In an attempt to spark the familiar flame of innovation, you find yourself Googling keywords like “cool artwork” or “inspiring designs”. Sadly, these desperate attempts to revive your creative juices yield regurgitated and over-promoted results that fall just short of your expectations.

If you find yourself desperately trying to get past that creative road block, look no further: among their many readers suggestions, The Next Web (TNW) picked We Heart it as one of their favorites:

We Heart It allows its community to browse through a constantly updated photo gallery where users can “heart” the images that they discover through the service and add them to a list of bookmarked favorites.There are over 10 million images on We Heart It. You can search for your favorite topics and heart the images you like the most. Just move your mouse over the image and click on the heart icon. When it fills up, you hearted it!We Heart It is definitely a site popular among Tumblr users with an interest specifically in style or fashion illustration. I have, on more than one occasion, seen images pirated directly from We Heart It with sources uncredited. While this is obviously just bad practice, it is also a testament to how popular and inspirational images on We Heart It can be. In fact, it is nearly impossible for me to scroll through Tumblr without recognizing some sort of beautiful photo or shot from this service.

via The best places to find artistic inspiration online – TNW Apps.

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Bruno Porto, co-editor of BrazilianGraphicDesign.com, presents the website at the Sunhoo International Industrial Designers Forum (photo by Alessandro Rolandi)

The first Sunhoo Festival for Creativity and Innovation took place in the cities of Hangzhou, capital of the Zhejiang province, and FuYang from April 21-29 2011, gathering 35 design professionals from 18 countries in the five continents and an audience of 850 people. The event meant to explore the relationship between design, industry, art and technology through art installations in the LiuYing Garden at the West Lake and lectures at the Sunhoo International Industrial Designers Forum.

Three Brazilian design professionals were among the keynote speakers, featuring the work they’ve been conducting in China. Fashion designer Enesoe Chan presented the Summer collections he has been developing in Shanghai, mixing Brazilian and Chinese elements as wearable art; architect Cecilia Reichstul of Fernando Brandão Design presented their project for the Brazilian Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010; graphic designer and educator Bruno Porto showed how the Brazilian graphic arts have been promoted in China through exhibitions, workshops and publications (including BrazilianGraphicDesign.com), as well as his own design and consultancy projects.

Others speakers included Clive Roux, CEO of Industrial Designers Society of America; Soon-In Lee, president of the Seoul Design Center; Reiner Packeiser, head of exhibitions of the Vitra Design Museum; Swiss furniture designer Jonas Merian; Colombian new media researcher Andres Burbano, from UCSB; Lars Thoegersen, CEO of CPH Design Denmark; and architect Anu Leinonen of OMA / Rem Koolhaas.

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• New media & semiotics lecture in Shanghai
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• Brazilian illustration festival in China

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'Amor' by Daiana Santana / Ednaira Mendes / Leonardo Dias, from Oi Kabum! Escola de Arte e Tecnologia, Salvador

Brazilian graphic designer Felipe Taborda has curated an exhibition of posters at Warsaw’s Rampa Art Gallery and Poster Museum as part of Poland’s 22nd International Poster Biennale.

Titled ‘Kabum! Mix’, the exhibition is the culmination of a two-year project with the Brazilian Oi Kabum! schools of Art and Technology in Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Salvador and Belo Horizonte, sponsored by Oi Futuro.

The nine posters for 2008 series, produced by the students, in conjunction with French designer, Alain Le Quernec, were exhibited throughout the world to great acclaim. For the 2009 series, the students worked with local tutors and Mexican graphic designer, Alejandro Magallanes, creating posters based on the themes of ‘love’, ‘the future’ and ‘Aids’.

The 2009 posters were spread throughout Rio by Clear Channel, the company who administrates urban advertisement in the city.

via Kabum! Mix poster exhibition, Warsaw – Art – Wallpaper.com – International Design Interiors Fashion Travel.

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• Brazilian posters win 1st prize in Bolivia
• Brazilian posters for the Green Movement in Iran
• Discover the Brazilian Cinema
• Kiko Farkas poster exhibition in China

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Tupixel

Tupixel is a web-search tool for Brazilian and Brazil-based illustrators: it’s a starting “pixel” for those looking for drawings made in Brazilian lands. A work-in-progress (open to collaborations), the site covers a diverse and wide period of Brazilian visual arts, from Comics pioneer Angelo Agostini, who lived in São Paulo in 1860s, to the current generation of “100% digital” graphic artists.

