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Designer. Art Director. Entrepreneur
sigalitacw@gmail.com
I was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1980. I started to study visual communication right after graduating from high school, in the only visual communication school (Pro-Diseño) existing at that time (1998); it was a 4 year very hard working career, the way of teaching gave equal importance to both aesthetics and communication values. It gave me all the tools to face the professional field. After graduating I worked four months at the print department of the cable channel Sony Entertainment Television for Latin America. Then I entered a multimedia design company (Meiler Interactive) where I learned a lot about multimedia and web programming. I was there for a year and then I felt it was time for me to have my own space of growth.
Along with three business partners, I have been the owner of Oruga, a Design and Communication Agency from 2004 to 2008. I took the initiative to establish my own graphic design business. In 2000, Oruga was born as a company with three owners, it started as a video editing company and three years later it was at the edge of closing its doors due to bankruptcy. At that moment, being 23 years old I became its first employee. I took the challenge of transforming the company and make it work as a successful business. At the time it could obviously only support one employee (me). After six months developing graphic design projects, raising our head little by little, my boyfriend at the time (also a graphic designer) became the second employee of Oruga, and together we started running the company, turning it into a high quality design studio. One year later we both became equal share partners at Oruga. After 4 years we became one of the Top 5 Design Companies in Venezuela, growing from 1 to a 15 employee company, developing Motion Graphics, Print and Web design projects for important clients such as Cable TV Channels all over Latin America, The most respectable Banks and the Top Advertising Agencies in Venezuela. Soon came the awards (ANDA, PROMAX & BDA, NEWWEBPICK) and recognition of our work, including interviews on TV, Advertising Magazines and the Radio.
One of my most recent accomplishments has been winning the International Young Design Entrepreneur of the Year Award in September, 2007. This award is organized by the British Council, to give opportunities to Design Entrepreneurs from countries with emergent economies to visit the UK and network with professionals and organizations within its creative industries. The award has been around for three years now and is one of the many International Young Creative Entrepreneur awards the British Council is organizing. I was selected to represent Venezuela and competed against contestants from nine different countries, and after making a presentation in front of an elite UK jury I was chosen winner in a ceremony held at 100% Design in London. As the winner I received a financial award of £7,500 to be spent on a collaborative project with the British Council.
The IYDE award has given me the strength, the recognition, and the space to go forward and learn new things. I’ve opened myself up to new horizons, especially the academic and pedagogic areas of design. I’ve begun working more closely with design students and teachers, and I am currently planning a new project that links design with social, environmental, and economic improvement. This award has given me the opportunity to meet many people from the creative industries in the UK and also in Venezuela. With the prize money I have been developing Mondongo Experiment, a project that studies, explores and exercises Venezuelan identity within design culture.
Now I have been accepted in the Royal College of Art in London, to do a Post Experience Programme in Printed Textiles. The Post Experience Programmes are aimed, amongst others, at artists, designers, craftspeople, communicators, teachers and managers searching for professional updating, for learning new skills and techniques, and for intellectual stimulus. The Programme will provide me with full-time individual study within the College in a period of three months. The Royal College of Art is the only wholly postgraduate…
With respect to other design and artistic areas I created and developed a line of hand made accessories as well as a variety of lamps which I had the opportunity to exhibit at a design happening held recently in Caracas. And in a completely different area, almost all my life I have been part of the Israeli Folk Dance organization in Venezuela. Over the last five years I have worked as a choreographer in an annual Israeli Folk Dance Festival, incorporating not only typical Israeli steps but other styles such as African, Turkish, Arab, Kurdish, Greek, Russian, Venezuelan and contemporary dances. With this experience I have learned to communicate through various elements simultaneously. The process involves many phases: the vast investigation about a theme; selection of a message to communicate; search and preparation of music; creation of steps and sequences; choreography drawing; costumes, stage, and lighting design.
RESUME
STUDIES
1998/2002: Visual Communication. PRO_Diseño
1996/1998: Bachelor of Science. Liceo Moral y Luces Herzl-Bialik
1993/1996: Middle School. Liceo Moral y Luces Herzl-Bialik
1987/1993: Elementary School. Colegio Hebraica Moral y Luces
Courses
2007: British Council IYDEY Tour (London & Glasgow)
1985/2007: Israeli Folk Dances. Hebraica
1996: Drawing and Painting with the artist Maria Eugenia Arria.
1996: Judaism and Leadership. Bnei Brith Vacation Camp.
