Ruis Vargas: “I design with Kung Fu”

Yes, with coming to Portugal, we reactivated the idea of being everywhere because although our headquarters are now in Porto, we continue to have activities and projects in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, Paraná, Bahia, Amapá, São Paulo, in addition to the projects we have in Portugal.

We always wanted to combine design with the construction of narratives, discourse, working with semiology, and the first projects we carried out allowed us to go down that path. Combining branding, design and narratives, because we didn’t want to develop the identity of the brands only from a graphic point of view, we wanted something more comprehensive. As I have a degree in Letters, it was possible to combine all these areas, to work on narratives, and writing as a basis for design, and it was there that we started to develop this way of thinking, always very humorous (laughs). Many of the projects carried this pinch of humour, much more with the written language than with the visual, but the visual was a translation of that language.

We like to make works rich in illustration. Our portfolio has many brands created within this logic, with hand-made elements. At that time, the novelty was at the beginning of the impact of digital technologies and damn Clip Art (laughs), and few had the concern or desire to do things by hand. And that’s our main brand image, which still follows us. We prepare the entire language project, and the agencies that work for the brands will derive everything we outline regarding brand identity. We provide the tools, a very detailed brand book, so subsequent communication obeys this identity.

It’s the same because all the customers will pass by the couch.

Yes, by the couch (laughs). It is a tool for discursive and speech analysis. We conduct the conversation with the client in a very natural way to understand what they want. Once, we did this in a project with 20 people, so 20 different interviews, and in those interviews, we provoke (laughs) and analyse the answers more rationally. We had another case with six partners; five agreed with what they wanted for the brand, but the other did not. But this partner understood the business, and the others realised more about its profitability. So we bring that up, we give relevance to those contrasts, and the initial work is to understand what the client wants, their weaknesses and strengths, and point out a path; they are always part of the process.

I don’t think about it too much because that’s the essence of Laika: to move between cultures. We are part of a Western culture, and there are many more affinities than divergences. The issue of regionalisation is no longer felt so much because communication is simultaneous; everything happens quickly, and what happens in one part of the world reaches everywhere very quickly. So, there is a kind of contamination; we no longer know where things come from. Although regionalisation still exists, it no longer exists in the same way as it did 20 years ago.

Adaptation. Our business model has been able to keep up with the transformations of the times and use our knowledge base to deal with it, with the news of the industry or supposed novelties, because many times, the novelties appear as new clothes of old things. At the age of 52, I have seen several generations of designers emerge and do things that, in essence, are repetitions of something that had already been done. It is challenging to create something that doesn’t have traces of the past, and that’s the real challenge. I don’t believe in novelty or originality because these are scarce, but combining elements is fundamental to creating more polyphonic narratives with several layers.

This recognition is essential because it comes from the pressure to put ourselves to the test, and it helps a more internationalised perception of Laika. It shows that we have notoriety outside of São Paulo and Brazil and are not only concentrated in these areas.

The purpose of coming to Portugal is also to be open to the rest of the world. It reminds me of a bike shop at the mouth of the Douro River, here in Porto, called “The last bike shop before New York” (laughs). To be in Porto is to be at a very strategic point. We are one of the last branding offices in this part of the planet. We are closer to South America, namely Brazil, where we continue to have a lot of projects, and because of this, I often travel there; we are closer to North America, which is a very positive aspect. But being at this point also allows us to expand to Europe’s opposite side. The challenge now is to think about how to develop branding, as we have developed in Portuguese but in English, French, Italian, Romanian, German. Why not? (laughs).

Yes. Over the years, I made small publications in fanzines interested in comics, especially comic strips. In 1992, I started publishing in the USP newspaper – Jornal da Universidade de São Paulo- an incredible tabloid. At the time, the rector hired a team from Jornal da Tarde, a revolutionary newspaper, regarding layout. They revolutionised journalism, the concepts of the page; it wasn’t that bunch of blocks, but a bit of art united with journalism. At one point, the newspaper editor, Maria Lúcia Carneiro, said she would publish my strips. Subsequently, I began to publish on other sites. Cultural tabloids in São Paulo, for the SESC São Paulo magazine, which was already a colour magazine, always humour strips, but I didn’t publish for a long time because I stopped with comics when I started the office in 2002.

