Non-Verbal Club

TEATRO NACIONAL DE SÃO CARLOS
– SEASON 2017–18

BROTÉRIA – CULTURAL CENTRE 

ARCHITECTURE MATTERS
– RODRIGO E AMÉLIA

B+B – BARATA ARQUITECTOS

CASA DO DESIGN DE MATOSINHOS

Casa do Design de Matosinhos is a design museum for exhibitions on the history and current state of Portuguese design .

We were invited by esad—idea to design the museum's identity and to develop a visual language for its communication. We believed its look and feel should be fresh and provide opportunities for experimentation, reflecting the creativeness of its field practitioners. 

From the beginning we felt there was a need for an iconic mark that could act as a logo in its most traditional sense. We wanted it to have a timeless feel and to represent design as an exercise of projection. Using basic geometric shapes, we've intercepted two planes (the letters C & D) with a line, an axis that keeps it together and creates a feeling of depth.

Having stabilised the institutional identity, we went on to develop the principles that compose Casa do Design's visual language. We didn't believe there was a need to have a heavily defined matrix, but rather a set of orientations that other designers could interpret and use in future iterations of its communication.

Therefore we've defined two basic guiding principles:

1. Every piece should be designed as an open canvas where space is going to be occupied with different elements – typography, imagery, solid blocks of color, white space – either by actions of construction, occupation, interruption or deconstruction.

2. Information is contained on different stripes set across each piece, creating differentiated hierarchies and reading moments. These stripes should be able to make the structures visible or invisible, change direction, overlap and even change styles.

Client

Câmara Municipal de Matosinhos

esad—idea

Art direction & Design

Non–verbal club

© 2016 

Indoor signs & Outdoor structures

Carlos Pereira

COSMICODE

Cosmicode is a newborn app development company focused on projects for the web and mobile devices. The identity we've designed for them consists of two "squarish" C's, heavily influenced by the aesthetics of retro games and tech. In the print world these shapes can grow and interact with each other in different ways, becoming more compact or loose, separated or intertwined in different situations. The digital world provides better opportunities for movement, and even then it can have either very fluid ir stop motion like animations. 

Overall this is a simple design project for a starting tech company. Time will surely provide the opportunity to further develop the visual language and principles started here.

While the complete portfolio website is still under development, we've resourced to a very simple splash page with a responsive version of the identity. The logo adapts itself to the length of your browser window and is reversed to a white version over a black background on the most vertical mobile displays. Visit it here

Client

Cosmicode

Design

Non–verbal club

© 2016

Animation

Lyft Creative Studio

URSA – ART AND ARCHITECTURE

URSA is an artistic studio that combines photography and architecture in the creation of buildings and objects, images, films and texts. Their interests are focused  on the pursuit of alternative processes of creation – leading to the production of critical matter and thought – rather than making pretty projects.

The identity and website we've designed for URSA is based on two core principles: 1. ideas and 2. ways of connecting them. Hence, there isn't a static logo or a main version of it. There is a system in which each character of the word Ursa moves to a different position according to the format and media it is placed at, and that movement creates a line connecting it to the following character, ultimately forming a constellation like shape.

The same principle is applied when displaying content:
an image connects to a text, that connects to a video,
that connects to another idea. The website is where this
system really shines, inviting the visitor to make
his/her own connections, to overlap projects and ideas,
and to leave a trace of his/her navigation. More than an
online portfolio, the website acts as a statement, in
which rationale and process become more relevant than
final pieces of work. Click here to visit.

Client

Alexandre Delmar

Luís Ribeiro da Silva

Margarida Quintã

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

Non–verbal club

© 2014–2016

Logo Animation

Snack Studio

LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA

PAVILLION OF ANGOLA

Our design premises for the communication of the Pavilion of Angola at the 56th Venice Biennale were centered on a strong sentiment of African invasion into a well established European order. To illustrate those principles, we’ve created a very strict modernist basis in which we could set the information regarding the exhibition in a calm and controlled environment, and from there, we’d start interrupting and overlaying that rigid layout with graphic elements and symbols taken from Angolan traditional handcrafted textiles, adding warmth, strength and power to the various communication materials.