WORK EXPERIENCE
2005-2008: Oruga Films. Art Director and Owner
2004-2005: Oruga Films. Senior Designer
2002-2004: Meiler Interactive Creations. Senior Designer
2001-2002: Personal company: NODO_DESIGN
2001: Three months internship at Sony Entertainment Television in Venezuela (Area of Graphic Design: Print)
2000: Jobs in partnership with Andres Carnevalli (Teacher at PRO_Diseño) and designer Andreina Restrepo
2000: One month internship at Patagon.com of Venezuela (Graphic Design Area)
Free-Lance Jobs
2002: Toys Animated Catalogue for Christmas. Makro Stores
2002: Image of the XXI Kineret Festival of Israeli Folk Dances
2001. Image of the XXII Festival of International Folk Dances
2001: Illustration chosen for the issue # 27 of the Venezuelan magazine Cocina y Vino (Cook & Wine)
2001: Logotype for Megamedic pharmacy
2001: Poster Third Congress of Odontology at Margarita Island. Winner: First Prize
2001: Images and animations for Aventis CropScience of Venezuela web page
2000: Poster First Congress of Young Undergraduates. Latin-American Zionist University Federation
2000: Logotype of the store VenezuelaMakesParties.com
2000: Logotype for Distribuidora Distoys
2000: CD for the Wizo Organization in Venezuela. Musical show: Hollywood in Caracas
1999: Logotypes for shoe trademarks for the Graffiti department stores
AWARDS
Oruga’s Awards during Art Direction
Project: C.S.I. Tarantino
PROMAX/BDA North America & World Gold 2006 Bronze: Theme Campaign Art Direction & Design
PROMAX/BDA Latin America 2005 Gold: Campaign for aired Show
PROMAX/BDA Latin America 2005 Silver: Theme Campaign
PROMAX/BDA Latin America 2005 Silver: Promo for Entertainment Show
ANDA (National Association of Advertisers of Venezuela) 2005 Gold: Best Animation
Project: Animedia
PROMAX/BDA North America & World Gold 2006 Bronze: Intro Bumper
Project: “La Zona” (The Zone) Sales Brochure
PROMAX/BDA Latin America 2005 Silver: Colateral Material for Campaign
Project: 2005 AXN Latin America Sales Brochure
PROMAX/BDA North America & World Gold 2005 Bronze: Print. Bound Piece
Personal Awards
2007: British Council IYDEY (International Young Design Entrepreneur of the Year) Award winner
2001: Illustration chosen for the issue #27 of the Venezuelan Magazine “Cocina y Vino” (Food & Wine).
2001: Poster Third Congress of Odontology at Margarita Island. Winner: First Prize.
In September 2007 I was chosen the winner of the British Council´s IYDEY Award. With the IYDEY prize money I decided to develop the Mondongo Experiment, a project that studies, explores and exercises Venezuelan identity within design culture. Our methodology begins with designers observing and registering our surroundings. Through analysis and deconstruction of the images captured in this initial registry, designers produce components like typography, color palettes, forms, symbols, textures and modules. Finally, designers apply these components to create a piece that captures Venezuela’s local and unique visual language.
I have articulated and coordinated Mondongo Experiment, contacting, organizing, networking and therefore building a team of dedicated people (designers, philosophers, authors, teachers, photographers, consultants, design students, etc) to transform the initial complex idea it was based on to a real platform for visual professionals all over the world to understand it and use it.
The Venezuelan Mondongo is a Sunday meal (a soup), generally prepared mixing many leftovers or ingredients that were not used during the week. Taking into account this definition about our typical food as a fusion between very different cultures, we could relate this Sunday recipe with Venezuela: A very big pot where everything fits and mixes, resulting in the tasty, the warm and colorful, the ugliest and the prettiest, all at the same time. Venezuela represents a combination of diverse natures, origins and textures that has given as a result, the identity of it´s people.
Based on the thesis “Folklorika” developed in 2003 by Erika Silvestri, Yillian Crespo and Gustavo Réquiz in PRO_Diseño, School of Visual Communication, the Mondongo Experiment is a project with three major objectives:
1. To generate a visual platform for the enormous Venezuelan cultural diversity expressed in the multiple manifestations of coexistence of what is original, traditional, indigene, African, popular, modern, postmodern, American, European… in short… the Venezuelan.
2. To rescue popular communication and artistic expressions that take place in our urban, country and community spaces.
3. To build a virtual space on the web with this contents, intended for professionals such as artists, photographers, designers, architects, etc, so they can develop the design of communication pieces for different purposes. This project presents a method to process the “rough material” or “events” in our context and turn them into editable components of design. This method is divided into 4 stages: Contemplation and Registry, Analysis, Deconstruction and Application or “Re-creation.