Resulting from 12 years of research by graphic artist and illustrator Faoza, its database – the largest of its kind in Brazil – already has over 1,600 names. Among them, great masters of the past, professionals from many different styles and beginners of this art form so present in our day to day through newspapers, magazines, books, the web, packaging, fashion, advertising, comics, TV, cinema and alternative medias.

http://www.tupixel.com.br/

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Wallpaper's "Nascida no Brasil"

“For a few magical weeks, Wallpaper* magazine shifted its operational HQ to Brazil (…) to produce as true a portrait as possible of an extraordinary country at an extraordinary moment of transition”. Its printed “Born in Brazil issue has finally hit the shelves” but according to the editorial team “the pace of change in Brazil is too great to be pinned down in a single issue” so “over the coming weeks, Wallpaper.com will be keeping track by adding more news, videos, interviews and insights, to give you as wide a view as possible of the most exciting country on earth.”

Featuring the Campana Brothers, graphic designer Felipe Taborda, jewelery designers Antonio Bernardo and Livia Canuto, fashion designers/stylists Lenny Niemeyer and Oskar Metsavaht and architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, among others.

Check out http://www.wallpaper.com/borninbrazil

(via Wallpaper*)

Read Also:

• Felipe Taborda’s “Kabum! Mix” poster exhibition in Warsaw featured on Wallpaper.com
• Kiko Farkas poster exhibition in China
• Chinese design magazines will publish over 200 pages of Brazilian graphic arts in 2010
• Discover the Brazilian Cinema
• “Brazilian Design Classics”, according to UK’s the Guardian

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Lacoste Logo by Campana Brothers

Acclaimed Brazilian design duo Fernando and Humberto Campana – creators of the Favela Chair — redesigned the famous Lacoste logo for a special – and rather expensive – 2009 Collector’s Series of polo shirts. The redesigned logo illustrates the way crocodiles congregate in the wetlands of the Pantanal region. The shirts are being featured in Lacoste stores all over the world (pictured here the Nanjing Road store in Shanghai, where a polo shirts costs RMB1,780).

Lacoste Store at Nanjing Road, Shanghai

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• Chinese design magazines will publish over 200 pages of Brazilian graphic arts in 2010
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• 9th Brazilian Graphic Design Biennial in China

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Computer Arts Desktop Wallpaper: Adhemas Batista

Brazil’s creative output is currently under the international spotlight. Books are being written, exciting work is being commissioned and reputations are being made. So what’s going on? Has Brazil just been ‘discovered’, or are Brazilian designers doing something different to the rest of the world?

Brazil is South America’s largest economy. It has borders with every other state on the continent bar Chile and Ecuador, its rainforest still harbours tribes of the last indigenous Indians, and back in 2002 it elected Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – one-time shoe-shine boy – as its president.

Brazil is an amazing place, yet we still know it best as the home of football, bikinis and Samba – it must seem a bit unfair to the locals. “Well, we do have a lot of football, girls in bikinis and Samba!” says Danilo Oliveira of graphics co-op Base-V.

Oliveira is from São Paulo, so would the answer be different further inland? Hop north-east to Belo Horizonte and you’ll find designer, typographer and illustrator Eduardo Recife. “People see Brazil as a jungle filled with naked girls,” he says, “but we have a very rich culture.” And when the rest of the world wakes up and smells the coffee, Brazilian design will take centre stage.

Nando Costa, the man behind Die Gestalten Verlag’s Brasil Inspired, spent five years working in the US, which has given him perspective. “As long as people recognise that the country has a lot more to offer, it doesn’t really bother us.”

The world is waking up to Brazilian design. “Lately, with all the hype around Brazilian culture, more and more designers have been working as freelancers, both for the local and the overseas markets,” says Costa.

This is healthy, but it’s leading to the creative equivalent of a brain drain. “More and more professionals are leaving the country, which is really sad,” says Costa. But there is a silver lining: “It’s always really great to have the experience and then later, if they want, they can go back to their home town and help take the market a bit further.”

There are many designers doing just that. Base-V recently completed a giant wall installation in São Paulo, Eduardo Recife has just finished a series of stills for HBO’s ‘Assume the position’; and since last December Nando Costa has been busy working on a series of 30 packaging illustrations for software giant Microsoft.

The rise of street art and graffiti is nowhere more prominent than on the streets of Brazil’s cities. “The influence is big – from fashion to animation,” agrees Oliveira. And even the official art market is beginning to open up: “Spaces and galleries with a specific interest in ‘street language’ are opening, particularly in São Paulo.”

“Brazil is a place of high contrast, and that’s very inspiring for an artist,” says Costa. “Chaos has always been inspiring, but it also instigates more thoughts about what one can do to change poverty, violence and other issues.” Art can make a difference, but as Oliveira points out, “It’s a very hard struggle because artists here have to fight for their space in the market.”

Eight Brazilian design talents you should be keeping your eyes on:
Mariana Bukvic
Based in São Paulo, interactive art director Mariana Bukvic is an example of Brazil’s outward facing designers. She has worked for many prestigious clients such as Nike, Coke and Nestlé, and has been honoured with numerous awards from the Cannes Cyber Lions to the D&AD.