Client

Angolan Ministry of Culture

Antonia Gaeta (Deputy Curator)

Rita Gt (Commissioner)

Design

Non-verbal Club © 2015

INTERNATIONAL ARTS CENTER 
JOSÉ DE GUIMARÃES

CIAJG is an exhibition centre and a reflection platform on curating the contemporary art world. Looking for new ways to read the history of the arts, it places emerging artists side by side with traditional and popular works from different cultures. We have engaged with the design of the identity around the premises of layers, dimensions and links. Our intervention as designers and communicators should not try to translate the contents and themes of the exhibitions hosted by CIAJG into a graphic form, but rather to make room for the different artists and artwork to be potentiated by a visual structure. Its strength comes from its simplicity, in the way it allows content and curation to become protagonists.

Client

CIAJG – José de Guimarães

International Arts Center

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

© 2014

CCVF / GUICUL – DISPLAY & EDITORIAL
MATRIX FOR REGULAR EVENTS

After the European Capital of Culture in 2012 “A Oficina” inherited new structures and venues to manage alongside CCVF. A new communication matrix was needed that could work as an index of the Cultural activity throughout the city of Guimarães. We wanted the new system to be able to communicate an overall feel of each month's cultural programme, instead of isolating highlights of the major events by themselves. To visually translate these ideas, we’ve generated a long blank strip where the information of every event (text and images) would be placed at – sorted vertically by chronological order – and color coded. This strip was the basis for the design of every single material – posters, flyers, outdoors, tarps, etc – for either individual or groups of events. A crop or frame of the original strip would display not only the selected event, but a glimpse of what was  happening around the same time period.

Client

CCVF – Centro Cultural Vila Flor

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

© 2013

HORTA B – ORGANIC FARM

Horta B set up a beautiful farm in the north of the country aiming to grow Alpine Strawberries and Exotic culinary Herbs through traditional and organic methods. Their main clients are chefs and top tier restaurants (mostly abroad) that will only settle for the best quality. In that sense, we were asked to design the identity, website and packaging in a clean, cool and contemporary language, focusing on transmitting the natural and organic qualities of their products, without looking pretentious. 

Client

João Horta

Design

Non-verbal Club

© 2015

A OFICINA – GUIMARÃES CULTURAL

MANAGEMENT INSTITUTION

A Oficina is a municipal entity of the city of Guimarães responsible for the management of the several public cultural venues and institutions.  It is focused on keeping the city and its inhabitants integrated with a cultural programme ranging from a contemporary and international scene to the local traditions and crafts. It is also responsible for a theatre company (Teatro Oficina) whose plays are frequently exhibited across CCVF and other local venues.

Client

A Oficina

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

© 2004

INDUSE – PRODUCT AND

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Induse is a product design studio highly connected to the use of cutting edge technology in industrially produced products and objects. Its work is mostly focused on designing equipment for urban and public environments, having won several innovation and design awards through their futuristic yet friendly approach to objects and materials, and a serious preoccupation with an ecological and sustainable production.

Client

Induse

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

© 2008

NOTES FROM THE UNDERDOG

— URSA


“Notes from the Underdog / Anotações sobre o Abaixo de Cão looks at agricultural practices and the appropriation of space in the city of Porto, Portugal, and the different ways in which this phenomenon has manifested in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2011. The book recounts the stories of ten gardens and the people running them, who have resuscitated urban brownfield sites by growing fruits and vegetables as a source of food. To achieve this end, they have developed infrastructures like watering and irrigation systems and methods of cultivation, recycling, and composting, while also building storage structures and producing their own tools. Although the gardens are primarily about people providing for themselves, they also lend themselves to recreation and leisure activities.” — Spector Books

Authors

Alexandre Delmar

Joaquim Moreno

Margarida Quintã

Luís Ribeiro da Silva

Editor

John Wriedt

Publisher

Spector Books

Design

Nonverbal Club

Book Photography

Alexandre Delmar 

© 2021

RESILIENCE AND JOY

— PORTO ACADEMY


Resilience and Joy celebrates all guests, lecturers, tutors, participants, students and collaborators of Porto Academy's editions from 2013 to 2020. Edited by Amélia e Rodrigo (Architecture Matters) during a though year of 2020, the book counts with 100+ submissions from some of the most relevant practitioners of contemporary Architecture, displaying a delicate insight into the summer school's relation with its field, education and friendship.  The book is a 11x16cm, soft Swiss bound cover, 296 pages long testimony to it. 

