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A little something different from me this weekend.
Most of you probably know me through design and work, but before UI/UX, there was always art.
I grew up sketching all the time. For a long time, I genuinely wanted to pursue Fine Arts, own an art gallery someday, and make a career out of creating things with my hands.
My family saw it differently. My mom would always say, “Do anything you want, just not Fine Arts. Keep that as a hobby.” 😅
So when it was time to choose a career, design field felt like the perfect middle ground. I could still create, experiment, solve things visually, and actually enjoy what I do every day.
And apparently, choosing design never really stopped the artist in me either.
So here’s one from the sketchbook. 🎨
Anyone else end up finding a different route to something they always loved?
#InspirationFromPinterest
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Sardinhas / Brand, Packaging & Campaign
Sardinhas is Portuguese for sardines. Nothing more, nothing less.
An independent brand concept for a Portuguese sardine tin, built end to end: identity, illustration, packaging, 3D and a ten-image editorial campaign. Four boards trace the work.
01 / Identity and illustration. The wordmark is hand-cut lettering with a sardine living inside the D. One rule runs through the whole system: the letters stay charcoal, and only the fish in the D takes the colour of each flavour. The illustration is a three-ink linocut shoal, sea blue and charcoal on cream paper, with a third ink that changes with the flavour: lemon, olive, tomato, piri-piri. Style explored in Midjourney V8, locked with a master image and derived across the four flavours.
02 / Packaging. Two skins. Outside, a printed paper wrap with folded ends, the way Portuguese conservas have been sold for a century. Inside, a lithographed tin with the same shoal on the lid and the body in the flavour ink. Four flavours: Lemon, Olive Oil, Tomato, Piri-Piri. All texts, nutrition and barcode in English. Every tin and wrap was built and rendered in Blender, textures generated from the vector artwork at 20 px per mm.
03 / Campaign. One table, one sun. Cream plaster, hard late-afternoon light, the same hand in every frame. The colour never comes from the ground: it comes from the tin, the printed linen napkin and the food. Full petiscos tables, the tin opened at the centre, a shop interior, a printed paper bag, four napkins for four flavours. Photographs generated with Nano Banana Pro through Higgsfield at 4K, always with the Blender renders as product reference.
Tools: Midjourney V8 for the illustration language, Blender 5.2 for packaging and renders, Nano Banana Pro via Higgsfield for the campaign, Claude Code as the direction hub for the whole project.
Creative direction, brand identity, packaging and AI-assisted visual development by Mauricio Pontual / MP House Studio. Independent concept, not commissioned.
#BrandIdentity #PackagingDesign #ArtDirection #Illustration #Blender #GenerativeAI #FoodPhotography #Sardines
The rule that colour never comes from the ground in the campaign shots, only from the tin, napkin and food, is the kind of constraint that makes a whole shoot feel intentional instead of styled. Four boards to cover identity through campaign is thorough for a personal concept piece.
What do you get when you combine photography and painting?
This weekend I used Midjourney to explore a visual direction that blends painted flowers into a photorealistic scene, bringing the two mediums together into something slightly surreal.
Using the new v8.2 Edit Model with personalization, it understood the prompt well, even though I only attached the subject as a reference.
Prompt is included in the comments.
What do you think of this style?
Really cool direction! Blending painted textures into a realistic garden scene works so well. Looks great!
A self-portrait by an Unknown Artist felt a little ironic. He’s literally right there!
🎨 This is my entry for the FLORA Museum Challenge.
I chose Self Portrait, created by an unknown artist around 1800–1805 and currently on view in The American Wing at The Met.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/21209
I used it as a starting point to imagine what we can’t see: his studio and the moment he painted this very self-portrait.
🖼️ Unknown Artist, meet the world outside your frame.
#FLORAMuseum @FLORA
this is really funny, I never thought that people that paint stuff could be using those same clothes when doing it😂