Yes, because I either dedicated myself to Laika or made comics. This was followed by a period in which I didn’t draw comics for eight years.

In 2010. I was published in a magazine about the environment; I started posting in a newspaper of great circulation in Ribeirão Preto, a large city in the interior of São Paulo. In addition to the comic strips, I started making graphic novels, a type of comic published in book format, with longer stories from 2015 onwards, but these are not so humorous, they are even a little tense (laughs). André [Forte] even read it and found it “tense”! (laughs). I even have a curious episode. For many years, my strips were bought by publishers who produce textbooks. Large publishing houses that make public education books, specifically in the state of São Paulo, the largest and richest Brazilian state. I even had an episode with the son of an acquaintance who was surprised when he found out that I was the author of the Bobo da Corte strips because it was in the books he used for his studies.

First of all, health. I have a Spanish-Brazilian friend. She lives here in Vila Nova de Gaia. She retired and came here and talked a lot about the city and Porto, which was beautiful (laughs). This was in 2010, 2011, so I always had this positive image. In 2016, my wife and I started thinking about leaving Brazil. “We have three children, we have the possibility of Italian citizenship on my father’s side, or Spanish citizenship on my mother’s side. What were the alternatives?” And then we thought, “Why not Portugal, where is my friend Núria?”. We thought about what would be best for our children, that they wouldn’t have to learn a new language, and that adaptation would be simpler. We also wanted a smaller city because we came from São Paulo, where the municipality alone has 20% more people than the whole of Portugal; it was chaos. It’s a very polluted city, and we weren’t in good health; I’m asthmatic, so I suffered from that.

We miss meeting friends and family, but we can travel and be with them. Sometimes, I miss the noise of São Paulo. That hustle and bustle was part of my daily life, but I wouldn’t go back there because I like the silence here better. Sometimes, I’m in the apartment, and we don’t hear the neighbours; we hear the wind. It’s very windy where we live and looks like a horror movie (laughs). But it’s a very good silence. Porto’s pace is more human, while in São Paulo, everything is very fast-paced. It’s a tiring city. Now, what you have here and there is not a beautiful papaya at a lower price (laughs). I like beautiful papaya, plantains, I miss that (laughs).

I don’t make any plans like that. I don’t know if I’ll stay in Porto until I’m 90 or if I’ll move to Singapore next year.

There are a few things I like to do. I enjoy playing the tambourine; I’ve been playing since my youth. I’m not a professional, but I’ve been practising for a long time, it’s good for the arms too (laughs). I’m still doing the comics. It’s not a hobby; it’s more of a side project that I still have. On the weekend, I write the strips, draw them, and post them on my Instagram, where a few people follow me. I have about three ideas for graphic novels in my head that I still need to put on paper; they’re just in my head because my process is more extensive. I formulate the story in my head, tell it to myself, and only then do I begin to develop it. In my free time, I’m with my kids, as a family, we go out to eat. I really like to walk from the Ribeira area to the sea, to Matosinhos. It’s a very inviting city. I also enjoy maintaining our apartment.

I practice, but I’ve had to stop since I came here. I practice Kung-Fu Mantis style. Kung-Fu is very different from Karate in Japan, where you have the most defined martial arts, with more protocols, while clans form the martial arts in China, with many different standards. It’s not even called Kung-Fu, it’s called Wushu. Kung-Fu is because of Bruce Lee, and Kung-Fu is a concept of working hard, of doing it well. When I do design, I do it with Kung-Fu. I design with Kung-Fu. I do it in a dedicated way, with hard work, it’s an idea that can be applied to everything.

