Teatro Nacional São João

Poster designs for Teatro Nacional São João in Porto from 2013-2015. Designed in collaboration with Joana Monteiro. Before we started working with the theatre, the designer was João Faria, who had set the tone for the posters with some really bold graphic work, so we tried to continue the approach but in our own way. We decided to continue with the basic grid, that used Gotham from Hoefler & Frere-Jone, but to introduce a different type family for the display type. This was around the time that I was still involved with Clube dos Tipos and I was quite influenced by the wood type grotesques that I had used in Camberwell's letterpress workshop. We chose Beckett by A2 Type, which is based on wood type and of course makes a subtle reference to theatre. This type gave us a lot of possibilities for combining different widths and weights so we could have a typographic continuity between posters, but really have fun with the type at the same time. We even had a set of stamps made of one of the medium fonts so that we could use them to make typographic illustrations for the programs. When we stopped working with the theatre, João Guedes and Andre Cruz (Dobra) took over and went on to produce some great poster designs over the next few years.