Cristina Pais - My Antitype

I'm interested in the theme of my dissertation that is about the power of brands and how they influence us as consumers to buy their products. This is mostly based on their corporate identities and publicity, looking for a particular audience. They don't want to sell to everyone but to a particular public "their public". Therefore, they rely on design to show their personalities or brand identities. Then, we'll buy their product if we feel identified with the brand, to show something about us to the rest (Argos' public is different than Heals', Benji's is different from Starbucks, etc.). This make people feel that they belong to a particular group, and this is something that, according to my research, humans need.

I aim to challenge myself and forget about my own personal style when designing, using as many others as I can. With this I would like to reach different audiences, not just the public that share my taste and feel identified with what I produce.

The outcome will consist of different illustrations that won't look cristina at all. (To help people who don't know my work to understand this I'll have previous work showing my own personal style.) I will combine images and type and, at the end, they will take the shape of a book or a huge poster with all my antitype illustrations -you wouldn't guess I made them.

With this I want to explore my design skills and see if I'm able to forget about my style, and adapt my design skills to many different others. (The fact that is not my own personal style doesn't mean that I don't like the others, I just don't feel identified with them.)

I will try different techniques that I wouldn't normally use (like watercolour or collage) and this will show variety in my portfolio. I'll also use Fontlab and different printing options.