Buraco de Bala
This studio has come a long way since its launch back in 1999 – always striving to develop the best solution within its powers, no matter what technique the team uses in order to accomplish its goals. Buraco de Bala works are mostly fuelled, “by craftsmanship and a special taste for the classic techniques and references.”

reismagos
Reismagos is a graphic design studio created by Alline Luz and Daniel Gizo. Since 2004 the pair have worked on commercial and experimental projects for national and international clients. Although this piece is about the 2006 World Cup, “Now we’re into designer toys – something quite unknown in Brazil,” says Gizo.

Flávio de Almeida Hobo
“My approach is analogical plus digital,” says Flávio de Almeida Hobo. Humans are “analogical beings” using digital tools. “The lack of money spent on projects here makes creativity essential. Less business, respect for nature and do the work with sincerity. Design can save the world.”

Yomar Augusto
Graphic artist Yomar Augusto has been published around the globe. From Brazil to China, The Netherlands to Russia, his work is highly respected. In 2004, Yomar was involved in two Rojo Magazine ArtStorm projects, where 18 artists from all over the world brainstormed a huge project based in Barcelona and Berlin.

Rogério Lionzo
Brazilian designer and illustrator Rogério Lionzo is making the world a better place with the gift of colour and form. The young artist is chuffed with his progress so far: “I am lucky enough to have great experiences and opportunities so far in my career.”

Nitrocorpz
The four founders of Nitrocorpz have been working together since graduating in 1998. “We do interactive media, illustration, print and motion work. Most of our work is done through email/IM.” Other projects include www.mixtape.nitrocorpz.com and www.neuralbrand.org.

Andre Matarazzo
Born in São Paulo, Andre Matarazzo travelled extensively throughout the world for 12 years, got upset with the state of online design in Brazil and decided to move back and launch gringo.nu. He is focused on online branding solutions.

via Computer Arts – Viva Brasil.

Read Also:

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• Chinese design magazines will publish over 200 pages of Brazilian graphic arts in 2010
• Roots: Wollner, Alexandre (1928)
• Brazilian posters for the Green Movement in Iran

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Leonard Eyer at the Netherlands Photo Museum

Brazil Contemporary is an overview exhibition compiled by the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and the Netherlands Photo Museum. These three institutions have joined forces to introduce to the general public Brazilian artists, architects, photographers and designers.

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen presents a survey of the contemporary art of Brazil. The work of Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980) occupies pride of place. Oiticica considered that Brazil should not just passively undergo and imitate Western influences, but that artists should transmute these influences into a uniquely Brazilian culture. According to Bregje van Woensel, curator of the exposition at Boijmans, contemporary Brazilian art is characterised by a highly-structured and controlled approach to material and design. The exhibition shows to what extent today’s artists are still under the influence of Oiticica, with works by Ernesto Neto, Rivane Neuenschwander, Cao Guimaraes and Ricardo Bassbaum.

Thanks to the work of Oscar Niemeyer, Lúcio Costa and Roberto Burle Marx, twentieth-century Brazil developed a surprisingly unique urban modernism. It “was sentenced to the future”, as phrased by Paul Meurs, who compiled the exposition on São Paulo in the NAI.

The Netherlands Photo Museum zooms in on the rapidly changing Brazilian visual culture with its mixture of high and low, elitist and populist, artistic and applied. The exhibition shows not only photography, but also other old and new media, television and internet, with an panorama on fashion and graphic design, featuring the work of — among others — Marcelo Martinez and Leonardo Eyer.

via Surprising Brazilian art in Rotterdam | The Power of Culture.

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• Brazilian posters for the Green Movement in Iran

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1. THE FAVELA CHAIR
Despite its name – the “shantytown chair” – the Campana brothers‘ Favela Chair became a defining piece of Brazilian design with a price tag to match when it was launched in 2003. Reputedly made out of the same wood used to construct shacks in the ramshackle city districts, this design classic sells for just under $4,000.

2. THE HAVAIANA FLIP FLOP
Invented in 1962 the Havaiana, a rubber flip-flop, spent nearly 40 years as an unremarkable but commonplace component of the Brazilian wardrobe. Suddenly at the end of the 1990s the Havaiana took off as an international fashion accessory worn by top models across the globe such as Naomi Campbell. Havaiana’s international sales are said to be doubling each year. In Rio the lowly Havaiana costs around R$10 (£2). In Europe they have been known to fetch around £100.

3. OSCAR NIEMEYER’S CONGRESS BUILDING
Erected at the end of the 1950s, Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer’s Congresso Nacional, the Congress Building in Brazil’s capital Brasília, remains his most celebrated work, often compared to two white flying saucers. Mixing the sweeping convex and concave lines for which he became famous, the building is one of the most recognisable symbols of Brazilian architecture.