It came about for several reasons, but the main one was that I was very stressed. I grew up in very tense places, and I ended up becoming a stressed-out person, who worked in a stressful profession, with stressful bosses, stressful deadlines, and for an asthmatic, that’s the worst thing. Ever since I was little, I was in love with Kung-Fu movies, classics like Chamber 36, the Shaolin Temple, and they were on television in the 70s, and I was passionate about them, so martial arts always stuck in my head. When I was younger, I played a lot of futsal, a lot of field soccer; I even competed in amateur football for the Association of Publicists of São Paulo, where we were runners-up and third placed, I played right back. In college, I was an athletic worker, I was part of the Athletic Board of Directors, and in my faculty of philosophy, literature and human sciences at USP, the flag has a cat, which is the symbol of athletics that was designed by me in the 90s and is still used today (laughs). I’ve always been very attached to sports. Despite my size, I always played; I played a lot of non-competitive volleyball but at a better level. I even did some competitions, but when I turned 35, 36, I broke my hand playing and thought, “I don’t think I’m old anymore.”… And I could have broken my head! I was running along the side of the field, and I got a backrest that threw me, and I fell with my hand next to the wall. When I was in the hospital, I met a guy who also had a soccer-related injury, and he told me that the week before, a friend of his had died precisely the same way I fell, only instead of hitting his hand on the wall, he went with his head… He had a head injury and didn’t resist… That’s when I thought, “I have a small son, I’m going to get a less violent sport…” so I went to martial arts (laughs). It helped me learn how to breathe better and have more control and fluidity of my body.

Thinking about it even causes depression, because we see everything that is happening in the world… The environmental issue is very complex; the wars that follow each other lead to more investment in armaments instead of betting on the well-being of the lives of people who live below the poverty line. It’s a great stupidity of ours… But it’s possible to create dialogues, break down borders, and break down prejudices. I try not to be prejudiced.

I don’t know if it’s a virtue, but I’m a very systematic person. If I’ve agreed to something with someone, and I have a deadline of up to x hour, I’m adamant. I’m more flexible if something is not in my control, because I know I can’t control everything. I always try to be honest, to comply with everything correctly. Even crossing the street, my wife and children laugh when I cross outside the crosswalk (laughs). It was a trait I inherited from my mother.

There is a word that I like a lot, from a song by Candeia performed by the singer Clara Nunes, called Sindorere. It is a word that unfolds in Afro-Brazilian culture. One of the meanings of its use can be “let’s do it with joy”.

I have a very curious date. I believe it’s possibly August 9, 2008. As my first wife was sick, she was already in the hospital, it was the last time I saw her, then she was isolated, I couldn’t accompany her, but before she said “You have to marry again! You’ve got to find someone! You’re too young, you’ve got to find someone, you’re not going to be alone!” I’d tell her to stop, and she’d insist I had to find someone. Then I met my current wife, and she even jokingly says that Silvia pushed us because our meeting probability was low. So I also keep the date I met Cristiane, my current wife. She never remembers the date we met, but I do (laughs). September 22, 2008, a little while after Silvia passed away. It was the first time I spoke to Cris and the last time I spoke to Silvia. These are two dates that are so close and so striking for two very different reasons. This series of events also connected my children. I have a biological one, I have both from Cris, and I could have one more from Silvia and another from Cris, but unfortunately, we lost those babies. Today, I could have five children, many children (laughs).

So many things… I have a few stories to put on paper. The first is the sequel to Doces bárbaros, a graphic novel by the Jester, which originated in the newspapers Tribuna Impressa and A Cidade do interior de São Paulo, which came out on Sundays, a double “strip”, but as that newspaper ended, I was missing about four scenes to finish the whole story. So the people who read it wanted to know how the story ended! I left some hooks for the next story in this story, and I have this story in my head! It’s already here, consolidated in my head, and I know I must do it. I have to sit down and think and draw this story; it’s one of the things I have to do. If I die, someone will finish that story, I’ll possess someone’s body, and that person will draw for me (laughs)!

I want my children to be autonomous and to know how to deal with frustration. Life is, basically, frustration. I wish I were 1.90m! Not to be big-nosed, not to be so white (laughs)! But I can’t, and we have to deal with it. And one of my dreams was to play drums, but it’s too complicated! Coordinating everything, arms, legs, is very complex, so I prefer to stick to the tambourine (laughs). But deep down, that’s it; I want to guide my children to a safe path and know they have tools that serve as a haven for them.

The exhibition “How to produce stripcomics and graphic novels without losing your friends” by Ruis Vargas can be visited at UPTEC Baixa, until January 25, 2024. To schedule a visit, contact xpo@uptec.up.pt, with the date you want.