After São Paulo city officials ordered graffiti cleanup crews to leave work by Os Gemeos and other famous São Paulo street artists alone, art collective and magazine Rojo asked the city’s Urban Development Department to allow them to tap artists like Tofer and MWM Graphics to help spice up drab concrete structures across the city. “It was the first time they’ve allowed it,” says Zagg Guimaraes, Rojo’s associate director in Brazil. “We’re trying to make the city more beautiful.” Dubbing the operation RojoOut, the public art exhibit continues a similar three-year project in Barcelona that they started in 2006 [...]

The Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, the Franz Mayer Museum, the National Association of Schools of Graphic Design (Frame), the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes and the Mexican Council for Accreditation of Program Design (Comaprod) are bringing the 9th Brazilian Graphic Design Biennial to Mexico, with lectures by André Stolarski and Chico Homem de Melo [...]

Graphic designer Alexandre Wollner will lecture on November 5 at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, during the “Visual Communication” conference. In the lecture — part of the “Distinguished Lecture Series” of the School of Art, Design and Media, Wollner will present his own work and discuss the history of design, its origins, evolution, influences, creative process, practice and principles in the context of Brazilian culture [...]

What makes a world-class designer? It’s a simple question and yet once we started compiling this list we realised it’s not at all simple to answer. Is it about pushing boundaries or holding fast to traditional principles? Should the body of work be judged on aesthetics or usability? Is fame or notoriety important, or just a distraction? Ultimately, .net tried to balance all these considerations and more, and picked 20 figures who we all feel act as a beacon of inspiration to web builders everywhere: A graphic and web designer from Brazil, Fabio is co-founder of design studio, 3YZ and can also be found at www.abduzeedo.com, a blog recording his ventures through the design world [...]

Artist and poet José Francisco Borges (J. Borges) was born in 1935 in the village of Bezerros, Pernambuco state, in Northeastern Brazil. Today Borges is Brazil’s best-known folk artist working in the woodcut medium, and his work has been exhibited all over the world. But he comes out of a long tradition of folk poet/artists who publish their own work in the form of small (generally about 6″ by 9″) cheap chap-books or pamphlets written in verse, known as folhetos. They are also known as literatura de cordel after the way vendors sell them in the marketplace, hanging over a string. Working with just a knife and a chunk of wood, Mr. Borges proves that ”low-level technology often yields very powerful, moving and sophisticated results” [...]

Rogério Duarte started his career as a graphic designer in the 1960s. He had begun his formation in this area by taking the experimental course offered by Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro MAM-RJ [ Rio de Janeiro's Modern Arte Museum]. He worked with Aloísio Magalhães between 1961 and 1962. He is famous for his collaborations with the musicians of the Tropicália movement, especially Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, his book covers and movie posters. In the latter field, he designed the poster of the movie “Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol” (1965) of Glauber Rocha, one of his most famous works.

By producing work rich with feeling and a growing sense of sophistication, Brazil has begun to turn up the creative heat. According to Computer Arts magazine, the world of graphic design is waiting to see what happens next [...]

Hélio Oiticica (Rio de Janeiro, 1937 – idem, 1980). Together with his brother, César Oiticica, he began studying painting and drawing with Ivan Serpa at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro – MAM/RJ [Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro], in 1954. He took part in the Opinião 66 [Opinion 66] and Nova Objetividade Brasileira [New Brazilian Objectivity], presenting the Tropicália environmental demonstration. In 1969, at the Whitechapel Gallery, in London, he realised what he called the Whitechapel Experience, presenting the Éden [Eden] project. For most of the 1970s, he lived in New York, during which period, he was a visiting scholar of the Guggenheim Foundation, taking part in the Information show, at the Museum of Modern Art – MoMA. He returned to Brazil in 1978. After his death, the Projeto Hélio Oiticica [Hélio Oiticica Project] was created in Rio de Janeiro, in 1981, with the aim of preserving, analysing and promoting his work, under the direction of Lygia Pape, Luciano Figueiredo and Waly Salomão [...]

Brazil’s productivity growth outstrips the US and Mexico is rivaling India for outsourcing. Rhymer Rigby says Latin America’s emergence is built on quality and creativity. Check out what else did Design Council Magazine said about Brazil’s economy [...]

The Museum of Modern Art’s Design Store has been running regionally-sourced collections in their retails shops and online. Currently they’ve got an excellent array of products from Korea, and next up they’ll be bringing work from Brazil. The collection focuses on locally sourced materials—many of them environmentally-minded—like coconut, eucalyptus, and Brazilian white clay. The objects range in scale from small jewelry and vases to stools and even a large lounge chair designed by the Campana Brothers [...]