4. THE DENTAL FLOSS BIKINI
Known in South America as fio dental or “dental floss”, the Brazilian bikini is also begrudgingly held up as a design classic, widely embraced on the country’s beaches. The dental floss bikini was not always a unanimity, however. In 1961 president Janio Quadros outlawed the tiny fashion item from Rio’s beaches. He lasted just seven months in power.

5. THE TUTTI FRUTTI HAT
Carmen Miranda, Brazil’s most famous singing export, is to this day one of the defining fashion icons to emerge from Brazil. Born in Portugal, “the lady in the tutti-frutti hat”, as she became known, moved to the US in 1939 where her colourful, fruit-laden costumes became a seminal creation, referenced to this day by Brazilian designers.

via Inside Brazil: Brazilian design classics | From the Guardian | The Guardian.

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Think Brazilian design and the first things that spring to mind may well be plastic flip-flops and minuscule beachwear.

But there is more to Brazilian style than Carmen Miranda‘s fruit basket headgear, and a new generation of Brazilian designers, mostly based in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, are pushing the boundaries of South American fashion, art and architecture.

Inspired by themes as diverse as urban disorder, impoverished sugar cane cutters, the Amazon rainforest and even the gothic movement, Brazil’s young designers are charting new territory and winning accolades the world over.

Last year the Brazilian clothing industry made $34.6bn, making it the world’s sixth largest textile producer and responsible for 3.5% of Brazil’s GDP. Some $2.4bn of that revenue came from exports[...]

via Inside Brazil: Brazilian design | From the Guardian | The Guardian.

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Website of "Discover the Brazilian Cinema"

The Discover the Brazilian Cinema poster exhibition was presented in Art Scene Gallery in Shanghai from June 15-27, 2007 featuring original posters by 30 Brazilian visual artists and 10 Chinese visual communication students.

The exhibition was curated by Billy Bacon and Bruno Porto on the occasion of the 10th Shanghai International Film Festival, which honored Brazil with a special film selection named Mostra Foco Brasil.

Artists:
André Stolarski
Batman Zavareze
Billy Bacon
Bruno Porto
Claudio Reston ‘Haroldinho’
Daniel Bueno
Eduardo Denne
Felipe Muanis
Manifesto (Guto Lins / Adriana Lins / Fernando Arruda)
Itamar Medeiros
Kako
José Bessa ‘Elesbão’
Leonardo Buggy
Leonardo Eyer
Lilian Granado
Marcello Rosauro
Marcelo Martinez
Marck Al
Mariana Ochs
Orlando Pedroso
Rafael Ferreira
Rafo Castro
Renato Faccini
Ricardo Cunha Lima
Ruth Klotzel
Walter Vasconcelos
Yomar Augusto
Ziraldo

Students (Raffles Design Institute – Shanghai)
‘Allen’ / ‘Gavin’ / ‘Joe’
Irene Kuswardi
‘Jimmy’
‘Sam’
‘Sanal’
Stephen Tedjakusuma
‘Terry’
‘Zoe’

This exhibition, accompanying the Focus on Brazil (the Brazilian film exhibition taking place within this week’s tenth Shanghai International Film Festival) is a true visual carnival. The idea was to take forty designers, artists, illustrators, and photographers spanning all generations and regions of Brazil, and ask them to create an original collection of posters for famous Brazilian films. The collection in turn aims to introduce China, a country with an equally distinctive cultural flavor, to the richness and beauty that Brazilian cinema has to offer.

Ziraldo's poster for "Discover Brazilian Cinema" exhibition

Naturally green and yellow, the colors of the Brazilian flag, are widely incorporated in the designs, which includes interpretations of a projection room light by Shanghai based Itamar Medeiros and São Paulo visual designer André Stolarski. In others, symbols such as classic 1950s 3D effect glasses, tourist sights, film, draft beer glasses, folkloric or movie characters, cameras, and a dragon are all juxtaposed to create a series of reflections on what defines Brazilian film. One of the most arresting design comes from national legend Ziraldo, who has worked as an illustrator, graphic designer, children’s book author, playwright, and talk show host for over 50 years. His poster presents a face with a Mona Lisa smirk and an open eye appearing as the Brazilian flag.

If the sum of all the parts seems to be cobbled together in a rather haphazard fashion, that’s the beauty of it. It’s exactly the mix and clash of colors, ideas, traditions, and artists that makes this collection so striking.

(SH Magazine, June 2007)

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• Luiz Carlos Barreto lifetime achievements highlighted in the New York Times
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• London Design Festival’s “Brazil Illustrated”, featuring Bruno Kurru, Wagner Pinto and Eduardo Recife

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