aware with the night. Nocturnal state of being awake with the morning. Evolving through 24 hours, it cycles through time with a natural sense. Diurnal state of being awake with the night. A metamorphosis in the landscape. It speaks 5 tracks with daylight; one along with the sunset; and waves to the moon 4 times. Liquid in suburbia. Landscapes of memories over clouds of neon: colored lenses. A weightless state of hovering a tree and a memory. Hot wind casting shadows. Semi-blue reflected orange, neon presence sign. Metallic. Between wayfinding and emotions.

 

23.04.2021 — Since early 2020 to design a series of 100 graphic molecules for Adobe Stock: elements that bridge conceptual design with an everyday vision for good practices in form. An electronic cocktail and a handful of escapism. Similar to utopian spaces, nightclubs are concomitantly both strictly related and opposed to their locality. Using sonic experiences as tools to shed the skin, this is a series of electronic-induced catharsis designed for Adobe.

06.04.2021 — New thoughts were added to $ by The Royal Studio Seduction for a night-in.
05.04.2021 — Adobe Arch01 Map Houses Such as Astral Charts were uploaded to Home.

29.03.2021 — Two interviews granted to Naomi Lampariello & Dafne Van Dooren (BE) were uploaded to Words.
15.03.2021—Alexandre Bazin album Concorde and singles It Comes in Waves, Dunes, Supercollider & Swollen Seas were uploaded to Home.

It is aware in real-time. Cinematic bursts and electricity. Optimist painted blue. Diurnal state of being aware with the night. Nocturnal state of being awake with the morning. Evolving through 24 hours, it cycles through time with a natural sense. Diurnal state of being awake with the night. A metamorphosis in the landscape. It speaks 5 tracks with daylight; one along with the sunset; and waves to the moon 4 times. Liquid in suburbia. Landscapes of memories over clouds of neon: colored lenses. A weightless state of hovering a tree and a memory. Hot wind casting shadows. Semi-blue reflected orange, neon presence sign. Metallic. Between wayfinding and emotions.

  
  

17.02.2021—Interview and playlist for Giacomo Felace FricoDisco was added to Words. — 20.01.2021—Modern Dancing, Whitehaus was uploaded to Instagram — 30.12.2020—ESAD invited us to reflect on 2020, wishing 2021 to be good. We did it in order to balance the skies — 18.12.2021—Criatório, a cultural programme offering funds for the development of art programmes was designed and uploaded to Instagram.

07.12.2020—When people started to believe the same things the neon lights were long gone. 21.11.2020—Tepid opinions: Unsatisfying work. 17.11.2020—No Neutral Room, No Neutral Discourse; No Objective Room, No Objective Discourse. — The Royal contributed with their thoughts to the world, updated in $.

   

07.10.2020 — Catarina Freitas, Daniel Rodrigues, and The Royal contributed with their thoughts to the world, updated in $ — Better Half, an identity poster, system was uploaded to projects expanding on the role of posters for cinema. A process of storytelling in which minimal graphic action can grow with and beyond the original story.

14.09.2020 — It’s Nice That Interview was uploaded into Words. — Pedro Mota, Alecsandru, Ana Resende & Gustavo Carreiro contributed with their thoughts to the world, updated in $ — PIGEON, Facilitators of Culture, An identity based on air, observation, cultural identity and flying pigeons, was uploaded to Cultural identity Projects.

22.07.2020 — AIGA Interview was uploaded into Words. — There are also reflections on how the world is a burrito, updated in $ — This website is currently under construction. As is the world and its ways. It is expected never to be completed, but so far it is quite at the begginning, documenting projects when The Royal decided that it is time to bask in self-indulgence. It might also occur that this website is updated while applying lotion on the skin, or in the aftermath of not answering calls in the middle of the afternoon anymore because every entity needs me-time. Even a design studio needs to brush its teeth from time to time. 

18.06.2020
11h00 Gmt:-1

A project that visualizes outcomes from lives that could have been but never were, built strictly from noting bits of conversations from strangers while traveling in their commute. An ongoing visual reflection about the supermundane, instrumentalizing stolen thoughts in their respective time, to build a satiric critique around a globalized sate of meaning.

[Update Covid-19 Pandemic 2020] Everything, Everyone Everywhere was a humorous punch on a globalized identity crisis that turned into a universal call for empathy amid a pandemic reality. From sarcasm to a universal call for unity, it is as contextual as it initially intended.

Everything, Everyone, Everywhere
— Exhibition/Instalation

10.06.2020
11h00 Gmt:-1

Pink, yes, we are royal. The Royal Studio is a blue vortex. It has deep and purple approach to the design wonders. The Royal is red. Methodic. Scientific. Moves green and creates teal. The Royal has fun, knows not how to be funny and plays violet like a monkey on metabolic orange with a passion for reason. Contextual. Playful. Loyal to culture. Royal to black.

Data Walking
— Exhibition

This is an monumental book about adrenaline, comedy, extremely violent political commentary with a sarcastic tone. Designed in line with schizophrenia, we’ve opted to feed on velocity and dig deep in the universe of ephemera and fanzine to depict the history of Million Dollar Extreme.

How To Bomb The US Gov’T
— Process, Books

A Story a Day Keeps the Virus Away
— Exhibition

11.07.2020 — A new interview for Étapes, by Margot Mourrier, was uploaded into Words. — A new essay, written as a manifesto for critical anxiety as a tool for modernity, state of play and gasoline was uploaded into Words. — The description that follows the Everything, Everyone, Everyone exhibition at Porto design Biennale was uploaded into Words.

18.04.2020
18h32 Gmt:-1

To design this event is to be aware that reality doesn't come single-handed in a multi-dimensional presence. Taking action in London, United in Code is therefore a statement embracing the UE motto to tackle the unified web — a network where ideas thrive and frontiers are made irrelevant

“Few images come closer to reality than those recorded by surveillance cameras. In China, a country with strict film censorship, an estimated 200 million such cameras have been installed to capture life unfiltered; mundane daily activities are mixed with dramatic events beyond the realm of imagination.”