Interview with Joana Júdice

We could all live without design, poetry, cinema and art in general but we wouldn't live so happily and with the passion we do when we are surrounded by art and beautiful things. I love the meaning behind each object, business, act, clothes, products... so I have always wanted to be part of the team who gives the meaning to each little thing that happens in the world. And those people are the creatives, the publicists, the designers... Design is about how to tell a story and how do you choose to make people live that story with you.

I did choose to be a designer but I think I was already born to do it anyway.

I have designed too many different things until now: a lot of corporate design which might seem more boring or restricted but it is actually a very interesting challenge to think how to be different and still be abble to fill in; I have done identity brand design and webdesign as well as mobile design. Interior Design is something that I love too as well as product design specially when it is about furniture because I do share a special passion about architecture too. From now on I wish I could be abble to focus my career on webdesign and brand identity because despite the designing part I want to be a Creative director and manage different solutions to different clients and challenges.

Well I am not a legend designer but I hope to become one one day. This award is a first step to achieve it. But, as a young designer too, I do think that all of us should think about work hard, be very attentive to every little detail, do not be happy with just a médium result and always search for perfection in every job we take. It is important to know ourselves as designers and creatives; to be aware of what we do differently, what is the characteristics that define our work even if it is done in very different environments and for completely different clients. There's always something similar about what you do and everyone else should be abble to say "Joana did this" while looking at something that I did. To sumarize: give everything that you have everytime you do something and be different having always in mind what you are and what you believe. Never stop learning, search for more information and knowledge all the time and with everyone, be humble and accept opinions and keep yourself up to date and up to the work of other good designers too.

For me, a Smart Design. The hability to put in your work more than one form of art. To know exactly what is the communication that each design is pursuing and give a product that fullfills the purpose and tells the right story. A designer that it is so good with colors as with words and combines it all in disruptive and completely different ideas.

Well as I said before, each person has a different taste but in the end we can all agree when we look at a very good design because that design is serving the purpose of communication. It is not a great design if it is very beautiful but no one can understand the storytelling. Design is communication so it needs to be pleasant and beautiful but each aesthetic choice needs to be consistent and serve a communication purpose itself.

Well let's say that one company is a life. One life is guided by the heart that pulses blood to your body and mind. If you take the heart the body dies. Design and Communication is the heart and soul of a company. If you don't invest in your soul and your heart the whole body will just die. Another way to put it (less deep but covering another important part of design role within a brand) is thinking about the expression "dress for the job you want to". The design or brand identity is the first impression of anything to the public. It is the possibility you have to receive extra communication from someone or to be completely forgotten. Do you want people to look for your brand, do you want people to say that your company is awfull or do you want people to don't even notice that you exist? All of this is promoted and achieved with good or bad design, good or bad identity brand.

If I had time I would design to every little company and business which have no idea at all what this field is about, don't have Money to invest and actually have a product itself that it is good but simply don't know how to communicate it or promote it in a way that people can be interested enough to try it. I would design everything to everyone in order to make our world a better and more readable book.

A very very big exhibition which combines photography, documentary, poetry, interior design and space concept... all conected in order to tell a very beautiful story about South America.

I get very inspired by a lot of different Works which I search for every day but I don't necessarily look to the designer name who did it. But there's one designer that I follow his work and he has won one A'Silver Design Award too. His name is Luan Gjokaj and I find him so perfectly balanced and detailed. His work is always so clean, so clear and so focus. That is something that admire in him besides his amazing career and Creative spirit. He is a consistent designer and a solid Creative mind. Despite him there are some artists that inspire me in general not necessarily related with design but art: Shantell Martin; Vihls; Banksy; Marc Jacobs; Dominique Petrin; Sami Musa; Danny Ivan

Campo alle Comete Website; Confess Your Love 360 Website; Prime IT brand and website (Burocratik portfolio); Phive wesite - Balanced, dynamic, simple, focus on great image power, smart

I think my greatest design until now was the interior visual design I did for Smart Consulting by drawing all the vinils to our offices because it was a very Creative and challenged design to do which took a lot of my creativity skills. The final result is very balanced, with a great color panel, combining the main identity of the brand and a great disruptive storrytelling at the same time. (Among with that work it is this website which won a Golden Award) Why do I think it is the greatest? Because everyone that comes to the office never forgets our space and company anymore. And with a positive memory of it.

Learn, learn, learn. Observe, observe, observe. Practice, practice, practice. Fail, fail, fail. Think, think, think. Try, try, try. It is all about the journey. You just fail if you try and if you fail you learn something already. Pick that lesson and make it usefull for your next work and for your career. Everything that you do is a lesson to learn and not a prize to keep forever. There are never finish jobs or perfect solutions. Design is something in construction and your work it is always in construction too. Make questions? Doubt about yourself and about your work.

Design is an open window in a world of closed doors.

My parents

Work hard and never be afraid of beeing myself and putting myself trully in what I do.

