Art Direction and Photography — 2014
The Coffee Shop Series are uncommon short stories featuring ‘Carol’, a young girl returned
to Portugal after studying Visual Arts in New York. While trying to decide which art to master,
Carol faces some unusual and surreal episodes in coffeeshops around Porto and Lisbon.
The new visual identity arises alongside with a challenging new season, made to work together
and create an exciting new whole universe fulfilled with music and creativity. It is intended to celebrate and recognize the complex protagonist Carol as the axis of a fleeting small world created in her image. A world that turns around her, changing at every moment and molding
itself under a cluster of different scenes, dialogues and characters.
The Coffee Shop Series visual identity strengthens the conceptual value of the series key
elements and decompose them in the form of icons. Although the idea of a television series
seems limiting, the game here is to take advantage of a grid of icons and use it as some
kind of puzzle. While simulating forms and emotions of the series, it gives us the freedom
to imagine and play with surprisingly new situations.
Also throughout the identity, there’s a photography-vector duality, reinforcing the parallelism
between the idea of the character as central and irrefutable and her surrounding world,
as fickle and dissimilar as The Coffee Shop Series series world.
There’s a greater awareness of the series as a corporate brand, as The CSS logo
and color palette arise as a culmination of its visual development. A stamp form as an unique
and unpretentious brand mark that celebrates the title and the series as a particular little world.
Also under a range of colors that absorbs its own tones, scenes and environments.The promo images below are created devoid of sets and backgrounds, reinforcing the idea of a game
of pieces where Carol is the axis, and contrasting the shooting scenes, filled with color and action.
As a result of all this, the concept and layout of the website underwent to ensure the contrast between those acting images and to undertake a more corporate approach of the brand
The Coffee Shop Series, taking advantage of conceptual photos — where the icons take
shape in undressed sets — under a vivid and thick range of colored layers.
The Coffee Shop Series is featured in Infinite Icons book by Gingko Press/Sandu Publishing
Visual concept and Photo treatment in collaboration with the talented Maria Silva. Many thanks!
