In celebration of his new book 2017, Bráulio Amado picks out the work he loves from last year

“I first met Bráulio as an international exchange student in my class at the School of Visual Arts, in New York City, which I taught with John Fulbrook,” reads Pentagram’s Luke Hayman’s introduction at the start of Bráulio’s Amado’s latest book, 2017. “Bráulio was possibly one of the most enthusiastic students we taught during my seven years at the school. Certain students come with a commitment and eagerness that makes teaching worthwhile and benefits the whole class. He did well.”

There are lots of graphic designers, but there aren’t very many like Bráulio Amado are there? Always busy, joyful, warm and energetic, his output is extensive, extensive enough to put out a book annually of his graphic design and illustration hybrids. Following on Stolen Books’ 2016 edition which pulled together his portfolio for the year, the publishers are back with a substantial tome (270 pages of posters, record covers, sketches, illustrations and more!) cataloguing the designer’s output last year.

To celebrate another year of great work, below Bráulio has handpicked the projects that have stuck in his mind amongst the ton of pieces in his latest book. The breadth below, and in 2017 as a whole shows, as Luke points out, “Bráulio plays every instrument in the orchestra and he plays them like an experimental jazz musician — with skill and creativity.”

Good Room — Bad Room — Rest Room

I do a lot of posters for Good Room, but this one is probably my favourite from last year. It features iconic NYC’s cockroach, 2017 hit song Despacito, “Will Trump kill us in 2017?" notes and designer’s favourite Helvetica (or Arial?), in a very minimal and effective design.

Owl

Me, my boyfriend and two more friends do this monthly party, Owl, in NYC at a bar called Julius. We started it six years ago as a ‘serious party’, but then we sort of got bored of the fact that we were trying to be serious. So, eventually, we started doing it at this small gay bar in the west village, where drinks are cheap and there’s a guy who’s cooking burgers during the whole night. The place smells like beef fat and oil, so do the people that end up there. Me, Nick Schiarizzi and David Orton DJ disco music, my friend Kevin Saunders is a therapist in real-life so he does “speed therapy” at it, while I get drunk and do “drunk caricatures” of people, as in, really bad caricatures. We also make videos every month and play them on a tv screen behind the DJ booth. Sometimes we have someone doing drag too. It’s fun!

Washed Out

One of my highlights from the past year was getting to design some stuff for Ernest aka Washed Out. I love his music a lot and I absolutely love the new record. The album is also a short movie with animations and cool visuals, so I decided to make the posters as something that would turn into an animation if you pieced them together. 

Honey Soundsystem

This poster makes no sense at all and I am very proud of it. Honey Soundsystem is collective of day DJs from San Francisco so I wanted to make something gay with bees and honey. It was one of those miracle posters where there was only one version that got approved right away and no changes were needed.

Abasement / Max Fish

It’s crazy to think that Trump has been president for only a bit more than one year now. Although I don’t think this is one of my best posters, this was an event where me, Tran Huynh and Franco Castillo (all graphic designers) played live for the first time as Affordable Care. We dressed as surgeons and played some weird noises over an heart beat machine’s beep beep beep beep sound. It felt good to be doing something creative in real-life for people during a time where everyone in NYC was trying to get over the fact that the USA elected a dumb crazy person to run the country. 

2017 is available via Stolen Books in Europe here and via DFA Records for US customers here.