Client

Porto Academy

Editors

Amélia Brandão Costa

Rodrigo Costa Lima

(Architecture Matters)

Publisher

Porto Academy

Index Newspaper

Design

Nonverbal Club

© 2021

I HAVE A WEAKNESS 

FOR A TOUCH OF RED

— YEHUDA SAFRAN


A collection of essays on Art, Architecture and Portugal written throughout the years by Yehuda Safran. As the author describes, this book compiles a "more than thirty-year love affair with Portugal, her culture, language and building arts."

Published by Lars Müller Publishers.

MOTOS DE PORTUGAL
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE


Motos de Portugal is an exhibition hosted by Casa do Design de Matosinhos honouring the production of Motorcycles in the country – from its origins in the late 19th century to its prime in the second half of the 20th. Over 80 Motorcycles were selected from several local collectors and exhibited together with related materials – helmets, signs, posters, magazines, instruction guides.

Emanuel Barbosa, a long time Motorcycle aficionado and collector, curated the exhibition with the support of esad—idea and we were commissioned to design its catalogue.

Client
Casa do Design de Matosinhos

Design
Non-Verbal Club

Exhibition Curators
Emanuel Barbosa

© 2018

TEATRO NACIONAL DE SÃO CARLOS
– 2017–18 PROGRAMME BOOK

PORTO ACADEMY 
2019

We've kept our collaboration with Porto Academy – a week intensive architecture summer school during 2019. This edition's newspaper kept a similar visual structure and approach to the previous publication adding the contributions developed during the parallel programme in Mexico around Barragán's work and legacy, resulting in a 40 pages color newspaper.

THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA
– TNSC OPERA LIBRETO

A THERMODYNAMIC IMAGINARY
TOMÁS SARACENO – MAAT

PORTO ACADEMY 
2018

Following the workshop we've coordinated and conducted during the 2017 edition of Porto Academy, we've realised we needed a smarter and practical strategy to showcase the studios' activity during the 2018 summer school. Rather than focusing on a in detail display of the students results separated in a booklet for each studio, we felt it would be better to reveal a panorama of the whole experience of Porto Academy as a week long intensive programme, where a diversified group of people work on different approaches to contemporary architecture problems and approaches. 

The result is a 32 pages newspaper, set in a three column grid, using strong typographic scale contrasts to create both rhythm and structure, leaving room for a very loose use of imagery while being able to hold together a very diversified set of contents.

BURILADA – ARTE-FACTOS
PARA A SOBREVIVÊNCIA


Curated by Francisco Providência and Helena Sofia Silva, Burilada is an exhibition about objects that are reconfiguring the contemporary material culture in Portugal, by merging design and traditional elements of craft – such as mediums, techniques and materials.

It also was the opening exhibition for Casa do Design de Matosinhos, a home for an open and critical discussion of the portuguese design culture, mostly achieved through curatorial processes. We were commissioned to design both the identity for the gallery and its first catalogue.

Client
Casa do Design de Matosinhos

Design
Non-Verbal Club

Exhibition Curators
Helena Sofia Silva
Francisco Providência

Editorial Management
Helena Sofia Silva
esad—idea

Aknowledgements
Álvaro Martino
(Book Photography)

© 2017

JOAN MIRÓ – MATERIALITY

AND METAMORPHOSIS

After a long decision process, the Joan Miró collection – owned by the Portuguese State – found a permanent home at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, in Porto. It contains roughly 80 works of the Catalan artist, mostly exploring processes of metamorphosis and transformations in Miró's language and mediums.

We were asked to design a classic and low tone catalogue, and therefore went with a modernist approach and style to display the work of a modernist artist, focusing the design decisions on making room for the texts and images to be easily read and understood, providing a calm environment for the artwork to be displayed.

Client
Serralves Museum of
Contemporary Art

Design
Non-Verbal Club

Editorial Management
Maria Ramos
Cláudia Gonçalves

Exhibition Curator
Robert Lubar Messeri

Book Photography
Álvaro Martino

© 2016

O TEMPO E O MODO PARA UM RETRATO
DA POBREZA EM PORTUGAL

After designing its newspaper, the exhibition catalogue presented itself as a very different challenge. It is a mixture of long academic essays and a highly diversified body of visual materials. We’ve decided to sequence them through interconnected sections in order to create an unified narrative, instead of separating all the texts from their image counterparts. The overall graphic tone of the book is straight, harsh and clear, but still managing to never become too bold throughout its 600+ pages. It aims to make the reader navigate through an active intellectual journey, providing different moods and challenges to generate a process of questioning regarding the current situation of the country, the lessons we can take from its history and past, and most important, the evident need for action and change in order to shape a better and fairer future.