Bad sallaries and a lot of hours of work

How they would present themselves.

I'm finishing a very big Project of webdesign for a beautiful Social Organization. In the future, expect something big, I want to change many pre-concepts and revolutionate the world in a way that people will find themselves in the middle.

Change the world.

To make their life easier and more pleasant.

Making it simple and usable.

The website I told you about.

Every Project that I did because there's always something special in each client and Project and it is always a interesting challenge to be abble to find what other person (or people) want and deliver a good solution to eachh situation. I really liked to create my own logo and right now I am working on my personal website and that's an exciting Project that will be out soon on www.joanajudice.com

I think design as everything else has stages and in each stage everyone follows the same rules at the same time. Despite the creativity of each designer to make it personal and different to each cliente I think we should have less orientations and become the trip more free and open to everything. Also, I would like to see less companies and designers offering free Templates so that we wouldn't have so many equal designs and each design would be thought for each cliente specifically and we could achieve a more exclusive stage in design field.

In the interaction with the user in a way that even the user will be abble to interfere and create different environments in his usability of the product. The design path is following maximum customization and user interaction with the platforms and products.

It can be one hour, one day, one week or months. It depends how big it is the Project and how complex the challenge.
But I am very very fast having ideas and giving life to them.

I start by understanding who is the public which is going to consume my design; what do I want to communicate and After I am sure about all of that I have to understand if my cliente as already any idea of what he wants or not. Listen carefully to what he says to me and just after that I start my brainstorming to design/sketch some ideas and find solutions to the problema presented.

Keep calm and don't think you have your final product ever because you will change it so many times and you will find after (sometimes) that it got better!

Both. Everth art form is part of the process of changing the world and follow the change around.

To make it possible and alive.

I use Adobe Creative Cloud at home and at the office. At home I work as a freelancer with a mac, at my work (office) unfortunately I have a Windows laptop.

A huge role. Color is the life and the soul of design and the materials are the difference between something cute or something very very good designed. The materials set the profissionalism of your work and the ambient is vital for the consistent mensage and good communication. If you fail in the ambient you can't create a strong and consistent identity brand and your design will fail.

Anything but "What did you want to express with your design?" or "What did you want to communicate?"

Rainbows; stars and colors... I feel very happy.

Yes I think it is a very rich way to achieve very good designs by putting together two Creative minds that are compatible and complimentary. For me someone that doesn't get offended, knows how to think and how to share he/she's thoughts, is abble to think before doing and is open to brainstorm and find the best solution despite if it was his/her idea or not.

My father.

The design of everyday things

By trying but specially by thinking before doing it.

I have two different directors who I would love to meet, talk and discuss with: Roberto Benigni and Dan Fogelman. Why? In very different ways they have created a masterpiece that is so human, so deep and so beautiful that has to come from a genius and very beautiful and rich mind. I am talking about the movie of Roberto Benigni "Life is Beautiful" and the TV serie of Dan Fogelman "This is Us".

I don't consider myself famous but someone who Works a lot and had the deserved recognition for her work. If it is hard? Well, this interview was quite hard to finish but despite that it feels mostly good to be recognized and to see my masterpiece being validated by a lot of people that are much better and more experienced than me.

Blue/ West Coast in Portugal/ Sushi/ Summer/ Watch/ Zadig Voltaire or Diesel

If you give balls they want squares when you give squares they now want balls. So basically they don't know what they want but they need to tell you something to change to seem that they are in charge. In that cases, just do all your design and then put a visible mistake by purpose on that. The client will see the mistake and ask to change it and after that you have your design all aprooved easily!

By working hard in what I love and giving all my heart to what I'm doing.

The magic is about finding the journey day after day so, I do see people walking upside down, cars flying high and buildings being completely controlled remotely by technology. I do also see some changes that I might not like that much as kids looking to computers and don't even noticing people around, fatter and without any focus or passion about human life. But do we know what's coming next? No, we can predict and it is our right and duty to balance the progression in order to make it better and better and without loosing important achievements that we have made already.

What I do need my fans to know about me or my work is: Be good to each other, take care of people around you; don't ignore the presence on your side; don't focus only on yourself; work hard and expect to be recognized by your work and effort and everytime you have the chance to choose: choose right! It is more difficult, it will be harder and more exausting, it might even seem that it is worthless, it's not! It is why you are here and that's how you are gonna be not a good designer but a great designer. Design for people and if you do that you will be the best. In order to do that you have to see the people! :) Be Smart!

We are a Technology Services Consulting company. We want to deserve the natural preference of the CLIENTS, being a reference for the EXCELLENCE of the Services we provide, through the quality of our CONSULTANTS.

Design is an open window in a world of closed doors.

A flyer and a banner

book/ magazine

near nature and art

the details

I feel calm and happy and I disconnect from the world in that single moment to be focus in each detail so that feels very very good

First I feel proud for what I finished then I feel a little sad because the journey is over. After that I realize there's still more to come and improve and I start thinking about the project again.

