Juan Pablo Rahal

Graphic Designer

San Francisco, CA

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Bio

I was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. I’m a second year graphic design master’s student at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, California. My undergraduate degree is in Performing Arts/Theatre and Stagecraft from Universidad Mayor in Santiago, Chile. I’m very interested in joining a design team for the summer that wants to use graphic design to bring more emotion and humanity to solving their toughest assigment, project, brand, and storytelling challenges. A personal belief of mine is that the fundamental components of graphic design—typography, color, layout, expression—can be applied to solve and communicate almost anything, no matter the complexity. It’s also an observation of mine that graphic design is overlooked in taming complexity of design challenges. It’s why I’m passionate about graphic design and why I’m excited about bringing this passion to a design team to help them do more to make a positive impact in the world ( and, hopefully, along the way learning from them and their experience ).

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You should select me because

I am the best candidate for WGI because of my diverse cultural background and how I do approach design because of it. I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, lived nine years in Santiago, Chile, three years in New York, and I have been living the last two years in San Francisco. I left Brazil with 17 years old, working on theater and since then I have experienced many different worlds, from the stage to the back stage and the a pen, a notebook, and a computer. One of the most important things I have learned is the skillset of adaptation, understanding culture beyond language or form. Understanding mainly how to articulate and dialogue our ideas and point of views with the other, and from that learn and transform ours.

1. Why are you interested in wgi?

My interests in WGI are multiples. Starting from this idea of hybrid creative—because of my performing art background, my vision of design is always through a multi-discipline lens, and where the concept to experiment and the critical point of view are the main anchors. This unique model of internship seems to be that internship I ever dreamed, but I can’t find anywhere else. The process of creating, experimenting through a concept, pinning, and iterating is my favorite part of a process—considering making part of this process as well.

2. What are you looking to gain from an experience such as WGI?

I have been pursuing an MFA Design on the California College of the Arts and I'm eager to get more real-world experience. Learning with this internship how to apply all the conceptual work that I've been investigating to a concrete context.

3. What would be your goals after completing WGI if you were selected?

Besides sharing my experience and point of view with new teams of work, I would expect to have learned how to work in a studio or corporate environment, in opposition of the academic context that I've been immersed in the last two years, and how my point of view could have been transformed. So then I would be prepared to understand which direction my design career should go.

4. How did you hear about wgi?

I heard about WGI from a graphic designer friend.

5. Share an example of a time you were most motivated and a time you were most demotivated.

most motived: when I developed my "Açaí Encyclopedia" project, I was eager to express my point of view in a publication matter, exposing my experience to an investigation about the object, transforming my understanding about it and having a platform to make it public—through the shape of a publication. less motived: when I had to push pixels and not being able to jump from analog to digital and from digital to analog.

6. In your opinion, what creates a great culture at a company?

diversity, taking risks, working through concepts of investigations beyond the "user experience" standard.

7. What brands and companies do you admire and why?

Lust Lust was a Dutch design studio that their projects were always investigating new mediums to understand and to modified the other and what was conventional.

8. What do you do to stay sharp and improve your craft?

Reading books, watching movies, listening music and MAKING—designing, printing, binding, building.

9. What’s your favorite quote?

"Don't expect the theatre to satisfy the habits of its audience, but to change them." Bertolt Brecht

10. If you could solve one problem in the world what would it be?