The essays are divided in three different blocks: 1. Social Problem; 2. Political Answer; 3. Cultural practice; and were treated with a twisted layout in which the usual text hierarchies are reversed – what one usually expects to be displayed in a serif typeface appears in a bold grotesk font, and the same happens the other way around – supported by text notes on top of the page and, occasionally, integrating related imagery.

The image sections go through different moments: from the assembly of the exhibition; to an historic and iconographic timeline made with collected archive images and newspaper clips; a catalogue of the artwork on display through the exhibition; and finally a section of its disassembling.

Client
Plano Geométrico
Paulo Mendes
Design
Non-Verbal Club

© 2015

VENICE BIENNALE

PAVILLION OF ANGOLA

Our design premises for the communication of the Pavilion of Angola were centred on a strong sentiment of African invasion into an established european order. The catalogue’s structure was based on a different interpretation of the same approach. What is seen as a graphic interruption throughout the communication matrix was toned down and transformed into harsh cuts throughout the catalogue’s sequence, allowing the reader to percept changes in the catalogue's subjects, layout and even paper.

The whole sequence of the book was planned according to the narrative behind the curatorial choices for the exhibition – the passing of Antonio Ole’s legacy as a leading Angolan artist and culture agent to the new generations of emerging artists and agitators.

Client

Angolan Ministry of Culture

Antonia Gaeta (Deputy Curator)

Rita Gt (Commissioner)

Design

Non-verbal Club © 2015 

O TEMPO E O MODO PARA UM RETRATO
DA POBREZA EM PORTUGAL

This exhibition proposed a deep and serious reflection on the social consequences of poverty derived from the ever-growing unequal economic policies implanted in Portugal, warning its visitors to the urgency of becoming alert and promoting actions against an unsustainable social structure. The newspaper we've designed to be offered to the exhibition visitors is a rather unique piece. On one hand it is a mesh of contradictory graphic influences and styles from both the Portuguese dictatorial regime and the post-revolution period. On the other, it keeps a very harsh and monochromatic tone in order to reinforce the seriousness and urgency of the matters in discussion, and to mourn the economical and social situation the country has let itself into.

Client
Plano Geométrico
Paulo Mendes
Design
Non-Verbal Club

© 2015

HISTORY OF THE FUTURE /
HISTÓRIA DO FUTURO

More than resolving its information inconsistencies, this book confronted us with a higher challenge: the responsibility of addressing young people writing about the future. About their opinions and emotions, their hopes, fears and dreams. By drafting the history of the future, they were in fact expressing their personality and views on the contemporary world. This book is a testimony of the world voiced by the future expectations of its young generations, and one of the most surprising books we’ve designed.

Client

Guimarães 2012 European

Capital of Culture

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

© 2014

GUIMARÃES 2012 –
EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE

Guimarães 2012 commissioned us to design a piece for its opening event, contextualizing the institutional information and displaying the complete and detailed programme of events going on throughout the year.

We've responded to the brief with a 250 page Japanese binding book divided in 2 main chapters, to accentuate the idea of 'work in progress'. The first chapter – with an austere graphic look – works as an introduction to the European Capital of Culture, while the second – livelier and more energetic – presents a layout able to demonstrate a higher number of events and activities happening simultaneously.

Read more about the project in the case studies section.

Client

Guimarães 2012 European

Capital of Culture

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

Data Illustration

Ricardo Leite design

Developers

Nuno Baldaia

Kaué Costa developer

José Martino

Cover Illustration

Sofia Leite

Acknowledgements

Miguel Carvalhais

Fernando Cruz

© January 2012

PLI MAGAZINE #2–3 ENTHUSIASM

ESAD

This magazine is the result of an exploratory exercise concerning alternative narratives in print. Format, paper and sequence were used as tools to allow different articles to be contaminated by each other, similarly to the hyperlinked structures the web brought into our reading habits. The articles become shuffled and eventually blend – united by the themes but separated by their format. Our approach was similar when style is concerned, making it possible – by the turn of a page – for the reader to transform chaos into order, a magazine pagination into a book layout, zoom in to the photographic contents or change the magazine's graphic style according to the contents of the articles.

Client

ESAD, School of Art & Design

Matosinhos

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

Lettering

Hugo "Xesta" Moura

© 2012

UM PENSAMENTO DE PEDRA

Um Pensamento de Pedra is a deep research on historical graves and tombstones of the northern regions of Portugal, published by the Guimarães 2012 European Capital of Culture.

