Introducing: Estudio Pum

New signing Estudio Pum shares with us their breadth of work, design thinking and varied approach on tackling projects.

Amidst the doom and gloom of 2020 we signed the supremely talented Estudio Pum to our roster. Pum is a graphic design studio based in Barcelona and São Paulo and do pretty much everything including; business proposals, illustration, branding, lettering, character design, packaging, print and animation. It’s an impressive list which has led to an equally impressive range of clients the likes of which include; Airbnb, Havaianas, Google, HSBC and Samsung (to name a select few).

Pum sees design as an experience and a learning process, that can be beautifully made. We’re here to learn all about it.
So how did you get started as a studio? What were you doing before?

Around the age of 27, people tend to say that they want to create something of their own but don’t put the work in by spending their ‘resting hours’ on these projects. After having more than a few frustrations working at ad agencies with clients we couldn’t relate to, we discovered that we were pretty good at motivating and inspiring each other. So we decided to take action.

After we decided to do something together, we started to meet after work until late at night to create what we now call Estudio Pum. It’s funny how a few business cards, a website and a shitty logo can get you moving in the right direction. The idea of creating Pum and working together on a daily basis brought us back to our college environment of learning, improving and discovering.
How would you describe what you do now? Pum is a graphic design and illustration studio, based in Brazil and Spain. We are both graphic designers by formation, illustrators by passion and we use design methods to create brands, objects or anything that relies on a visual appeal to it. We use illustration as a tool to ours or our client’s needs.
How would you describe your approach to illustration projects? Does this differ to other artists?

I think what makes us different is that we are both designers and illustrators so most of our work reflects that. If we’re designing a brand, chances are that this brand will carry illustrations as part of their message. And when we just illustrate we understand that it’s not ONLY our visual style that defines us, but how we come up with these illustrations. For instance, helping the client to discover what they need or making work that will help them not only to print an ad, but to position their brands towards illustrations.
Can you describe your approach to the GOL project? GOL is the most famous airline company in Brazil who are accustomed to working with illustration in their portfolio. After a few years of using the same artwork, the company and the agency wanted to update their style and they brought us in as part of that renewal.
One of the challenges of this project is that, in a company as big as GOL with a daily marketing campaign, you need to create a system that can be replicated on a large scale by others. Also, to keep delivering quality after the 50th illustration it’s always a challenge not only to us but the client too.
You created a huge number of assets for the Havaianas ‘Let’s Summer’ project. Could you tell us a bit about this project? How it came about, what the process was like?

An agency brought us to this process of creating the new face of Havaianas 2019. We ran style tests for their presentation and once this was approved, we began what became 6 months of continuous work. Despite each key visual having its own scenario filled with illustrations, like Japan or a pool party, most of these illustrations were used separately in stores and media. That gave the client a lot of material to work with. Also, every frame had its own lettering, that is why the campaign was more like an invitation for the summer.

The agency totally had our back on this one, since everything that came to us in sketches were already approved. So we knew that on that spot they needed a guy playing guitar in the streets of Barcelona, for instance. It was a great project to work on.
Any favourite projects? I guess the biggest and the smallest projects are our personal favourites. GOL Airlines as the biggest, because it showed our maturity as a studio as well as our range and ability to solving bigger issues with bigger clients. Also, a personal project called Wooden as the smallest. We used small parts of furniture to create simple characters. Some of these characters became rattles and we played songs with them. Then, everything was sold, bye bye wooden toys and we never created them again, despite people asking us to. I don’t know, but there is something in the birth and death of this project that we related with a lot.
What are your ambitions as a studio? What kind of work would you like to be doing? Any dream clients? We just want to be in more places and to keep creating and learning at the same time. We’re sure that this is a formula that will lead us to bigger things from where we are now. It’s worked so far!


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