Together with design teachers Jaime Cruz and Ricardo Santeugini, and colleagues Erika Silvestri and Yillian Crespo from my own design school, ProDiseño, I made a pilot of the Mondongo with design students, who went through the entire process to design a poster, a postcard and a wallpaper, using typical Venezuelan phrases. The project lasted one month and the results are being exhibited in 100% Design London, in September 2008. The project will also be exhibited in Venezuela in 2009.”
"In Venezuela we have a lot of talent"
Interview by Jacinto Salcedo published in www.objetual.com.
1. What does it mean for you to be a designer and a businesswoman designer?
I believe that being a designer is a life condition. It is a permanent state that does not have specific space or time. It is a way of living every second, of being connected with and understand the world. Even though it is a cliché, everything is design.
A businesswoman designer or entrepreneur, in my opinion, is the one that dares, that is not afraid of making a mistake because understands that it is the best way of learning, the person that does not believe that he knows everything but rather wishes to have his own space to learn and wants to create an infrastructure to love what he does but at the same time being able to earn a living from that.
There are many things that make you an entrepreneur: Having the motivation and the impulse to be better every day; to have vision and skills; to be able to work with a group, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each person in order to draw the best from each talent; to understand that you are not by yourself and that one of the best things in life is that those that work with you shine with their own light and get compliments for the work done; to keep motivated all those that are part of your team, learning all the time and giving them the possibilities for them to teach you in the same way; to recognize that you don’t have all the answers and that the process is always the most important to reach to a satisfying result; to give special care to details….all of the above will make the difference between your team, company or organization from any other.
“Everything” is Design and my job other than consuming that “Everything”, is to produce it and achieve that the other can and want to consume it.
2. How was your participation in the YIDEY? That is: What were you asked to bring and what did you bring? How was the process?
The International Young Design Entrepreneur of the Year (IYDEY) award was launched in 2005 and champions the achievements of young design entrepreneurs - people working in the fields of architecture, design promotion, graphic design, interior design, product design and digital media - from emerging economies. The programme recognises their role - and that of the design sector in general - in developing new, local talent and sharing this creativity with the rest of the world.
Each year, between eight and ten emerging economies are selected to take part through their local British Council office. In each country a national jury of leading industry figures is created and an open selection process is established. Candidates, all aged 25-35, are selected because of their existing contribution to the development, and their potential as a leader, of the design sector in their country. In each country the prize is the chance to visit the UK as part of the programme and represent their country in the IYDEY final.
The tour, in September each year, provides a tailored introduction to the UK design, including meetings with senior industry figures and the chance to visit London and Glasgow and attend 100% Design. It opens doors and presents new opportunities.
After a day of presentations from the finalists, the winner is chosen by an elite UK jury. The winner receives a financial award of £7,500 to be spent on a collaborative project with the British Council.
After being chosen to represent Venezuela, I embarked myself in an initial project to get the best way to do it, understanding that furthermore of representing an individual or a company, I was representing a country. Therefore I came back to my “academic” side. I met several persons that helped me to put my history in context, I investigated, learned and wrote in the most possible coherent way a presentation that would show the idiosyncrasy of the Venezuelan to reach a result that will show the way we communicate and therefore, how we design. Obviously I turned to the history of design in Venezuela and was very lucky to count with Jacinto Salcedo, who helped me with clear ideas to express why we are the way we are. I then put all of that into images. Garcilaso Pumar, photographer of the magazine “In Caracas” (already in the market), gave me part of his photographic archive that present Venezuela and specially Caracas, in a sincere, warm and colorful way.
I did the presentation called The Mondongo Experiment where I started by defining liverally what is a “Mondongo” (a Sunday meal prepared with leftovers).
The Venezuelan Mondongo is a Sunday meal (a soup), generally prepared mixing many leftovers or ingredients that were not used during the week. Taking into account this definition about our typical food as a fusion between very different cultures, we could relate this Sunday recipe with Venezuela: A very big pot where everything fits and mixes, resulting in the tasty, the warm and colorful, the ugliest and the prettiest, all at the same time. I presented how Venezuela is a big pot that represents a combination of diverse natures, origins and textures that has given as a result, the identity of it´s people.