A serious and calm book, designed in a classic and comfortable way. Having a very limited budget to produce this book, the design accepted the terms surrounding the project, transforming its weaknesses into its strengths by carefully suiting the quiet graphic treatment to the sober tone of its contents.
 

Client

Guimarães 2012 European

Capital of Culture

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

© 2014

NOVAIS TEIXEIRA

O VIMARANENSE ERANTE

Novais Teixeira was a famous early twentieth century portuguese art critic, specialized in cinema. The challenge presented by this book was to create a biographic piece, crossing inspirations and technologies from the past and present. To achieve this goal we've developed a graphic approach resourcing to contemporary type compositions, fluorescent colours and a provocative binding, yet keeping the traditional book feeling.

As far as technology is concerned, this is one of our first books where we've put to use a concept that we've baptised as “interactive printing”. Through intelligent image recognition, we were able to transport printed information into multimedia devices, transforming the book into the interface for both printed and multimedia contents.

Client

Guimarães 2012 European

Capital of Culture

Design / Creative Direction

Atelier Martino&Jaña

© 2014

BIOGRAFIAS VIMARANENSES

This book addresses the lives of 12 historical personalities from the city of Guimarães. That makes it a book about biographies, one that remarks the role of individual landmarks in collective history, and therefore, a special piece. We took inspiration from the singular character of those stories and designed from there.

Visually, it is a false traditional book, in the way it displays an old style layout combined with a deviant fluorescent pink structure to display the notes. We’ve decided to make each book one of a kind by adding geometric compositions to the covers, directly made through the overlaying of silkscreen prints. For 1000 books there are 1000 different covers, and, in a way, 1000 different stories.

Client

Guimarães 2012 European

Capital of Culture

Design / Creative Direction

Atelier Martino&Jaña

Silkscreen printing by

Margarida Castel-Branco

© 2014

GUIMARÃES JAZZ

STRESSED VS. CENSORED

The book is designed with no cover, so the reader can jump straight into its contents, and made of two different parts, glued together and converted into a single and miscellaneous object. The first part contains an explanatory text regarding the festival, on a highly mechanic and typewritten style, keeping a constant play between highlighting and censuring information. The second presents the programme and further information regarding each artist / concert. In this part, there's a constant visual tension between display (gestual) and book (mechanic), neat & tidy vs blurry, typewriter vs halftone, full bleed vs balanced and white spaced.  

Jazz music is made out of tensions: between the musicians and the instruments, between the notes, the interpreters and the audience. That's what we want this book to feel like.

Client

CCVF – Centro Cultural Vila Flor

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

© 2013

INTERNATIONAL ARTS CENTER 

JOSÉ DE GUIMARÃES – JOURNAL

Parallel to the identity system, we have also designed an exhibition programme in the format of a newspaper for the museum opening. Again, white space is fundamental, and the visual elements are set on a low tone. We have resourced to a calm tension between images and type set on white boxes to add some spacial depth to this format, without compromising its etherial and light feel.

GUIMARÃES JAZZ - 20 YEAR 

COMMEMORATIVE BOOK

To celebrate the 20 years of the Guimarães Jazz festival, we were commissioned to design a retrospective book that would offer a review over what was achieved during that period of time, the crazy amount of brilliant artists that performed on those stages and the future expectations for the following years.

We've focused on two core features: a structure able to layout both solid blocks of text and floating points of typography  (such as in the titles and pull outs); and a very flexible grid for the images, making it possible to play on a high tone with big images, or provide faster rhythms with small images, playfully placed over large surfaces.

Client

CCVF – Centro Cultural Vila Flor

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

© 2011

GUIMARÃES JAZZ

2009 JOURNAL

In contrast to the posters we've designed for the 2009 festival, this newspaper is all about type perfection and layout control. We've created a classic revival object layed out with a bold structure and rigorous typography. Such strong pagination was softened with plenty of small details, revealing something new to the reader each time he/she decides to go through the object.

 The result is a classic editorial design piece that can certainly swing to some jazz grooves, and one of our most awarded projects.

Client

CCVF – Centro Cultural Vila Flor

Design

Atelier Martino&Jaña

© 2009

FÓRUM DO FUTURO 2019
– CROSSINGS / TRAVESSIAS 

(QUASE) TBA

PORTUGAL INDUSTRIAL
– PORTO DESIGN BIENNALE 2019