We asked, Gustavo Netto — the winner of our Yes We Kern contest — a couple of questions to learn a little more about this young Brazilian designer.
Gustavo is a young designer from a small town in Brazil (Viçosa, MG). Viçosa, is about 5,000 miles from Chicago.
Tell us about yourself, how did you get into design?
To tell you the truth, I never planned on working as a designer, it just happened. When I was younger, I really wanted to work in movies, but I ended up as an Architecture student at Viçosa’s Federal University (Universidade Federal de Viçosa).
In college, many friends started to ask me for help with design of logos, banners and all kinds of stuff. I always liked drawing and since I already knew how to work with some graphic software (corel draw, illustrator and photoshop), these jobs started popping up a lot! Soon, I was doing freelance and last year I got hired at Std1, where I work part time. I graduate at the end of this year (2009), after that I hope to pursue a graduate degree in Graphic Design ELISAVA (Escola Superior de Disseny) in Barcelona.
Who are your design heroes?
Being a self-taught designer, that’s really hard to answer. On the internet, I always see one amazing job after another and it’s hard to remember everyone’s names. So, I don’t really have a “hero”.
However, every time I need some good inspiration, I find great works at the Estúdio Alice website. They have wonderful illustrations and sometimes they add typographic elements to the designs. There’s also the Funnel team, specializing in info-graphics (something I have been studying a lot lately). You can see other cool sites I use as reference on my delicious page.
How was your process for designing the “yes we kern” winning tee?
I tried to create a design that was simple and creative at the same time… I chose Arial—one of the most known fonts in the world—and started playing with kerning. My objective was that the type lines of the words “Yes We” completed each other, becoming a unique drawing. Then I added some spaces to help out with the legibility and finished the design with the word “kern” written upsidedown to break the symmetry.
What do you want to do with the proceeds from the sales?
I would like to send 100% of the proceeds to a small theater company in my hometown of Ituiutaba, MG: Teatro Vianinha. They are a small, but very active part o the cultural scene in Viçosa.
Here is where Gustavo has been sharing his work.