Little by little I talked about Venezuela´s history and that lead to several questions: Is there a unique Venezuelan color palette that demonstrates our identity, our way of expressing our diversity and particularity? Can say that the typography, colors, textures, forms, symbols and images that we often use, are “imported”, and therefore have the American and European approach much more than our own? How can we find identity in our own graphics? Do we need to go back to our aboriginal beginnings? And therefore I asked myself, should traditional fight against modern in this search? How is this reflected in Venezuelan Design?
It was then when I presented a proposal for a project to be developed if I won. Based on the thesis “Folklorika” developed in 2003 by Erika Silvestri, Yillian Crespo and Gustavo Réquiz in PRO_Diseño, School of Visual Communication, I presented a demo for a project called the Mondongo Experiment with three major objectives:
1. To generate a visual platform for the enormous Venezuelan cultural diversity expressed in the multiple manifestations of coexistence of what is original, traditional, indigene, African, popular, modern, postmodern, American, European… in short… the Venezuelan.
2. To rescue popular communication and artistic expressions that take place in our urban, country and community spaces.
3. To build a virtual space on the web with this contents, intended for professionals such as artists, photographers, designers, architects, etc, so they can develop the design of communication pieces for different purposes. This project presents a method to process the “rough material” or “events” in our context and turn them into editable components of design. This method is divided into 4 stages: Contemplation and Registry, Analysis, Deconstruction and Application or “Re-creation.
3. What is the compromise of the award? What is your project?
Although there are those that for their thesis or essay have exposed issues regarding how to search Venezuelan visual identity, it does not exist in Venezuela a concrete development of a system for analysis, learning and interchange of Venezuelan design. In this case I proposed to be the precursor, vehicle, manager, producer, organizer of such project. To be the person who wants to put it in practice, with my touch of perfectionism and attention to detail.
What is it?
A virtual space (the web) for the coexistence of the traditional, what surround us, what we see every day as it is: chaotic, colorful, warm, poor and rich at the same time, with the search of modernity, with the ability to take things out of their context, and transform them to editable components of designs. This is a space for contemplation, analysis, deconstruction and application for the elaboration, upload and download of Venezuelan design either brute or processed. This is a gallery reflecting our surroundings to be offered to the entire world. A space to develop in a visual way the answer to this question of what identifies us the Venezuelan designers.
4. What can you say about the experience of sharing with other international contestants?
What can be more gratifying for a professional in design than to share these experiences of visiting the word of design in Great Britain with people that understand and lives in the same way as you; regardless of being of completely different contexts, we face similar challenges, similar problems and moreover, we are moved by the same passion.
5. What did you learn from this experience, the trip, the process, winning?
That everything happens for a reason. That sometimes, when least expected, the opportunity that you have always dreamed of but never thought could be something real, shows up. Just being two weeks in Great Britain was great enough for me; to prepare myself and turning back to a part of me that I had left standby; to have the privilege of meeting so many influential people that are doing such interesting things, was sufficient enough. And really, I did not expect to win, because in addition the program has an important weight in industrial design and the British Council truly risked itself by choosing a country where its graphic design prevails over the industrial one. I believe that for them it was also an experiment and I am lucky to have the opportunity of taking part in this putting my bit in the development of the design industries both at a national as well as international level.
6. At a distance, what is your opinion of the Venezuelan design, its strengths and weaknesses, its opportunities?
In my opinion, the strengths of design in Venezuela are also the weaknesses. Due to the lack of graphic design schools and a market where design is frequently appreciated as mere decoration, the training of professionals in graphic design is focused in producing “toderos” (individuals that have some knowledge of every area in design, but are not specialized in any of them). On the one hand, I consider this as a strength because it makes us capable of undertaking any kind of project by having a design global vision. Moreover, the lack of certain tools allows us to innovate more and make us be as creative as possible. On the other hand, this is a weakness because the lack of specialized training in areas such as Motion Graphics, 3D Animation or advanced Web Programming limits our abilities as Venezuelans to compete with other countries in an era where multimedia design rules. The majority of Venezuelan designers with a high level of specialization are self-taught and have years of experience.
There is plenty of talent in Venezuela, what lacks in my opinion is formal education in certain areas, and moreover, to continue stronger than ever the initiatives that are already there like markets, associations, communities, to organize ourselves and to do specific activities together, that provide a space to create, to form ourselves, to be able to show our work to others, to compete, to learn; to be less apathetic and more participative, understanding that we have a responsibility as designers to improve our own sector.
7. Anything else you would like to add?
I want to thank the British Council for the opportunity, to Jacinto Salcedo for throwing me the cries of war and for guiding me, to all those people that have participated in this project and that are still with me trying to take this project ahead. I hope that very soon we will be able to see the fruits of the effort we are doing.
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