Evaluation and testing

The quality of the Image, balance between color choices and forms, balance in the arrangement of each element and of all of them together, the

As a designer you have the opportunity to make people feel, think and believe in things. That is a very important rule in society and for the environment. The ability to make you take action and to wake you up for the needs around you. It is also the designer responsibility to think about everyone and every situation and to make accessible the information to everyone.

In the interaction with the user in a way that even the user will be abble to interfere and create different environments in his usability of the product. The design path is following maximum customization and user interaction with the platforms and products.

My last exhibition was in Lisbon, Portugal in May last year. It was the launch of my collection Poetry is Life and it was about 10 different lamp pieces with poetry illustrated by me. You can look at the collection here: https://www.candlein.com/pt/artistas/joana-judice

Well I do walk in the streets with my head up and my eyes wide open. So I think the inspiration is everywhere. I observe carefully the society around me and when I start a creative process all that information comes together to give life to new ideas. But in the end, the inspiration comes from the world around me, from the people I know, the works I criticize...

I think my approach to design is about always finding some smart connections between the audience, and the brand identity and the message we are trying to communicate. So there's a substancial part given to copy which I frequently do to as creative director and copy writter in my works. Another big and more connected to design part in what I do is the presence of the photography and the illustration as something I explore in a creative and disruptive way. Besides that a very big balance in color choice and usability. I love colors and finding how to use them.

I live in Portugal but I don't see a big relation between my country and what I design because I travel a lot and I consider myself a human of the world more than a Portuguese citizen.

Right now I am working full time as an employer in my company but I use to work as a freelancer and I still do that in my free time so the relationship is completely different. In my company I design for some clients but I also design for my company which becomes my client and my supervisor at the same time.

I think the most important thing about a designer (in a world where we have so many people with those skills) is to find someone with great design skills and communication ability too. Someone that can understand the purpose of the company and design for that in a very unique way. So it is more about connection between the two worlds rather than just looking for a great designer himself. So look carefully for the work designers have done and be aware that his/her design is compatible with your vision and what you are looking for.

Think, search, think, search, think... and then design.

the chairs; the record players; the lights; the chairs and books.

Right now it is very easy. I wake up, I choose what I am going to wear, I pick my bag and I walk to the closest subway station with my headphones while I listen to my favorite music (which I put together on a playlist). I look around to the city waking up and pay attention to the windows and people and everything around. Then I take the subway and usually start posting on my company social networks and my personal facebook page too. I spend some time looking at people around and sometimes I write or I design in a sketch book. I change the line, take the second subway and then I walk to my company. I say good morning to everyone and I usually turn my computer on and go to the terrace to take a view to the city. Then I start working with my headphones while listening to the music. I take some breaks with my team mates and brainstorm a little about the projects we are running while the machine is responding, rendering or whatever. I take lunch with everyone, work again and then I go home. Sometimes I choose to go by walking to enjoy the city around me and observe what it is happening since the subway goes underground and you can't see anything. I walk my dog, spend time with my love and then I go out for dinner or more usually I cook the dinner at home and the lunch for the next day. I watch something on the internet (like serie or movie) or I read a book or sometimes I look for designers works to look at them. Some other times I just make zapping on facebook looking for something interesting. And then I sleep.

Work hard, never forget about the most important thing in life which it is also the most important thing in design. It is all about people and it is all about users. Be humble, take critics and improve your work and your abilities every day. Never stop learning and never stop trying to be better.

Worst part: you will never be completely happy about your work because it is always an unfinished business; you will never pleasant everyone and you are always dependent on the opinion of your client. It is not something scientific and there no right. The best part: If you can't please everyone you can't also not please everyone. If it is not scientific and there's no right answer, you have the freedom to create everything and always remember there's also no wrong answer. It is very fulfilling when you can actually go inside your clients mind and guess exactly what he was looking for.

Be creative; be persistent; be patient; be hard worker; be perfectionist; be flexible; be technological; be humble...

Adobe Creative Cloud programs; UX-pin and other inspiring platforms with a lot of knowledge and tips about the latest design; the various design award platforms around the world are an excellent research field; the design of everyday things book; apple, coca cola, ikea and google marketing and launching products...

That's an excellent question. You fell in love and you find out easily how to do that.

It depends a lot. Can't answer just like that.

How do you come with those ideas?

All of them. Each one in a different way. Everything that we do makes us become in what we are.

Quinta da Lua; Candle In; Dyvia & Victoria Group; O.Love; Smart Consulting; Loop Unique Companies; Shake app; Well Sushi

Publishing.

Be happy! Find peace and be aware of the importance of everyday in our life.

Normally by myself but I would like to be in a co-design team.

I do but I prefer not to talk about. I can just share that I am working in a very interesting project for a beautiful organization and I am preparing my personal new website too which you will be able to see soon in my domain www.joanajudice.com

Right now from facebook: joana.judice; email: joanabgjudice@gmail.com and on linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/joanajudice/

Be happy!